To see the intro page for “Best Director” Madness, click here. Each round of the bracket will use a quote from a Roger Ebert review of a Best Director-winning or -nominated film as its criteria for which director moves on to the next. Using one of those online wheels of choosing things, I wound up… Read More “Best Director” Madness 2023: Round of 64
They do brackets for everything at this time of year. For those of us who live the Way of the Bracket, this deluge of bracketology is reminiscent of April Fools’ Day for those of who live the Way of Lying Indiscriminately. It’s nice to see people trying because it’s precious. Because the Oscars happened a… Read More “Best Director” Madness 2023: Introduction and Bracket Reveal
After Nomadland won Best Picture, I argued that a cinematic pose which I call “boutique indie” was a natural conclusion to recent approach to Best Picture nominees and winners. The short version is that as studios become more ruthless with their money, they want to provide the thrill of high stakes without having to pay… Read More Everything Everywhere All at Once and the Boutique Indie Posture
(To see the results of last year’s Grouches, go here. For the year before, go here. To see the first Grouches, which also carries a significantly more complete version of my criteria, go here.) Last year, we at the Grouches decided that we were going to go whole hog into being Oscars counterprogramming and for… Read More 4th Annual Grouches: 2022 Movie Year Awards
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
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
You can find the introduction and index for this series here. I did it! I got two! The new inductees for the National Film Registry were announced today. After writing about one hundred movies that I’d like to see saved by the National Film Registry or some hypothetical equivalent, two of them have actually been chosen… Read More 100 American Movies to Save: Epilogue
I’ve said it about the movie lists that I make, I’ve said it about the AFI lists and other like bodies, I’ve said it about awards shows. The value in a list or a ranking of movies is about what the people making the lists want to tell you about themselves. How do they want… Read More The 2022 Sight and Sound Critics’ List: The Story of the Poll in Ten Movies
The Sight and Sound poll invites more than a thousand real critics (i.e., not me) to submit their top ten films to be compiled as part of their decennial results. There will be a new Sight and Sound poll this year, which I’ve been indecently excited about for the past three or four years now,… Read More My Sight and Sound 2022 Ballot (It’s Not Real, I’m Just Jealous and Want to Participate)
Steven Hyden introduced his five-albums test more than a decade ago as a third way to judge a band, short of its popularity or its critical acclaim. While this one is not meant to stand on its own—for example, he’s not sure that either Bob Dylan nor the Rolling Stones had made five great albums… Read More The Five-Movies Test or: Which Director Has Had the Best Stretch of Consecutive Feature-Length Films in English?
Seeing Things Secondhand 