film spiels

I grew up in a neighborhood that was within two miles of a drive-in theater. It was called the Fox Drive-In. Backintheday a drive-in was just a big, semi-paved parking lot with a giant screen at one end, a concession stand in the middle, and countless steel poles with tethered speakers hanging on either side…

“Good and evil, reward and punishment, are the only motives to a rational creature: these are the spur and reins whereby all mankind are set on work, and guided.” – John Locke One of the litmus tests of an actor’s skills is phone acting. I will credit you with a certain level of craft if…

Here are a few words about a series that defined “weird TV” at the end of the last century but now has been so deeply absorbed it’s now firmly part of the vast wasteland of The Streaming Era. Now that I live in a TV-world that is post-Heisenberg, that is to say, after ‘Breaking Bad‘…

Though the storytelling isn’t nearly as tight as in Mandy, his film from 2018, Panos Cosmatos’ intense one-two punch of combining darkly surreal storytelling with an intense and highly stylized visual style was already firmly in place in his first feature Beyond the Black Rainbow. Both films are filled with expressionistic uses of colors and…

Brandon “Baby” Cronenberg tries very hard and struggles with his own worth metaphorically in Infinity Pool, two hours of nasty fun, a surreal but plodding film full of striking visuals and cheeky, deadpan dialogue. It exudes an engaging Hitchcock vibe when it works best and has that familiar and comforting set of “naive couple meet…

As a longtime Tilda fanboy, and having loved the previews for the film for months now, I looked forward to seeing this but had to wait until to stream it because it had a unusually small theater release. Like nowhere really. Considering all the advance hype and A24’s popularity, it seemed weird, especially after having…

Mia Goth slays – literally and otherwise – in Ti West’s latest film, the third film in the trilogy that began with X and Pearl. A love letter to ’80’s Hollywood, blasts-from-the-past highlights include a solid soundtrack full of classics and period-appropriate incidental music by Tyler Bates, near constant film references, tight editing by writer/director…

I really liked this film even though it’s bombing at the box office. It tells the now common tale of teen superstardom but from a unique perspective of a teen star who became an adult star and survived their own self-destructive behaviors, all the while portrayed onscreen by a CGI monkey. Various addictions, impostor syndrome,…

Halfway through this Mike Flanagan take on The Turn of the Screw and I am reminded of why I like his streaming series. They are slow burning and well-scripted tales that have empathy for every character, and every character is brought to life by a great cast, many who are part of multiple shows. The…

Presence is one of the best told ghost stories I’ve ever seen. I would highly encourage you to watch it late at night as soon as possible without reading anything about it ahead of time so that no fools can spoil it for you. With Steven Soderbergh’s inventive filming entirely from the ghost’s POV (and…

Harkins, the local Southwestern theater chain, brought Sean Baker’s film Anora to town as part of their showcasing all of this year’s Best Picture nominees. I’m not sure if I was as excited by this as the academy was but it’s a tight enough film that picks up speed in its second half, and I…

HBO’s The Outsider is an adaptation of a Stephen King novel that is as much about grief and being weird as it is about child murderers and doppelgangers. This police procedural meets horror film mash-up features a well-chosen cast that includes Cynthia Erivo, Paddy Considine, and co-producer Jason Bateman. Mr. Bateman is featured in and…

“I thought I could do a horror movie, in the style of Zodiac, but as a comedy. And it’s kind of structured that way, all of the montages and sequence editing. It feels David Fincher-esque, though it’s also almost Danny McBride-style comedy.” – Jim Cummings I just watched writer/director/actor Jim Cummings’ 2020 horror-comedy The Wolf…

OMG, I’ve been wrong to snark on ScarJo all these years. Her first film as director, Eleanor the Great, is great! For a story like this one the cast is key: June Squibb is amazing and Chiwetel Ejiofor’s supporting role sparkles like a diamond. Honestly, not a weak performance in the bunch. Also, the editing…

I loved this adaptation of Don Delillo’s novel from start to finish but I fear I am in the minority. If you watched it and told me “I didn’t like it, it was weird” I’d only be able to say “Yeah.” From where I was sitting, though, I found the film to be surreal and…

Earlier I answered a survey question on Yougov that asked if I ever enjoyed watching a movie that was so bad it was good. I clicked the first choice which was something like “Hell yeah, all the time!” Then, as if to prove it, I went to a screening of Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula at…

The perfect film for the adventurous viewer who laughed during the climax of The Substance, or anyone who misses cinema that makes you react on a visceral and more instinctual level. It’s also my favorite girl-power film and one of the most surgically precise dissections of bro culture in any language. Satirical, surreal, and psychotic…

This film is the first of four that director Yorgos Lanthimos has made in collaboration with actress Emma Stone. I’ve seen the other three and, like them, this is a deeply satirical story filled with dark humor and (smaller) bursts of violence, all of it brought to life by a punchy script and a well-chosen…

I just got back from my second viewing of Ari Aster’s latest film – so you know I liked it – but I probably shouldn’t recommend it to you, even if I tell you that I laughed even harder this time. If you’ve read as many reviews as I have you’ll have been told repeatedly…

Jon Favreau seems like a straight-up guy, likable even. I noticed him early on in his career but never really thought much about him until the ‘Iron Man‘ franchise. He directed the first two, both of them insanely profitable and hugely satisfying, and co-starred to good effect in the third. He reminds me a little…