This year, I watched more new-to-me movies than I’d ever watched before in a single year. I don’t have all that much in common with Pauline Kael, but as she boasted that she never saw a movie twice, I much prefer to learn a new movie rather than experience a movie I’ve seen before. I… Read More 2022 Year-End Review: What I Learned
Dir. Joseph Kosinski. Starring Tom Cruise, Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly Joseph Kosinski and Tom Cruise are a director-actor match made in Hell, and not in the fun Herzog-Kinski way. I imagine that the two of them plus Christopher McQuarrie and whichever other Tom Cruise pets helped make this film are probably even copacetic with each… Read More Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
To see my running list of the hundred greatest movie stars in American film history, click here All stars are listed with a single film which is particularly important, though not exclusively so, to understanding what makes them vital to American movies. 20) Henry Fonda / Key film – The Grapes of Wrath By the time… Read More Better than AFI’s 100 Years…100 Stars: 16-20
The following is from my series of Oscar Best Picture rankings, as well as my strongly worded suggestions for what should have won from among the nominees. For an introduction to the project, click here. For a way to vote on some Oscar-related ideas, click here. If I’ve written a review on any of the… Read More Better than the Oscars: 70-66
In the following talk, Tim and Matt think about the career of Paul Thomas Anderson, his movies, Phantom Thread in particular, and where he sits at what is probably the midpoint of his career. In lieu of an actual podcast, we give you this lightly edited conversation. You can find Matt’s work here. Tim: After… Read More Baumann and Burch Conversations, #2: Paul Thomas Anderson
Seeing Things Secondhand 