#42 — We Are the Best! (Lukas Moodysson, 2013) “Hate the Sport,” the signature song from Sweden’s finest teen punk trio, properly carries the rebellion of rock ‘n’ roll inside it. Written as a direct challenge to the bullying, patriarchal … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 10s — Number Forty-Two
Cold Pursuit (Hans Petter Moland, 2019). Norwegian director Hans Petter Moland makes his English-language debut with a remake of one of his own previous features, presumably because the narrative framework was well-suite to the very-particular-set-of-skills era of Liam Neeson’s career. … Continue reading Then Playing — Cold Pursuit; The Book of Henry; The Naked Spur
A Fantastic Woman (Sebastián Lelio, 2017). Marina (Daniela Vega) is Chilean who works as a waitress and sometimes moonlights as a singer. She’s engaged in a romance with an older gentleman named Orlando (Francisco Reyes), who dies of a brain … Continue reading Then Playing — A Fantastic Woman; The Quiet Man; Blow the Man Down
#43 — Mudbound (Dee Rees, 2017) Ten years is a long time, so it’s hardly remarkable to survey that length of time in a chunk of cinema history and discern major differences between the respective creative landscape and the starting … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 10s — Number Forty-Three
Gideon’s Army (Dawn Porter, 2013). This documentary examines the grueling, perpetually disheartening work undertaken by public defenders, vital contributors to the principle of equal justice that are severely undervalued. The prevailing storytelling scheme of the day calls for picking a … Continue reading Then Playing — Gideon’s Army; They Drive By Night; Five Feet Apart
She Finds Meaning in the Dark by Manohla Dargis In this strange, unsettled time, there are many who are facing far greater hardships than me and most of my friends. For this I am a grateful. But everyone’s context is … Continue reading Outside Reading — See You on the Other Side edition
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. The past few days … Continue reading Laughing Matters — The Critic
Godzilla: King of the Monsters (Michael Dougherty, 2019). By now, Hollywood has offered up a mountain of evidence of their collective inability to do right by the fire-breathing behemoth first brought to the screen by Toho Studios and director Ishirō … Continue reading Then Playing — Godzilla: King of the Monsters; The Hustle; The Dead Don’t Die
#44 — The Shape of Water (Guillermo del Toro, 2017) The path always led to The Shape of Water for Guillermo del Toro. Across a career that begin firmly in the horror genre before expanding to other hybrids, practically of … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 10s — Number Forty-Four
#45 — Shutter Island (Martin Scorsese, 2010) Martin Scorsese didn’t owe us any more high art. That was clear. By the time the calendar flipped over to the twenty-tens, Scorsese had already amassed forty years of astonishing accomplishment, and he … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 10s — Number Forty-Five
Coffee for Two 