It’s ‘Armageddon Time’ — Do You Know Where Your Children Are?

Ronald Reagan is dead. The world is still here. Clearly, our 40th president was wrong when he hypothesized that his generation might be the one to experience Armageddon, which he did in an appearance on Jim Bakker’s show in the leadup to his 1980 election. The 80s were a relatively quiet period in American history, […]

The Best Of The Rest Of Film: 2021

Has it only been a year? The Academy Awards were held on April 25 last year, reducing the eligibility window for 2021 movies to ten months. Many people stayed away from theaters for long stretches of 2021 — I didn’t make it back to cinemas until July — but that didn’t stop a barrage of […]

I, Tammy: ‘The Eyes Of Tammy Faye’

There’s at least one every year. The film that makes me act as the Lonely Defender, a film I like — perhaps unreasonably — more than just about everyone else. Sometimes, it’s a messy film; perhaps its reach exceeds its grasp. Often, it has big things to say about America, or Our Times, or even […]

Not-Oscars 2017

Welcome to another Not-Oscars, where I call out the year’s best craft and performances, including plenty of good work that was not nominated by the Academy. In many years, this list feels pressing to correct some of the Academy’s egregious blunders. This year, I’m pretty happy with the crop of nominees in every category.

Molly & Tonya & Lady Bird, Oh My: The Women Of 2017

Attention, please, gentlemen: 2017’s Best Actresses are not taking any more of your shit. It wasn’t planned this way. No one could have predicted the seismic events that hit Hollywood in the last quarter of 2017, beginning with Harvey Weinstein and continuing with seemingly everyone else. It’s much too soon for awards hopefuls to incorporate […]

Intelligent Life: Science Rules In ‘The Martian’

The Martian shouldn’t feel like such a treasure, and maybe twenty years ago, it wouldn’t have. Its closest cousin, Apollo 13, was nominated for Best Picture in 1995, back when feel-good movies could still dominate both the box office and awards season — which is not to say that they always did, but feel-good guys […]

Top Ten Films: 2014

It was a very good year at the movies… but a weird one. Reversing the trend of recent years, the summer blockbuster fare offered a surprising amount of good taste, from the goofy-fun Guardians Of The Galaxy to the surprisingly clever Edge Of Tomorrow. Even sequels like Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes and […]

America’s ‘Most Violent’: Chandor Explores The Price Of Prosperity

You don’t make a movie about Wall Street in 2011 unless you’re saying something about what’s going down in America. J.C. Chandor did that with the gripping drama Margin Call, taking us inside the offices of a fictional investment bank on the literal eve of the financial collapse that (temporarily?) crippled the United States in […]

Anti-Gravity: Nolan’s ‘Interstellar’ Is OK To Go

Last year, Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity blew us away. Not everyone loved the film, but most could agree that it was dazzling to behold on the big screen (especially in 3D) and one giant leap forward in cinema on a technical level. It was a thrill ride as much as a movie, anchored by one single […]

‘Rigby’ Goes Down: Marriage Is A Bummer From Both Perspectives

Marriage is hard work. Ben Affleck said it, rather awkwardly, in his Oscars acceptance speech for Argo, allowing us to wonder what hells he and Jennifer Garner had been through that caused him to profess such a sentiment in front of millions of viewers. And this year, Affleck stars in Gone Girl, a movie that […]

Not-Oscars 2012: The Year’s Best Performances

(Originally published at JustinPlusSeven on January 10, 2013.) You, dear reader, have the honor of reading this in the future, after the Oscar nominations have been announced. But I am writing from this from the near past, before we know which five contenders are fighting it out in each category. Of course, some are shoo-ins; […]

Top Ten Films: 2012

It’s Oscar time! As usual, the Academy Awards are poised to make some very wrong decisions this year. So as usual, I am prematurely correcting them by releasing my Top Ten of the year. That year is 2012, of course — real film critics release such lists at the end of December or beginning of […]