Paste Magazine’s 20 Best Movie Performances of 2017

I’m a Daniel Day-Lewis partisan, I guess, because I can’t accept the idea that any actor in any movie in 2017 performs better than he does in Phantom Thread, but I can’t complain about Saoirse Ronan taking the top spot for her work in Lady Bird.  …oh, right, sorry, forgot to start this off by saying that … Continue reading →

Stay Frosty Oscars: My Half-Assed Academy Awards Predictions

Fair warning: I really didn’t want to write this piece, and I’m doing it out of misguided obligation. Maybe I’m whining, but cut me some slack; I’ve already written about the #OscarsSoWhite fracas, and also contributed a handful of yadda yaddas to Paste Magazine’s annual Oscar preview (though I spend most of my yaddas turning my nose up at the … Continue reading →

Review: Broolyn, 2015, dir. John Crowley

“America is having a renewed—but frankly disappointing—dialogue on the subject of immigration in 2015. Our great country doesn’t exactly have a pristine record when it comes to welcoming émigrés, of course, and so the undercurrent of angry paranoia voiced in that dialogue is neither new, nor especially surprising. It is, however, counterintuitive: The U.S. is … Continue reading →

Review: Hanna, 2011, dir. Joe Wright

Hanna makes a sound argument that action movies need not be artless, though maybe when the person at the helm is Joe Wright the final outcome can only inevitably attain a level of artfulness worth observing. Wright is responsible for 2007’s Atonement, a strikingly beautiful film that remains mostly empty despite its impressive craftsmanship; where … Continue reading →

Review: The Lovely Bones, 2009, dir. Peter Jackson

If we’re left with but a single takeaway for Peter Jackson’s 2010 effort, The Lovely Bones, it’s that even a visionary director of Peter Jackson’s caliber has opportunity to soil their sheets with the lights on.  Make no mistake, The Lovely Bones— based on Alice Sebold’s novel of the same name– is nothing short of … Continue reading →

2011 Rising: My Films to Watch (pt.1)

For me, 2010’s in the bag, but it’s not totally wrapped up until I take the time to ruminate over the upcoming slate of movies in 2011 that excite me, discourage me, intrigue me, or puzzle/offend me (and, of course, also post the rest of my top ten, which is, I promise, coming around the … Continue reading →