What’s Good: 12 Netflix Picks

There’s a lot of disagreement in the air these days, in case you haven’t noticed. The one thing everyone can agree on right now is that streaming entertainment is our lord and savior, a recently elevated equivalent to food, shelter, and oxygen in our current hierarchy of needs, and we need some goddamn more of […]

Wrecking Bawl: The Car Crash Grief Porn Of ‘Bombs’ & ‘Demolition’

There are roughly 3,000 automobile deaths in America each year, and it feels like we see at least twice that many in the movies. Car accidents are the go-to tragedy for Hollywood, even moreso than cancer. It used to be that a character’s subtle cough around the midpoint of a film would indicate their burial […]

Generation Jest: The Infinite Sadness Of The 90s In ‘End Of The Tour’

Few artists reach the literary legend status David Foster Wallace did — and fewer still do it with, essentially, one work. Many who do die tragically young. Perhaps there are certain eras more likely to breed this kind of tortured artist — Wallace was five years older than Kurt Cobain, and didn’t commit suicide until […]

Certifiable Copy: A ‘Double’ Dose Of Deranged Doppelgangers

Antz and A Bug’s Life. Deep Impact and Armageddon. Infamous and Capote. Olympus Has Fallen and White House Down. It happens all the time — movies with eerily similar subject matter doubling up in the same year. As if there’s just something in the air causing different filmmakers to suddenly think alike, releasing movies that […]

Top Ten Films: 2009

Continuing my retrospective Top 10 lists… Okay, so this was the year the Oscars got on my nerves for announcing ten Best Picture nominees. (And judging by what was included in those ten, I think we can all agree that I was right to be irked… which is some vindication, at least.)

Top Ten Films: 2010

As a film school graduate, I’m afraid I have an obligation to take entertainment way too seriously. That’s why, when awards season rolls around, I can’t help but partake in the senseless, arbitrary, and totally nerdy critic’s pastime of ranking all the films I saw and compiling a Top Ten List. And since 2011’s award […]

The Not-Oscars 2010

(Originally posted over at Fabulous Apple. In preparation for this year’s “Not-Oscars,” here’s what I said about last year…) We all know the Oscars don’t always get it right. Of course, “right” is a matter of opinion — but with some perspective, there are a few awards and nominations we collectively agree did not go […]