The first time I ever came across the word “overreach” in print, it was when I was reading a children’s encyclopedia. I don’t remember if the article was about France or the French Revolution (I guess it must have been the latter), but I do remember the little portrait of Robespierre and the caption beneath.… Read More Too Big to Die
Before the Oscars, I was flirting with the idea of writing something contrarian. Those anonymous Oscar voter pieces are, as Darren Rovell might have said, “tremendous content,” and the one that went viral this year was the one that basically said that foreign-language movies should not win Oscars. In the week or so leading up… Read More Thoughts on Parasite, Best Picture Winner
Since the announcement of “Best Popular Film” was made several hours ago, the general reaction has been something along the lines of “All this does is pander further to some non-existent audience at the expense of condescending to movies that make money.” Let’s take those one half at a time. First, I am generally speaking… Read More Best Popular Film: An Okay Idea Eighty-Nine Years Too Late
Content warning – Ingmar Bergman’s films frequently deal with mature issues concerning sexuality, cruelty, or both. Many significant spoilers below, in case you are a budding Bergman fan and don’t want to know. In fairness, all of the movies noted below are at the very least thirty-six years old. It’s not every day one’s favorite… Read More Seven Sevens: The Ingmar Bergman Centennial
The difference between the Academy Awards in 1932 and 2018 is as stark as the difference between baseball in 1932 and baseball now: it’s obviously the same sport just at a glance, but it could hardly be more different in terms of execution, style, and personae. How can one compare the first ceremony, which honored… Read More The 90th Academy Awards and the Possibility of Another Grand Hotel
In the following talk, Tim and Matt think about what it means for some text to be “perfect.” In lieu of an actual podcast, we type our way through Carl Theodor Dreyer, Prince, Arrested Development, Anton Chekhov, and more. You can find Matt’s work, including an upcoming Top 50 albums of 2017 project, here. Tim:… Read More Baumann and Burch Conversations, #1: Perfection
I had forgotten about the New York Post’s article about how Millennials don’t watch movies from before 2000 (“exponentially more likely to have binged on films of the last 15 years than on classics from bygone eras”), largely because clickbait only lasts so long before it disappears. (Honestly, I’m more haunted by the fact that… Read More What Movies Millennials Watch
This is the third entry in a Hamilton trilogy I didn’t realize I was working on until now. For my thoughts on the show itself, click here. For my thoughts on how Hamilton works with and around race, click here. It’s been about two years since Hamilton made its way from stage to cast album. As a young person, I guessed… Read More Hamilton Lived, Hamilton Died, and the Story’s Still Being Told
This was originally written as text for a student project. The mock publication can be viewed here. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, directed by Kerry Conran in 2004, is typically recalled — if people remember it at all — as “the movie where Angelina Jolie wears an eyepatch.” Set in an alternate version of the late 1930s during… Read More The Death of the Actor: Crossing the Uncanny Valley
The Hollywood Reporter recently published a Todd McCarthy article wondering, basically, about sequel fatigue. The summer, he notes, movies like Transformers: The Last Knight, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, and Cars 3 have each sputtered at the American box office. This is our fifth Transformers movie since 2007, our fifth Pirates movie since 2003, and… Read More The American Blockbuster Bubble
Seeing Things Secondhand 