Chloé Zhao’s The Rider is constructed with an approach that could go drastically wrong so easily, and indeed has many times in the past, even when employed by more seasoned filmmakers. The story focuses on Brady Blackburn (Brady Jandreau), a … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2018 — Number Four
Bohemian Rhapsody (Bryan Singer and Dexter Fletcher, 2018). This biography of Freddie Mercury, concentrating on his time as the frontman of Queen, is almost startling in its ineptitude. Put aside that it treats the basic chronology of the band’s history … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up — Bohemian Rhapsody; Birds of Passage; Ralph Breaks the Internet
I recently came to realize how short-sighted I’ve been in my admiration for Eighth Grade, the feature directorial debut of Bo Burnham. I marveled at the ability of a single, childless comedian in his mid-twenties to convincingly occupy the headspace … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2018 — Number Five
776. Buzzcocks, A Different Kind of Tension (1979) Buzzcocks operated with a raw nerve openness (few other bands would be so brazen to release a single called “Orgasm Addict” in the nineteen-seventies), so it makes sense that their final album … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #776 to #773
There were few actors who could take full command of a film like Albert Finney. Immediately intimidating, Finney was a bull among fawns. But he was also nimble, cunning, authentic, and playful. He didn’t work all that often, yet racked … Continue reading From the Archive — Miller’s Crossing
I’m fully prepared to defer to John Darnielle if he posits differently, but I think there’s no story from Greek mythology with more of an indie rock vibe than that of Sisyphus. The story of a egotistical king who was … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Andrew Bird, “Sisyphus”
Director Yorgos Lanthimos surveys society and sees corroded souls, all of them sending out alternating waves of hurt and affront, like sonar that delivers wounds. He also, to the benefit of misanthropic cineastes everywhere, finds the resulting eternal struggle to … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2018 — Number Six
L7: Pretend We’re Dead (Sarah Price, 2016). A nifty video scrapbook posing as documentary, this film traces the career of the L.A. hard rock band L7. Largely avoiding details of personal entanglements, L7: Pretend We’re Dead dutifully ticks off the … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up — L7: Pretend We’re Dead; Cold War; Green Book
Shirkers is a movie that never was. Or maybe was, then wasn’t, then was again. And then, well after its journey seemed fully, decisively over, a dusty path ending at a sheer cliff face, Shirkers became an entirely different type … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2018 — Number Seven
“In those days, I knew nothing of what I’ve come to know of the upper classes, who seemed to my mind then either fat people in dusty wigs, half recumbent or mounted upon some unfortunate horse, in paintings with gilded … Continue reading Great Moments in Literature
