Another dizzying, pandemic-buffeted year for movies leads to another set of largely happy surprises with the Academy Award nominations. The Academy’s efforts to diversify the voting body continue to have interesting, rewarding results. Drive My Car took its flurry of … Continue reading Jane’s Getting Serious — Thoughts on the Oscar Nominations
Gas Food Lodging (Allison Anders, 1992). Here is early nineteen-nineties independent U.S. filmmaking in all its charm and shortcoming. Gas Food Lodging is a small story rendered with intimate emotional detail and acted with wildly varying ability. Simultaneously endearing and … Continue reading Then Playing — Gas Food Lodging; The Tragedy of Macbeth; C’mon C’mon
Respect (Liesl Tommy, 2021). In her feature directorial debut, Liesl Tommy brings a lot of panache to the familiar form of a music icon’s biopic. Tracing the youth and professional ascendance of Aretha Franklin (played in childhood by Skye Dakota … Continue reading Then Playing — Respect; Red Rocket; Belfast
Hallelujah (King Vidor, 1929). Hampered by problematic stereotypes imposed by studio leadership that was otherwise unwilling to fund a production featuring a cast entirely comprised of Black performers, Hallelujah nonetheless provides a hint as how different the Golden Age of … Continue reading Then Playing — Hallelujah; Ghostbusters: Afterlife; Villain
Much as the Sundance Film Festival is adored for showcasing uniquely daring independent films, the roster always has a few slots for the genially frivolous. That big-tent approach has sometimes led to truly baffling entries over the years. Just as … Continue reading Sundance 2022 — Part 3
Much as I appreciate film festivals’ general commitment to heavy dramas and effectively dispiriting documentaries, I am equally pleased that there is often special space carved out for the gloriously gory. You Won’t Be Alone, the feature debut from seasoned … Continue reading Sundance 2022 — Part 2
Before Sundance Film Festival organizers made the omicron-driven choice to cancel all in-person screenings in their longtime home of Park City, Utah, they were already one of the organizations that determined there was value in building a slightly different event … Continue reading Sundance 2022 — Part 1
Don’t Look Up (Adam McKay, 2021). Following the inspired The Big Short and the unwatchable Vice, director Adam McKay continues his run as a satiric auteur of lefty outrage with this onion skin–thin allegory of political indifference to the climate … Continue reading Then Playing — Don’t Look Up; Paper Moon; The Friends of Eddie Coyle
Spencer (Pablo Larraín, 2021). Chilean director Pablo Larraín brings the airy, arty approach of his 2016 film Jackie to another iconic female figure on the world stage. As in the earlier drama, Larraín keeps the focus on a few days, … Continue reading Then Playing — Spencer; No Man of Her Own; The Southerner
In Defense of Shame by Julia Claire Writing for Gawker, Julia Claire makes the most important argument of our age, and she does it effectively and with enviable wit. The flagrant rejection of accountability and honest assessment of wrong social … Continue reading Outside Reading — Shame Game edition
Coffee for Two 