The 20 Best “Mad Men” Episodes

I don’t need to explain this one, do I? Mad Men turned 10 years old yesterday. The TV writing staff at Paste Magazine wrote about its best episodes; I specifically wrote about Pete Campbell getting knocked the fuck out by Lane Pryce, and also about the time Sterling Cooper became Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. Nothing complicated, … Continue reading →

Review: Kuso, 2017, dir. Flying Lotus

I have no further words for Kuso, the first feature from Flying Lotus, aka Steve Ellison, because I expended them all while writing my review of the film for The Playlist. Suffice to say: It’s something else. As you’ll no doubt gather from the piece’s opening paragraph, I have a high threshold for fucked up movies, … Continue reading →

Review: Endless Poetry, 2017, dir. Alejandro Jodorowsky

If you’ve not seen a single Alejandro Jodorowsky film, from El Topo to The Holy Mountain, Santa Sangre to Tusk, or his last movie, 2013’s The Dance of Reality, then don’t worry: His latest, Endless Poetry, is totally accessible and understandable, no matter that you have no idea who Jodorowsky is, do you? Do you?! You disgust me. …so yeah, please read my review of Endless Poetry! … Continue reading →

Review: False Confessions, 2017, dir. Luc Bondy

“What a fun lark,” said my frosted side after watching Luc Bondy’s False Confessions. “Is this sort of story still worth recycling in 2017?” said my whole wheat side while stroking his beard. Maybe I’m being a spoilsport here, but sitting through False Confessions, I couldn’t help but wonder at its basic conceit and whether it’s really … Continue reading →

Review: Their Finest, 2017, dir. Lone Scherfig

The last Lone Scherfig thing I saw was 2015’s The Riot Club, and I don’t mind saying that her latest film, Their Finest, is a step up from that. (Not that The Riot Club is bad or anything. I just wish she’d gotten to the point faster, though years later I wonder if that’s a burn on me … Continue reading →

Go to Trillium’s New Beer Garden…Now

Another day, another article about beer, my third love after television and the movies. This ain’t much (though it took a lot of trying to put it together, plus the kind intervention of some of Trillium’s wonderful employees), but every single word of that “ain’t much” is meant with my whole being. If you’re in … Continue reading →

Bingeworthy Breakdown: Gypsy

I know it is unfashionable for men to talk about sex and arousal in context with pop culture, but I’m a big dummy who doesn’t know what’s good for him, so I went ahead and did exactly that for The Playlist’s Bingeworthy Breakdown feature, in which I say a bunch of smart stuff, and smartass … Continue reading →

Best of Criterion’s New Releases, June 2017

I’m not saying that Baby Driver and They Live by Night are all that closely related; I’m just saying that I saw both in close proximity to one another, and I couldn’t help thinking of their surface similarities, even though they’re ultimately from different families. Regardless, They Live by Night is a highlight from The Criterion Collection’s June … Continue reading →

Review: Tramps, 2017, dir. Adam Leon

Tramps, to me, represents the double-edged sword of Netflix; with it, filmmakers like Adam Leon get to work, but they also don’t get to show their movies in actual theaters. I don’t know how I feel about that. (Wait: Yes I do! Bad. I feel bad about that.) If that’s the trade-off for Leon making … Continue reading →

Review: The Beguiled, 2017, dir. Sofia Coppola

It’s possible that I’m being too combative about all of the cultural inquiry made into Sofia Coppola’s new film, The Beguiled, in my review (written, as ever, for Paste Magazine). I’m not entirely sure. What I am sure of is that the structure of the conversation surrounding the film is symptomatic of the major ills afflicting … Continue reading →

Here We Go Again: My Favorite Films Of 2017 (So Far)

It’s rare that a single movie becomes the prism through which I view every other piece of popular culture I engage with in a given year; this is partly because movies capable of being that prism come along but rarely, and partly because when they do, they don’t typically appear in theaters during February, previously … Continue reading →

Interview: Ana Lily Amirpour, “The Bad Batch”

First: I got to interview Ana Lily Amirpour, director of 2014’s A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night and last Friday’s The Bad Batch, and if I had to describe the experience in a word, that word would be “awesome.” If I had to describe it in more words than that, I’d peg it as one of … Continue reading →

The Family Ties That Bind Trey Edward Shults

Did you know that I really like Trey Edward Shults movies? Well, I do! So much that I have interviewed him twice, that I named his debut, Krisha, my #2 pick of 2016, and that I wrote this feature-length ditty over at Paste Magazine about the role family plays in his films (being Krisha and It Comes at … Continue reading →

Review Round-Up: A Bad Batch Of Small Crimes In Little Boxes

(What do any of these movies have in common with each other? Little and less, but maybe you can draw some links from one to the other to the third, especially between the first and the last in the round-up. Or maybe not. There’s not much that gooey indie dramedies, harsh crime stories, and acid-trip … Continue reading →

Review: The Book of Henry, 2017, dir. Colin Trevorrow

I’m not sure what else can be said about The Book of Henry after the Internet gave it a straight-up, bewildered drubbing, but that won’t stop me from sharing the review I cobbled together for Paste Magazine. I don’t mind saying that this, Colin Trevorrow’s choice of post-Jurassic World, pre-Jurassic World 2, pre-Star War:s Episode IX work, … Continue reading →

The 100 Best Horror Movies of All Time

Picking 100 movies to represent the all-timers of their category is a thankless and impossible task; even if you hit all the major titles needed to give the list gravitas, you’re going to end up leaving out titles that one person might think are essential, or another person will take exception to the ordering, or … Continue reading →

Review: Kill Switch, 2017, dir. Tim Smit

I’m a man with an iron stomach, but even I came close to blowing chunks during stretches of Hardcore Henry, so the idea of taking on another film shot through a first-person perspective might make me sound amnesic. But Kill Switch isn’t Hardcore Henry, not simply for lack of gratuitous violence (and gratuitous Sharlto Copley performances) but for … Continue reading →