February 5th What follows is a cursed description of a great movie. The screenwriting award at Sundance? Yuck! Charlie Kaufman loves this movie? Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat! A two-hander where people bounce off each other awkwardly? Good God! But you oughtn’t to judge a movie by its little description on Criterion or Mubi any more than you… Read More 2023 Movie Diary (2/5-2/9): Three Thousand Yangs of Longing
When Sight and Sound released their 2022 poll in December, the rush wore off within a couple days for me. I was impatient. I’m still impatient, because I want the vote counts for all of these movies to be released, and when that happens I’m sure I’ll write about that too. But a lot of… Read More Ten Thoughts on the Other 164 Movies in the 2022 Sight and Sound Poll
January 31st This isn’t a movie I would have felt compelled to watch if not for the fact that it’s a Thais movie; it’s entirely possible that I would have been unable to resist “Dirty Gertie” as a phrase forever, so I don’t want to act like I never would have gotten to it. The… Read More 2023 Movie Diary (1/31-2/4): Time to Start Watching These Best Picture Nominees
January 26th Devdas does not have the structure, precisely, of Anton Chekhov’s Ivanov, although the eponymous characters of both stories share an emotional bond. Despite having significant advantage in his society due to money, property, and the other niceties of a higher class, the men are unlucky with the objects of their first attraction and… Read More 2023 Movie Diary (1/26-1/30): The Vanquishing of the Witch Tim Burton
January 21st It’s too bad that I’m out of Ormond-Pirkle collaborations, because I was starting to develop a fondness for Pirkle’s sermons. They have a Homeric flavor to them, a use of Bible verses like epithets. Hector, breaker of horses has transformed over the centuries to Hell, where the worm does not die and the… Read More 2023 Movie Diary (1/21-1/25): Tsars, Commissars, and Pezidents
Riz Ahmed looked really comfy while he was presenting these nominations. Allison Williams also looked comfy, for sure, but I’m so jealous of how cozy his fit was. I wish I could watch these from bed like all you Californians. 1) Oscars nominations and the College Football Playoff are getting more and more like each… Read More 95th Academy Awards Nominations: Hastily Scribbled Thoughts
January 16th Jonathan Kaufer was a precocious guy in his mid-twenties when he wrote and directed Soup for One, and boy does this movie really feel like it’s the brainchild of a guy in his mid-twenties who saw Annie Hall a bunch when it came out. I don’t know that Soup for One has the… Read More 2023 Movie Diary (1/16-1/20): Heaven and Hell
January 11th With a name like “Estus Pirkle,” it has to be good. I know that the civilized thing to do with a movie like this is to laugh it off, and the movie gives us opportunities to do exactly that. The makeup on some of these people, done by Ron Ormond’s then-wife June Carr,… Read More 2023 Movie Diary (1/11-1/15): Contrive It Like You Stole It
January 6th In English, you’ll sometimes see this given the name of the novel it’s based on, A Judgment in Stone. If I were naming the movie, I would probably default to something a little less grand than its French title or its English one. At the risk of jacking up the comedy factor a… Read More 2023 Movie Diary (1/6-1/10): Meet the Gladneys
January 1st Every year it seems, there’s a documentary that a number of critics go gaga for and which inevitably disappoints me. In 2018 it was Minding the Gap, in 2019 it was Collective, in 2020 Time, 2021 Flee, and this past year Fire of Love. “Disappoints” is a purposefully vague term meant to cover… Read More 2023 Movie Diary (1/1-1/5): India Songs
Seeing Things Secondhand 