Black Panther: Wakanda Forever begins and ends in a state of mourning. Certainly, it would be inappropriate for it to be structured in any other way. Any movie that opens with the Marvel Studios logo already carries the weight of … Continue reading Now Playing — Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Stillwater (Tom McCarthy, 2021). Stillwater is a fascinating hybrid. It begins and ends like a more realistic, sober-minded riff on one of Liam Neeson’s Taken or Taken-adjacent movies, with a Oklahoma roughneck in place of a well-trained oak tree with … Continue reading Then Playing — Stillwater; Platoon; Freebie and the Bean
Confess, Fletch (Greg Mottola, 2022). Jon Hamm fought hard to get Confess, Fletch made at time when the showbiz ecosystem is especially inhospitable to genially loose movies that rely on charm rather than aggressive cymbal crashes of familiarity with established … Continue reading Then Playing — Confess, Fletch; Montana Story; See How They Run
For his third feature as a writer-director — and first in more than fifteen years — Todd Field takes a mighty swing. Tár recounts the fall of Lydia Tár (Cate Blanchett), an esteemed conductor on the verge of a monumental … Continue reading Now Playing — Tár
It is the spring of 1923 in the humble community on the island of Inisherin, off the coast of Ireland, and Pádraic Súilleabháin (Colin Farrell) is confused by what he’s just been told by his longtime friend Colm Doherty (Brendan … Continue reading Now Playing — The Banshees of Inisherin
the smallest and most important pair of shorts by Helena Fitzgerald Look, I am inclined by my own cinematic indoctrination to be helplessly susceptible to a personal essay that sets its foundation with conflicted affection for Lawrence Kasdan’s 1983 comic … Continue reading Outside Reading — A Festival About Desire and Desperation edition
The Slumber Party Massacre (Amy Holden Jones, 1982). Released in the heady days after John Carpenter’s Halloween made studios decide that the surest bet for quick cash was conveyor-belting out films featuring weapon-wielding maniac picking off teens one by one, … Continue reading Then Playing — The Slumber Party Massacre; The Fog; Barbarian
Friday Foster (Arthur Marks, 1975). Based on a comic strip written by Jim Lawrence and drawn by Jorge Longarón that ran in the first half of the nineteen-seventies, Friday Foster features Pam Grier in the title role, a photojournalist who … Continue reading Then Playing — Friday Foster; Tokyo Joe; The Return of Doctor X
Cronos (Guillermo del Toro, 1993). If Guillermo del Toro isn’t exactly a fully formed filmmaker with his feature debut, Cronos, it’s still remarkable how much of his careerlong creative voice is present from the very beginning. Most distinctly, he brings … Continue reading Then Playing — Cronos; Duel at Diablo; Time Without Pity
Hacked to Bits by Jaya Saxena Writer for Eater, Jaya Saxena explores the culture of creative tinkerers who use the online menus of chains restaurants and coffee shops to concoct wild variants of the businesses’ standard fare. Because they post … Continue reading Outside Reading — Off the Menu edition
Coffee for Two 