Film

Just in case you weren’t sure how much I was bullied in high school, my other deep and abiding love, aside from movies, is reading. I try to read 100+ a year (I fail more than I succeed), but a chunk of those are rereads of the man who got me into books in the […]

With the releases of “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” and “Fast X,” we’ve officially landed in Summer Blockbuster Season…whether we like it or not. Looking at the numbers, movie theaters are still struggling to get people through the door, with every barn burner like “Top Gun: Maverick,” “Avatar: The Way of Water” or “Everything […]

What ultimately makes up a movie? Is it just the still images being put together at 24 frames per second or does it need to have a story, a purpose or characters? Those are just a few of the questions running through my head since watching “River,” a movie that neither has a narrative, nor […]

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 […]