Film

Well, it appears that the Mild Yet Endless Winter™ might be coming to a close as we finally start getting spring-related weather about a month and a half late. The culture shifts for Central Oregon, with the contingent of locals that don’t care about winter sports exiting their hibernation, and those who aren’t big fans […]

Remember when you were a kid and you found a cool rock or a weird stick and you ran to the nearest adult, desperate to share with them the (definitely) one-in-a-million thing you just discovered so you could get their approval? I think maybe anyone who writes about pop culture for a living is the […]

There are some movies that are so deeply personal to the filmmaker as to almost defy criticism or even really in-depth deconstruction. When you watch something like Charlie Kaufman’s “Synecdoche, N.Y.” or Darren Aronofsky’s “Mother!,” there are so many different interpretations left on the table that the viewer is invited to take from the film […]

Oh man, “How to Blow Up a Pipeline” is going to piss people off. Based on the vitriol from Armond White, I initially assumed the extreme right would be the most incensed. Wait, you haven’t heard of Armond White before? I’m sorry for introducing you to this rabbit hole. Armond White is a film critic […]

I might have overdone it at the theater last weekend. It was one of those weeks where life became a perfect storm of exhaustion, seasonal affective disorder and heartsickness, so I figured I would apply comforting cinematic ointment to my poor, addled brain. So, across three days, I went to six movies in the theater, basking […]

Sometimes it’s impossible to know anyone’s real motivations. No matter how well we think we know someone, people can and will always surprise us with the multitudes they contain. A single human being is capable of astonishing acts of cruelty or kindness, sometimes within the same moment. Cynics say that no one ever really changes, […]

This is embarrassing but I think 2023 has been a much better year for shows than movies so far. I know, I know, it’s only April, but there have been so many bad movies and so many good streaming shows that it feels like there’s an imbalance in the force. Even some of the newer […]

There aren’t a lot of truly great action movies. That might be a hot take, but it’s true. I’ve been intermittently working on a book that follows the latter career entries of action stars including Jean-Claude Van Damme, Steven Seagal, Scott Adkins, Liam Neeson, Bruce Willis, Jason Statham and Gerard Butler that’s focused on the […]

We’re almost a full three months into the year and, correct me if I’m wrong, but we haven’t had a single exceptional film so far. There have been some good ones and bad ones and a million forgettable ones, but nothing great. Isn’t there usually at least one great movie by this point in the […]