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--Year-- 2026 2025 2024 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 --Month-- December November October September August July June May April March February January

January 2024

January 22, 2024

The Big Circus at Mummy Mountain

Billy Wilder’s Ace in the Hole (1951) effects a miracle. Its protagonist, Charles Tatum (Kirk...

January 16, 2024

Yakuza Talk Business like Everybody Else

Life is filled with mundane, almost invisible negotiations. Some are external: who is going to...

January 10, 2024

What is This Quintessence of Dust?

Ten years ago, two friends and I holed up in a cabin in Woolwine, VA,...

January 02, 2024

Wrestling with Fate

Curses are a nasty business and generational ones infinitely more so. It’s easy to call...

December 2023

December 28, 2023

In the Theater of Ghosts

Trying to write about Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander (1982) leaves me feeling a bit...

December 19, 2023

Yinzer Vampirism

George A. Romero’s Martin (1977) does for the vampire film what Night of the Living...

December 11, 2023

Holding Over for the Holidays

“Holding Over,” I gather, is what boarding schoolers call getting stuck on campus during a...

December 08, 2023

Alferd Packer and the Bloody Bunch

Before there was South Park (1997-Present) there was Cannibal! The Musical (1993), Trey Parker’s directorial...

December 05, 2023

Rubbing Salt in the Wound

I’ll do my best to stop this from becoming a screed. Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn (2023)...

November 2023

November 27, 2023

War Economy for the Occupied

Liliana Cavani’s The Skin (1981) only has 13 user reviews on IMDb, three of...

November 20, 2023

Howdy, Pilgrim

Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving (2023) is a holiday success story. This is your classic popcorn slasher,...

November 16, 2023

Repetition Blow Out

Brian De Palma’s Blow Out (1981) begins where it ends. On its surface, there’s nothing...

November 10, 2023

Pop Music Hell

Another movie about would-be celebrity self-immolation? We’ve got Showgirls (1996), Mulholland Drive (2001), and many...

October 2023

October 31, 2023

How Was the Play, Mrs. Kennedy?

"There was blood upon her white dress, and the signs of her terrible efforts to...

October 24, 2023

Digital Phantoms

The Net (1995) is a Cassandra of a film, if Cassandra’s curse were to be...

October 18, 2023

The Monsters Are Inside the Living Room

Voyeurism is one of those things. Most of us don’t peep through people’s windows or...

October 11, 2023

Everyone Alone All the Time

I Think We’re Alone Now (2008) is about two very different people who arrive at...

October 06, 2023

For the Love of the Beach

“Gimme your quietest indie film.” “No, that’s too quiet and indie.” - Hans Mole-chan I...

October 05, 2023

Screeches in the Night, What Music They Make

Most mornings my wife and I walk our dogs early in the morning. I mean,...

October 05, 2023

Blankly Staring at the Past

I don’t like saying movies age poorly. It feels impolite like asking a lady her...

October 05, 2023

Childlike Melancholy

I did not shoot the sheriff. I didn’t even shoot the deputy. And I most...

September 2023

September 12, 2023

Show Me an Honest Man (High School Student)

Massacre at Central High (1976) has that peculiar quality by which something that anticipates a...

September 11, 2023

Favel and Fakery

Orson Welles’ F for Fake (1973) is, for all its pretense of devilishness, a very...

September 11, 2023

All about Melodrama

Fassbinder was my way into melodrama. True enough, I grew up catching my grandma’s stories...

September 10, 2023

Okinawa Pierrot

Strongmen face a paradox: you need your guys. They must be skilled, capable, and efficient....

September 09, 2023

Anti-Actor Aktion

Michael Moore suicide bombing Mount Rushmore. A Parisian rue paved with cobblestones shaped like croissants....

August 2023

August 08, 2023

Talk to the Hand (Sorry)

There’s an episode from one of my favorite childhood cartoons, Recess (1997-2001), called “The Game.”...

July 2023

July 22, 2023

Barbie: Pretty in Pink, Didactic in Plastic

Greta Gerwig’s Barbie (2023) is what the ads led you to believe. Barbieland is stunning...

July 21, 2023

When Landscape Looms

There’s a reason no one’s ever found Jimmy Hoffa’s body. Ask anyone lucky enough to...

July 19, 2023

Complicities in Damnation

While watching Luchino Visconti’s The Damned (1969), my wife blurted out: “The Nazi budget for...

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