Cut to the chase : Want to see this year’s actual list? Head over to Decoding Everything . Previous write-ups : Check out the last decade of end-of-year lists to get a sense of our similarities and differences. Podcast : You can listen to my straightforward Top 10 list on The Spoiler Warning . Introduction I have a tradition of tallying my favorite films of the year and turning them into an…
Over the years, I’ve had a tradition of publishing post-festival “round-up”s on this site. With Cannes 2024, I’m bucking that trend—not for lack of content, but because I’ve already written entirely too much! This year, I was proud to contribute five articles to David Chen’s Decoding Everything newsletter, giving live updates on the fest. Despite being framed around…
Cut to the chase : Want to see this year’s actual list? Head over to Decoding Everything . Previous write-ups : Check out the last decade of end-of-year lists to get a sense of our similarities and differences. Podcast : You can listen to my straightforward Top 10 list on The Spoiler Warning . Introduction This is my 10th consecutive year of writing Best Of movie roundups. But for the first…
Note: This review contains spoilers for both Past Lives and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind With your body next to me, its sleepy sighing Sounds like waves upon a sea too far to reach – Okkervil River, “Seas Too Far To Reach” You dream in a language that I can’t understand. It’s like there’s this whole place inside of you where I can’t go. –…
Brief thoughts on the festival as a whole; a quick day-by-day accounting; rankings Intro: Back in Black [Tie, Repeatedly, For 11 Consecutive Evenings] It was March 2020 and the future was bright. My whirlwind “3 Days In Cannes” in 2018 had functioned as a gateway drug, followed by a full-festival bender in 2019. Despite having a badge that came with no ability to book tickets,…
Cut to the chase : Just want to see the list of movies? No problem . Previous write-ups : Check out the last eight end-of-year lists to get a sense of our similarities and differences. Podcast : You can listen to my straightforward Top 10 list on The Spoiler Warning . Introduction: Some Kind of Normal I always like to start these by reflecting on the year, and in recent write-ups the pandemic has…
As many confused friend groups have likely discovered, Wordle had a bit of a glitch today. It seems that when The New York Times took ownership of the game, they removed at least one word that was likely to frustrate users. However, due to the nature of caching and redirects, this change did not roll out to everyone simultaneously. Namely: If you already had your tab open to the old Wordle URL,…
More ramblings : Check out my previous end-of-year lists to get a sense of my taste in movies. Podcast : You can listen to my flat Top 10 list on The Spoiler Warning . [02/09/2022 Update] : Since writing this, I’ve been fortunate enough to catch up with Red Rocket and Drive My Car, both of which would have landed quite high on this list. Introduction “Ill-defined.” I’ve been struggling to…
More ramblings : Check out my six previous end-of-year lists to get a sense of my taste in movies. Podcast : You can listen to my flat Top 10 list on The Spoiler Warning . Introduction I’ve looked at this from every angle, and I’m finally going to call it: There is absolutely no way to start a 2020 recap without some hackneyed platitude. So screw it, let’s play the hits.…
Mine wasn’t a stuffed animal or turtle. It was a street. I remember when it hit me. It was my Freshman year at Berkeley, and I was making the trek to San Francisco for a concert. This was the sort of evening I’d spent the whole summer fantasizing about: concerts and comedy clubs every Thursday and Friday; Haight/Ashbury Saturdays with Brautigan in my hand; Sundays in Golden Gate surrounded by…
It’s been quite a while since I’ve written a book review. Years, in fact. The last review I posted is from December 2017 (which is coincidentally when I first discovered the author I’ll be raving about today). Pride probably had a lot to do with it: in 2017, I was clocking 3-6 novels a month, easy. Or “easy” (in quotes). Like just about everything in my life, from film-viewing to writing to…
Note: In addition to being a music-inspired memoir, this is also meant to function as a literal playlist! You can listen along on Spotify , Apple Music , or YouTube . What Is This, And How Am I Supposed To Read It? For me, music is almost entirely about memory. The songs that stick are always entangled with certain times and places. Some are great, others embarrassing—all inform who I am. So…
As Chris Matthews and Mike Godwin have both aptly demonstrated, Americans are obsessed with World War 2. It’s as evident in our political analogies as in our prestige films: For every acclaimed World War 1 drama you give me, I’ll name at least a dozen about its successor. This despite the case many historians would argue, that the former was both more profound in its impact and more layered in…
Blame this on a post-Dixie-Chicks-and-Freedom Fries definition of American elitism, or on years of chuckling at Seinfeld’s “Rochelle, Rochelle”: Whenever I try to write about Portrait of a Lady on Fire , Céline Sciamma’s gorgeous queer romance set in 18th century France, I feel like a snob. A sneering, head-up-his-ass “cinephile”. Like someone who hates blockbusters and has strong opinions about…
With the Oscars happening this evening, I thought it’d be fun to put some predictions and wishlists on the record. After all, what could be more evergreen than content that is guaranteed to go stale roughly an hour after it’s posted? I’m confident in my life choices. As usual, I’m going to have three selections per category: Will Win , Should Win , and Should Have Been…
More ramblings : I’ve been doing this a long time! Check out my 2018 , 2017 , 2016 , 2015 , and 2014 lists. Podcast : you can listen to my flat Top 10 list on The Spoiler Warning . Introduction Each year I vow to make my Best Of list simpler than the last, and each year I completely fail. I can’t find any reason for this continuing arms race, beyond good old-fashioned self torture.…
I wrote the first few sentences of this piece two or three years ago; the rest was completed on a whim during a two week cruise (which, for the record, I’m still on). Way back when I started the intro, I called it my “bad Pynchon imitation.” Now, after a few days of cycling through “Zadie imitation,” “Roth imitation,” and “DFW imitation,” I…
If there was one day that fully encompassed the highs and lows of Cannes , it was May 21. Once Upon A Time In Hollywood was premiering late that afternoon, and Tarantino-mania was in full swing. Movie star sightings had begun around breakfast; the paparazzi that typically waited till 4pm were out in hordes by lunch. Large sons of media execs, armed with sternum-buttoned tux shirts and dangled D&G…
Chris and I caught the last four days of the Toronto International Film Festival and saw a whirlwind 14 movies, recording 15-30 minute reviews for each which will be rolled out over time. Every day, I’ll try to post a summary in this abbreviated format, along with the episode link. TIFF Update #14: Knives Out Rating: 4/5 Synopsis: Rian Johnson directs a star-studded whodunnit about a crack…
Chris and I spent the last four days at the Toronto International Film Festival and caught a whirlwind 14 movies, recording 15-30 minute reviews for each which will be rolled out over time. Every day, I’ll try to post a summary in this abbreviated format, along with the episode link. TIFF Update #13: Waves Rating: 3/5 Synopsis: Tyler (Kevin Harrison Jr.) is a high school senior living in Florida.…