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
Next up in Paste Magazine’s “100 Best/Greatest” series: The 1950s! I blurbed my ass off for this list, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat (which is to say that I am literally doing it again right now, for a different list focused on a different subject. As Hexxus once said: No breaks!). Anywho … Continue reading
Good news, everybody! I write about beer now, too! And for Paste Magazine, no less, which in my estimation is one of the best outlets for journalism regarding the beer world. Color me biased. (I’m biased. But I also know that Paste’s thoughts on beer are held in pretty high esteem by people who are … Continue reading
Hey! It’s May(‘s Criterion round-up for Paste Magazine)! An Ozu movie written around fart jokes is an Ozu movie well in my wheelhouse, but I did not write about Good Morning; instead I wrote about Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelle, Chantal Akerman’s landmark arthouse film, a three hour opus about a single mom as she … Continue reading
War is hell, which is probably why people love making movies about it. (It’s hard to say whether people love watching movies about it more than they love making movies about it, but I digress.) So the gang at Paste Magazine, including me, put on their colors and watched a whole damn bunch of movies about war, … Continue reading
Well: It’s all done. It’s over. That’s all, folks, ’til next year, and so on and so forth, et cetera. Independent Film Festival Boston 2017 is in the books, and while yes, the event was terrific, I must now endure the post-fest doldrums until about June or so (as one whole month is about the … Continue reading
Oh, sure: I know what you’re thinking. “It’s May, Annnnnnndyyyyyyyyy! Why are you so late sharing the April Criterion round-up, huuuuuuuh?” Well, I mean, hush. Calm down. It’s okay. You can still read the Paste Magazine Criterion piece for April even though it is no longer April. You should, too, not only because I spend more time … Continue reading
It’s never too late to talk about La La Land, so I kinda did that by talking about The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, which is basically the movie that La La Land wants to be but can’t because it has lived a very sheltered life. I’m happy to take the opportunity to write a long-form something about a Criterion … Continue reading
If you’ve been watching FX’s Feud, as I have, you’ve either been seduced and dazzled by its depiction of its period in both America and in Hollywood, as well as the central performances given by Susan Sarandon and Jessica Lange; or you’ve been put off by the cheapness of Ryan Murphy’s recreation of the era and its … Continue reading
I know what you thought when you read the title on this piece: “It’s April.” Yes, it is, but shut up. Shhhh. Stop. It’s okay. I know it’s April. We all know it’s April. I have gadgets all around me screaming the date at me at any given time during the day. Relax. It’s going to … Continue reading
A short and sweet update on the status of Independent Film Festival Boston: They’ve got their full schedule up (and have had it up for over a week; I’ve just been neglectful, sorry, get off my back), and I strongly recommend that you train your eye-holes on it if you are local to the Boston … Continue reading
I must confess that I found the utter dearth of really great Western films available for streaming on ye olde Netflix not only perplexing, but disturbing. You’re telling me that Netflix can’t manage to put twenty great Western films up on its site, and instead can only manage to put a much smaller number than that, plus … Continue reading
Eyyyyy! I did a podcast again! I did the Over/Under podcast again, in fact! This time, Ryan and Oktay talked about From Dusk Till Dawn as the “over,” and Near Dark as the “under,” which is basically as tempting an invitation as one can offer to Crump, because Near Dark is terrific and From Dusk Till Dawn is much … Continue reading
I wrote a thing! I wrote another thing! This time I wrote a thing for a list, in which the best romantic movies available for streaming on Netflix are delineated; I only wrote one thing for this list, but it’s a good thing (of course) for a good movie, L’auberge Espagnole, a movie I haven’t thought … Continue reading
Here’s a formula for a great podcast: You pick one overrated movie and one underrated movie, both connected either tightly or loosely through themes or styles or genres or whatnot, talk about them in a head-to-head comparison, and then sprinkle a little Crump on top. That’s right, I’m on the most recent episode of The … Continue reading
There’s very little about IFFBoston’s 2017 that I am not excited about. I’m always excited for IFFBoston, of course, for reasons I’ve elaborated on very recently on the pages of this very blog (and which I’ve probably talked about extensively in the deep past), so I’ll spare you my usual spiel on the subject. In 2017, I’m … Continue reading
What a March over at The Criterion Collection! Obviously any month that includes a Blu-ray release of 45 Years is a month that I will hold in high esteem, but Being There and Multiple Maniacs ain’t too shabby, either. (Being There, as just about every film critic on the planet has likely already noted by now, feels weirdly relevant … Continue reading
Netflix is the business these days, isn’t it? Look at me, for instance, all covering a pair of new Netflix releases earlier this month, all getting ready to cover a couple more in April; over the last handful of years the streaming giant has gone from being little more than a digital library for forgotten, … Continue reading
