Summer is closing. The weather remains warm, but the chill of autumn whispers its hello with a breeze that reminds us of time’s passing. It would be the perfect opportunity to catch a new John Carpenter movie, wouldn’t it? Too bad he’s been keeping himself busy writing
![The Odyssey [Round Two] (2026, Nolan)](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4f/e6/4fe6b221-8357-41b8-a6fb-14698168315c/content/images/size/w600/2026/08/christopher-nolan-odyssey-02.webp)
My initial thoughts on The Odyssey can be found here. I saw The Odyssey in IMAX 70MM. I've had many good conversations about The Odyssey since it was released a month ago, and its staying power in the zeitgeist is due at least in part to its presentation.
I'm a Minions guy–have been since Despicable Me. I hid behind the veil of irony for a long time, mostly to protect a false sense of integrity associated with my affection for highbrow fare. "Someone can't like Minions and Malick," I whispered to
I don't usually write reviews three weeks after having watched the film in question, and Lucky Strike isn't even a movie that's worth the trouble (nor has it really stuck around in my mind), but something about it compels me to engage with it
The story of how someone finds their way to Rising Up and Rising Down is not as interesting as the book itself, but because of its scarcity it's at least a little more interesting than your average Kindle purchase. To wit: I'll admit to being something
I knew this would happen. Once I started publishing my film criticism at In Review Online, this space slowly shriveled. It's not dead yet, but I haven't posted anything since October 20th of last year, and while those of you who wanted to follow me over
Had a nice busy month over at In Review Online! First up, Ne Zha 2 - Technically an August release, but I haven't shared my review until now. The movie is worth a look, particularly if you're interested in how blockbuster cinema is shaping up in China.
Writing on film, mostly.
I'm lucky to say it's been a busy month for me, publishing-wise. I've got two more reviews up at In Review Online and short story published in Unlikely Stories Six. First, the story. I wrote "Yerushah" last fall to reckon with
My first contemporaneous review for In Review Online!
As you can no doubt tell, I've been writing in this space less frequently as of late because I'm publishing at In Review Online. I intend to update it regularly with pointers to work not hosted here, and I will also continue to publish more personal
I wrote about this extraordinary movie for In Review Online to commemorate its 20th anniversary.
On A Minecraft Movie and a Future of Media Team, It’s a hit! This opening weekend, movie-going audiences dug into A Minecraft Movie, making it the no. 1 film in the U.S. and 75 global markets, bringing in an impressive $313.7 million – the largest domestic opening
"What's that say? Oh, um . . . it's Latin for From Small Things We Aspire Toward the Great." -- The Woman with Red Hair I listen, with alarming regularity and alacrity, to the podcast The Town. It's delicious junk food, and, as someone who'
Growing up, December and January held the distinction of best and worst months in moviegoing, respectively. For a few reasons, these distinctions have melted away. The first of which is simply the disintegration of something called the movie calendar altogether. Traditionally, at least from my layperson's POV, the
(Spoilers) Overture Let’s, for a moment, set aside the hysterics, the histrionics, and the hyperbole. Let’s imagine that The Brutalist hasn’t been met with a response equal in rapture to Dark Side of the Moon playing backwards in your veins, with claims not unlike Ignatiy Vishnevetsky’s
I like the serial format, generally; I like what can be done with it to build suspense, to enhance mystery, and to deepen the psychological interiority of a particular work's characters. Crime & Punishment was published serially, for example. The format seems to behoove crime stories, but even
A who’s who of extreme cinema lions hiding in the shadows here: Noe, Cronenberg, Lynch, Easton Ellis/Harron, Von Trier, Argento, and I’m sure I’m neglecting a few more. This shouldn’t work; it’s never worked for me before: arthouse horror sucks. But Fargeat snuck a
Frownland Spoilers Fully expected to hate this; turns out it was made specifically for people who hated the first one. Sat bemused and slightly irritated for the first forty minutes, feelings growing ever exacerbated by the minute following each howl from the Joker Head behind me, but when it reveals
Time Stop A little autobiography: My dad introduced me to Francis Ford Coppola through Apocalypse Now. First by way of his incessant quoting of the movie, particularly the immortal “I love the smell of napalm in the morning” line, and then via the DVD (theatrical, not redux) we had found