Sometimes comedy illuminates hard truths with a pointed urgency that other means can’t quite achieve. Sometimes comedy is just funny. This series of posts is mostly about the former instances, but the latter is valuable, too. Sometimes I just stop … Continue reading Laughing Matters — Lauren Wilford as every woman in a 70s movie
Stay Furious by Jessica Valenti Going all the way back to the time the George W. Bush administration was in power, I believed the most long-lasting damage exacted by that particular crew of amoral miscreants would be the following: A … Continue reading Outside Reading — Anger Is an Energy edition
#54 — Ray Liotta as Ray Sinclair in Something Wild (Jonathan Demme, 1986) More than anything else, it’s the sense of calm that I remember. When Ray Liotta shows up on screen as Ray Sinclair, he slow plays the character’s … Continue reading Greatish Performances #54
The Hard Way (Vincent Sherman, 1943). This drama about a young woman named Katie (Joan Leslie) making her way in the ruthless world of showbiz has some real grit to it, distinguishing a storyline that otherwise hits familiar beats. It … Continue reading Then Playing — The Hard Way; The Lady Gambles; Leave No Trace
The Strange Afterlife of George Carlin by Dave Itzkoff I think I’ve made my appreciation for the work of George Carlin abundant clear around this here digital place. Plenty of other people dogging cars out there on the superhighway feel … Continue reading Outside Reading — Saint George edition
Side Street (Anthony Mann, 1950). This sweaty film noir casts the ever-wooden Farley Granger as Joe Norson, a down-on-his-luck postal worker who decides to steal some cash from a law office on his route. What he believes to be a … Continue reading Then Playing — Side Street; Smithereens; The Batman
It’s been a little more than five years since Marvel’s master of the mystic arts took center frame in a film bearing his name. He’s hardly been absent in that span. Dr. Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) has been the Billie … Continue reading Now Playing — Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
The Northman begins in the ninth century, and it looks it. Drawing on Scandinavian legend so distant that it’s thought to have served as inspiration for William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the film follows Amleth (Alexander Skarsgård, and briefly, as a boy, … Continue reading Now Playing — The Northman
High Anxiety (Mel Brooks, 1977). Following hits spoofing Westerns, classic horror, and silent movies, Mel Brooks turned his attention to the oeuvre of Alfred Hitchcock, even consulting with the master himself on the screenplay. In its first half or so, … Continue reading Then Playing — High Anxiety; To Sleep with Anger; The Professionals
I have rarely encountered a film more aptly titled than Everything Everywhere All at Once. The second feature film written and directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (cheekily billed as “The Daniels”) earns that accuracy through its densely complicated … Continue reading Now Playing — Everything Everywhere All at Once
Coffee for Two 