I’ve had a love/hate relationship with Quentin Tarantino for nearly three decades. I can now admit that I never completely forgave him for becoming, well… Quentin fucking Tarantino. I was there at the beginning when he was an up-and-coming screenwriter who’d made his directorial and writing debut with this amazing indie that everyone was talking […]

In 2014, I decided I’d start writing about other people’s movies. The fully detailed story of how this now-forty-something white man got to such an adolescent wish-fulfillment place would only be interesting to him and take hours and at least two psychiatric specialists to explain properly. The shortened version will have to suffice. Movies have […]

Thanks to the release of The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, a cleverly meta cinematic love letter to Nicolas Cage that stars Nicolas Cage as Nick Cage, the legendary, inventive, and emotionally robust thespian is now having a long-overdue comeback. Cage’s most devoted fans know quite well that he never left, however, as he has […]

For filmmakers, feature-length movies are further becoming the equivalent of what short films used to be: calling cards for longer formats. The feature-length movie will most likely never go away but, in the day and age of countless streaming services, people are more consistently choosing the ongoing series format as their primary source of filmed […]

Contrary to what most studio marketing teams want us to believe, movies don’t have to subscribe to one particular genre. In fact, the ones that don’t have the potential to be the fullest cinematic experiences that most closely resemble real life. Reality, on any given day, is never any one thing. Life can be simultaneously […]

The feature-length movies that currently make it into theaters are, by and large, spectacles and events. Smaller titles that have theatrical releases don’t usually find great success, anymore. If they’re lucky enough to get a box office run, it essentially serves as an advertisement for their home video release. Pretty soon, that step is going […]

It is a common debate amongst critics, scholars, filmmakers, and the general public as to whether movies are expressive artworks or a brainless form of entertainment that turns your imagination into mush. Movies can show someone else’s point of view more powerfully and more viscerally than any other artistic medium, or they can take you […]

The accomplishments of a screenwriter are rarely as celebrated or remembered as the accomplishments of an actor or director. Screenwriters are treated expendably and always have been. Hollywood’s publicity machine has repeatedly taught us that actors are the stars, directors are the artists, and everyone else is serving under their vision. When a movie is […]

The 355 The 355 may boast an impressive array of acting talent (Jessica Chastain, Penelope Cruz, Bingbing Fan, Lupita Nyong’o, Diane Kruger, Sebastian Stan, Edgar Ramirez) but it fails to be a movie that lives up to the expectations that their presence creates. The film contains some well-executed (though rather underwhelming) action and moderately well-developed […]

Movies have been my primary focus in life for as far back as I can remember. Since I’m now well into middle-age, it’s probably time to grow up a little bit—or, at least, try to be as productive as I can with my obsession. I have tried, since graduating from college in 2001, to break […]