A note: I rarely, if ever, use the word “masterpiece” in any material I output about films either recently released or yet to be released, because in most cases that’s a bullshit word used in bullshit contexts for bullshit reasons by bullshit people. Most often, you hear about masterpieces on the festival circuit before the … Continue reading
Men are in the spotlight at this year’s Oscars, but not women, even though women directed the best movies of 2018 that happen to be specifically about men. Natch. Continue reading
(Note: This piece has been published over at Go, See, Talk!. Below lies only a preview of the full article. To view the full article, just click here!) Entertainment Weekly recently published their definitive guide to the 50 best movies “you’ve” never seen. Those indiscreet quotation marks have a sincere, innocent purpose; I’m genuinely not … Continue reading
If another studio plans on taking home the 2010 Oscar for Best Animated Picture, well, their film had better be packing some serious muscle: Dreamworks has really and truly found a winner with How to Train Your Dragon, a film that starts small and ends up thinking big as it builds and expands on the … Continue reading
Good evening, readers! This entry has been a month or so in the making; the holidays were busy and I’ve only recently caught up on all of my movie watching, so the delay is over. As the title suggests, I present my pick for the ten best films of 2009– which was a far better … Continue reading
Hi. I’m late writing this up. I had other plans for ringing in 2019. Honestly, snowboarding and beer are only part of it. If I think about it for a second, I don’t really have a lot to say about 2018; I’m sans a unifying statement to reconcile all of the pop culture I digested … Continue reading
Well: We did it. It’s not often that a critics group’s awards match up closely with my own feelings, and if I’m being really nitpicky, this year’s Boston Online Film Critics Association awards miss a few marks for me; if you know me well and you’ve followed this blog since I started bitching about a certain … Continue reading
July has been a wasteland of a month for films by women. Not that there aren’t films by women out there in theaters for you to watch, or at home, and it’s not that those movies are bad or anything; it’s just that compared to other months, finding those movies has proven a Herculean task, and that’s … Continue reading
June has arrived, and also it’s about to end, the month-long worldwide celebrations of my birthday winding down* as I settle into my new age-number and look ahead to the rest of the year**. Thus, this, my Best Things halftime report, expanded once more from merely a ranking of film and TV to include music, … Continue reading
I wrote this piece about Lynne Ramsay’s second film, Morvern Callar, around the time that her latest film, You Were Never Really Here, opened in theaters. What I didn’t do was push hard enough to get it published. If you’re the type to lose interest in things mere days after they’ve become available to you, well, first, … Continue reading
April is such a good month for movies directed by women* that this month, for Paste Magazine‘s Films By Women spotlight, we used three in-theaters movies and only two at-home movies to round out the list. Pretty neat! And those in-theater movies are pretty great, being Zama, Blockers, and You Were Never Really Here, which you already know my … Continue reading
Andy tries to get an honest answer out of a filmmaker about the perils of casting a controversial figure in their movie, and he is sort of embarrassed for it. Continue reading
It’s June. “Best Of (So Far)” list time. About a third of the blurbs on Paste Magazine‘s June ’18 list have my name on them, and of those that don’t, there are a handful I don’t agree with: I think Avengers: Infinity War is an exhausting slog, How to Talk to Girls at Parties is garbage, and Hereditary … Continue reading
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
If you have been tuning into this space for the last week and wondering why I have posted exactly zero new updates, it’s because I’ve been gallivanting around Bermuda since the 12th. But I’m back in Boston, and with eight days to spare before Independent Film Festival Boston’s 2016 rumpus, I’d say it’s about time … Continue reading
Maybe Obama should have postponed his final State of the Union until after the premiere of Michael Bay’s latest fascist masterwork. At least then, Ted Cruz would have been too busy sitting in an empty theater with his pants around his ankles to offer response. 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi (henceforth referred to solely … Continue reading
Sometimes, people give you a thumbs up. Recently, Andy Buckle over at The Film Emporium did me that honor by name-dropping me in his Liebster Award blogathon post. Over a week has passed since he published his own response to this chain event– I’ll use work, real life, and a mountain of movie reviews as … Continue reading
Alternate title: How The Avengers turned me around on one of the most beloved proprietors of genre franchisement of the modern age. Continue reading
Andy Hart over at Fandango Groovers has a simple question for all of us movie lovers: what’s the best year in film? Or, maybe more easily answered, what’s your favorite year in film? I being such a notoriously indecisive person had to wrestle with these two challenges– with very nearly a century of film to … Continue reading
It’s exactly three weeks until 2012’s Boston Independent Film Festival kicks off, and to that end the slate of films to be shown at the fest has been released. There’s a great amount of range here, from horror/exploitation flicks like V/H/S and Headhunters to new Todd Solondz as well as the latest from Bobcat Goldthwait, God Bless America; that’s … Continue reading
A Constant Visual Feast 