In 2017, you’re either a La La Land partisan or a Moonlight partisan. If you follow this blog, or really if you’ve been following it since October, you know which movie I favor, so you’re probably next to not at all surprised to hear that I stumped hard for Barry Jenkins’ extraordinary movie about ordinary life in Paste … Continue reading
I remember hearing the news that Jordan Peele, he of Key and Peele fame, had designs on directing and writing his own horror movie some years ago, around late 2014 if memory serves, in between the murder of Michael Brown and the acquittal of his killer, Darren Wilson, which in my mind is the moment in contemporary American … Continue reading
Cool thing you might not know about me: The more I criticize a movie whose central premise I am clearly in favor of, the more I liked the movie. The criticism just means that the movie let me down and didn’t wind up being the movie I wanted it to be. Case in point, Fist Fight, … Continue reading
I think I finally figured out how Taboo could have been a better show to start with, and it involves introducing Lucian Msamati’s Sons of Africa lawyer way, way earlier in the narrative than “Episode 5.” George Chichester has a clear cause that could have given the story backbone; by contrast, James Delaney’s cause is muddled, which … Continue reading
And here I go, festing yet again! This time I’m remotely reviewing a title that played at this year’s Berlinale (also known as the Berlin International Film Festival), Weirdos, directed by Bruce McDonald, who is probably best liked for his 2009 horror film Pontypool. Weirdos isn’t Pontypool by a damn sight, either in terms of content or in … Continue reading
…man, I don’t even know with this Taboo show anymore, guys! I’m riding a fucking roller coaster here! The frosted side of me is in love with its unapologetic, bizarre narrative course as well as its aesthetic, which borrows as much from Game of Thrones and Deadwood as it does Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and Alice in Wonderland. … Continue reading
I love a good horror movie anthology, and XX is a good horror movie anthology. It’s also a necessary film if you’re bothering with that whole #52FilmsByWomen hashtag, an endeavor I can neither recommend nor condemn; it’s important to seek out movies by women and watch them, but if half of the 52 films by women … Continue reading
There are two primary reasons to see Josef von Sternberg’s <i>Anatahan</i>. The first is that it’s a rarity, the final film in Sternberg’s solo directing career before co-directing <i>Jet Pilot</i> in 1957 with Fred Fleck. <i>Anatahan</i> is a picture obscured by the passage of time and by its own financial failure, a box office stumble … Continue reading
It’s been a minute since I did any list-related work, so naturally when the chance arose for me to pitch in on Paste Magazine’s “25 Best Sci-Fi Movies on Netflix” feature, I jumped on it like a Republican jumps on civil liberties. (Zing!) Fair warning: “Best” is a relative term when your scope is narrowed … Continue reading
This week on Taboo: Andy can’t take it anymore, so he dives deep on the show’s lack of focus on its non-Tom Hardy people, especially its non-Tom Hardy people who are ladies. Maybe it’s Oona Chaplin’s lot in life to be cast as women caught under the heels of patriarchal violence, domination, and abuse; I don’t … Continue reading
I guess I’m not surprised, per se, that I enjoyed The Lego Batman Movie as much as I did; I liked The Lego Movie quite a lot, after all, and found Will Arnett’s Batman riff utterly hilarious. When The Lego Batman Movie was first announced, though, I wondered whether that riff could sustain a whole movie, and there it … Continue reading
I have been known to describe interviews I’ve done in the past as “the best interview I’ve ever done.” I say this because I mean it, but I’m also saying it from a place where objectivity doesn’t exist. The truth is that every interview I do, in general, is better than the one I’ve done before … Continue reading
I’m a big fan of weirdness and debauchery in my visual media, and when you mash them together, all the better. So it’s fair to say that Taboo is slowly but surely becoming more and more my jam as it leans more into its weirdness and its flagrant aristocratic indulgences. To wit: This week’s episode, where … Continue reading
I could talk about the Resident Evil movies about how bad most of them are (and they are mostly bad); I could talk about how bad Resident Evil: The Final Chapter is, too. It’s not exactly a “good” movie, after all, but the thing is this: Anyone can talk about a movie’s badness. It takes a lot … Continue reading
A Constant Visual Feast 