“4 Exciting Hops to Watch in 2022”

One hop this time! Two hops this time! Three hops and a few hop products this time! Continue reading →

“Hop Farms & How to Grow Hops in New England”

Hop, hop, hop, all day long / hop, hop, hop, while I sing this song Continue reading →

“The 10 Best Bottleshops of 2019”

Nothing like a challenge to make me wake up in the morning, even a challenge that I’m poorly equipped to tackle! Continue reading →

“How 5 Breweries Are Embracing Sustainable Brewing”

Beer is wonderful, except when it’s wasteful. But breweries know what’s up, and they have known what’s up since ages ago! So don’t worry, be happy, drink beer. Continue reading →

Review: What Keeps You Alive, 2018, dir. Colin Minihan

My rating system has needed work for a good long while; too often I feel like I’m giving films too high a score, and thus giving them a pass on their flaws, when I’m much more mixed on them than the numbers imply. So basically, take my low-ish score on What Keeps You Alive with … Continue reading →

Review: Golden Exits, 2018, dir. Alex Ross Perry

Can someone explain Alex Ross Perry to me? Every time this guy knocks out a film, cinephiles routinely praise it as one of the best American movies in years, which to me says that either a) they have shit taste in movies, or b) they don’t watch a lot of American movies. (That’s coming from … Continue reading →

Best of Criterion’s New Releases, August 2017

Forgive me, lord (and also my readers): I spaced out and totally, utterly, sadly forgot to share the link for Paste Magazine’s Criterion Collection round-up for August. I am the worst. So I’ll keep this short and thus give you less to read from me, the better for getting around to reading from the Paste Criterion … Continue reading →

Review: 10 Cloverfield Lane, 2016, dir. Dan Trachtenberg

Challenge mode: talk about 10 Cloverfield Lane without talking about what it is versus what it isn’t, all while avoiding the pitfalls of spoilers (with the term “spoilers” being loosely and variably defined by everyone who happens to click on this article). That’s a daunting task made necessary only by J.J. Abrams and his insatiable appetite … Continue reading →

Joss Whedon Is My Master Now

Alternate title: How The Avengers turned me around on one of the most beloved proprietors of genre franchisement of the modern age. Continue reading →

Go, See, Talk! Review: Battleship

Peter Berg’s latest offering is irredeemably terrible. Continue reading →

Review: Haywire, 2012, dir. Steven Soderbergh

Haywire, in its fashion, possesses many of the best qualities of its protagonist; like Mallory Kane, it’s lean, mean, efficient, and wholly focused on attaining its goals and realizing its purpose. It also teeters, occasionally, on the verge of emotional vulnerability. Neither Kane (MMA fighter Gina Carano) nor director Steven Soderbergh are especially willing to … Continue reading →

Review: In Time, 2011, dir. Andrew Niccol

I’d like to make it clear that I very desperately wanted to love Andrew Niccol’s In Time, a science fiction yarn which occurs in a future where time is currency and stars Justin Timberlake, but during a preview screening I recently attended I could not for the life of me get past the notion that … Continue reading →

Review: Last Night, 2011, dir. Massy Tadjedin

Married couple Michael and Joanna attend a party with the former’s coworkers one evening; the latter grows jealous and suspicious of her husband after meeting Laura (Eva Mendes), one of his business partners of whom he’s never spoken despite having flown to LA with her for a prior business trip. Reconciling later that night the … Continue reading →

Review: Bronson, 2008, dir. Nicholas Winding Refn

You’ve probably never heard of Charles Bronson– not the real Charles Bronson, but rather Michael Peterson, who adopted the name of the famous action icon on the advice of his fighting promoter as a way of inflating his own icon and bolstering his status as a man not to be trifled with. His story is … Continue reading →

Review: Tron Legacy, 2010, dir. Joseph Kosinski

There’s really no way around the blatant awfulness and stupidity of Tron Legacy. Apologists may fashion an array of defenses to shield it from criticism, which is fine and all except that this kind of picture is indefensible. From all angles, it’s a mess; it’s bloated but explains far too little, it’s an action spectacle … Continue reading →

Review: Captain America: The First Avenger, 2011, dir. Joe Johnston

To call Captain America: The First Avenger “perfect” would be something of an overstatement– the opening scene serves absolutely no appreciable purpose whatsoever for the movie’s narrative, and the denouement gets a little choppy and falters in set-up and execution. The unsavory frames of film that bookend what you could call Joe Johnston’s masterpiece (with … Continue reading →

Review: True Grit, 2010, dir. the Coen Brothers

True Grit— via the Coen brothers– represents a landmark in the oeuvre of Ethan and Larry as the first pure genre movie they’ve attempted together. Even Blood Simple only dabbles in genre cinema; True Grit on the other hand can (and arguably should) be treated and appreciated as an uncomplicated and honest contemporary Western movie. … Continue reading →

Review: Midnight in Paris, 2011, dir. Woody Allen

A review for Midnight in Paris requires no preamble simply because it’s the best movie Woody Allen has made in years, which alone should be sufficient reason to watch it in light of the director’s limp and joyless recent output. But a review that begins with the suggestion that Midnight in Paris far exceeds the … Continue reading →

Review: The Kids Are All Right, 2010, dir. Lisa Cholodenk

Walking away from Lisa Cholodenko’s latest effort, the curiously titled The Kids Are All Right, I felt myself being pulled in multiple directions by its varying incongruities and opaque intentions. This is a confused film, a film unsure of exactly whose story it wants to tell and greatly confused over the message it’s supposed to … Continue reading →

Movies That Matter: The Boondock Saints

There shouldn’t be any lead-in toward my feelings on this movie, so I’ll just say it: I absolutely loathe The Boondock Saints. Like, really, really hate it. It is not by any stretch of the means the worst or most incompetent movie that I’ve seen, but without a doubt one of the vilest and most … Continue reading →