While I knew it wouldn’t quite have the same cultural cache of “Barbenheimer,” I was still very excited for the same-day release of the Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown” and the Robert Eggers remake of the classic vampire film “Nosferatu.” In my mind, the two films wouldn’t be quite as disparate as the same-day […]
Film
They Never Stop Coming
Not to compare watching movies to some sort of eternal Herculean struggle, but the weirdest thing about writing about cinema for a living is that I will never, ever be able to watch them all. In 2024, I watched 120-plus new releases, and not only failed to watch remotely all the new films that came […]
Too Much Goodness, Not Enough Time
This time of the year is always hard for me as someone who writes about film for a living. Publications all over the country start releasing their best-of lists featuring the top movies and shows they discovered over the past 12 months. Because I don’t live in Los Angeles, New York or another large market, […]
There Goes My Antihero
Sometimes, a movie gets released that’s so bad you know someone at the studio lost their job, and the filmmaker will probably end up in director’s jail for a few years. When that same studio releases three movies in the same universe that are so insanely, preposterously stupid (while also hemorrhaging money) that they become […]
Christmas Carol
Every single year, it’s the same discussion around the holidays: Is “Die Hard” a Christmas movie? Of course it is. Any film set on or near Christmas where people are actively talking about or celebrating the holiday makes it a Christmas movie. Right?! Is that the consensus? Can we be done now? The movie is […]
May the Source Be With You: December Edition
This is the time of year where I start watching Christmas movies with a gleeful and reckless abandon… quality be damned. It doesn’t really matter if it’s good or not because ultimately most of those Hallmark movies (or the new Netflix breed) have the exact same structure and arc with only a few mild variations. […]
Are We That Entertained?
“Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses.” —Juvenal (100-200 A.D.) There’s a meta […]
What’s the Early Buzz
Look, I went into this weekend fully intending to go see “Red One,” that new movie where The Rock, Chris Evans and a polar bear have to rescue a kidnapped (and completely jacked) Santa Claus, but then I realized that, ultimately, that movie is probably as critic proof as it possibly gets. You don’t need […]
Robots, Smiles, Heretics and Last Dances
This weekend I caught four movies in a row at the theater and now my entire brain feels funny. Here’s what I saw: The Wild Robot: At the bookstore I work at, we’re constantly selling copies of the 2016 novel by Peter Brown to kids so excited to read it that they’re bursting to get […]
May the Source Be With You: November Edition
For one such as me, who doesn’t partake in any winter activities other than drinking hot toddies and making the occasional snow angel, I mostly spend the cold months binging podcasts, movies and shows I missed in the summer. I know, I’m boring as hell, but ending up headfirst in a tree well is a […]

