So, if you keep up with this blog, and if you have kept up with this blog for a long time, you probably know that I’m a big fan of Takeshi Kitano, of Zatoichi, and also of Kikujiro, and of these especially Kikujiro. In fact it only recently occurred to me that Kikujiro is my favorite Kitano movie (though Glory … Continue reading
I’m a 32 year old man and I love princess movies. There. I said it. Moana is no exception, but this is also because I love Dwayne Johnson and have since my days as a wrestling fan. (“In between now and then, I’ve grown up,” says the guy who still think farts are hilarious.) Anyways, so … Continue reading
Ho-man! Can you think of a better guy to cast as Amy Santiago’s father than Jimmy freakin’ Smits? Forget how hard I laughed at Brooklyn Nine-Nine‘s turkey jokes this week, not the least because there’s a rafter of turkeys that’s staked out turf at the parking lot at my day job (and they stare you down … Continue reading
A movie about a man who keeps bees, his son who keeps books, and the silly generational tiffs that erupt between them on a farm in rural Northern China. Sit on that for a second. Sounds dull as a stone, right? Right! But The Beekeeper and his Son is actually a super interesting film, one that’s … Continue reading
Let’s hear it for remotely reviewing movies playing at out of state film festivals! Especially good ones, a’la Mbithi Masya’s Kati Kati, which I kinda wish was a little bit longer but which still plays beautifully at less than an hour and twenty minutes! Just describing the premise – a woman wakes up near a small … Continue reading
We did it! We did it, guys. We at Paste Magazine wrote up a list of the 35 best holiday television episodes of all time. It was quite an undertaking, as all such pop culture pursuits are, because writing about television is super hard. But we succeeded, and I think the results speak for themselves. … Continue reading
I’m honestly not sure what Anna Biller is trying to say with her latest film, The Love Witch, days after finishing the film and filing my review for Paste Magazine. Is this a movie about the dangers of reckless narcissism? Is it about how patriarchy uses women up and discards them? Is it a feminist tale … Continue reading
I didn’t like The Legend of Tarzan, the first of two movies on David Yates’ slate in 2016. I also didn’t like Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, his second movie, but I liked it much more even if its failures left me feeling aggrieved more than Tarzan‘s did; it’s perhaps the 2016 franchise film that is … Continue reading
We’re changing it up, y’all! Instead of telling you what the ten best movies in theaters are in a given month, we at Paste Magazine are going to tell you what the ten best movies in theaters are right now, at this very moment, and that’s how it’s gonna be. (Makes sense: It’s sort of hard to … Continue reading
…oh, thank god Brooklyn Nine-Nine is back. This is a nail I hammer home often, but for the most part any Brooklyn Nine-Nine is good Brooklyn Nine-Nine, even the Brooklyn Nine-Nine that isn’t as good as the best Brooklyn Nine-Nine; it’s even better when Brooklyn Nine-Nine hasn’t been on the air for a while, whether because the season is over or … Continue reading
I haven’t made any notable public rumblings in regards to the results of our presidential election. This is for a good, simple reason: No amount of rumblings can accurately capture the depth of my feelings on the climax of this awful campaign cycle, though I will offer that to describe Tuesday, November 8th, 2016, as … Continue reading
I’m on again, off again with Denis Villeneuve; I’m unabashedly wild about Enemy, but I never could stand Prisoners and I can only enjoy Sicario as long as I don’t think too much about it. With Arrival, I’m closer to Enemy than not – it worked on me, and worked on everyone around me, which may be because it’s genuinely good … Continue reading
I never got around to seeing Bryan Bertino’s second film, Mockingbird, his follow up to his 2008 debut The Strangers. Based on reviews, I’m not sure I want to, but based on his latest picture, The Monster, maybe I might just. (Who knows! I’m so fickle! That means I’m fun.) The Monster is The Strangers‘ distant kin, a monster film with … Continue reading
I had a feeling that this editorial I wrote for Paste Magazine about Mel Gibson, Blood Father, Hacksaw Ridge, his 2006 anti-Semitic rant, and forgiveness would be met with despondent or apathetic reactions, and based on the few comments that have been posted already, it seems I was right. Sorry. I meant to have a draft on … Continue reading
Surprise: I didn’t like a Jeff Nichols movie. I know the score on my review of Loving, published, as usual, over at Paste Magazine, is low, but I actually appreciate it significantly more than Midnight Special, which is the most boring and bland movie of 2016 whose supporters refuse to accept that it is boring and bland. Loving‘s … Continue reading
I’ve not yet stumbled upon a review of Moonlight that has found a way to associate the film’s message with the central philosophies of the Black Lives Matter movement, mostly because that movement is not germane to the film’s messages and because, I suspect, any white author writing about Barry Jenkins’ extraordinary second feature is smart … Continue reading
Mel Brooks came to the Wang Theatre here in Boston on October 22nd, and since I was planning on seeing him live anyways, I figured I might as well write about the experience for Paste Magazine too. So I did! You should just go read the piece. I don’t feel like blowing another hundred or … Continue reading
In Anna Muylaert’s Don’t Call Me Son, a young man, Pierre, learns that his mother isn’t really his mother, and that he was snatched from his birth family as a baby; this leads to his new family becoming reintroduced to him after his abduction, which means they learn that their long-lost son likes to wear women’s … Continue reading
October’s slate of releases on The Criterion Collection is pretty great, but maybe don’t take that from me, because I am a Guillermo del Toro partisan: Take it from all of us at Paste Magazine’s Criterion round-up team. October isn’t just about del Toro, though it mostly is. It’s also about Kenji Mizoguchi, Luis García … Continue reading
Well, I meant to share this on the ol’ blog sooner, but we’re only three days out from last month so I don’t think the delay is that great an infraction: Paste Magazine’s got their list of the best ten movies in theaters as of October, and you should go look at it! Great flicks, … Continue reading
A Constant Visual Feast 