This year’s Not Oscars are really not the Oscars, because the Oscars aren’t happening for another three months and there’s still six weeks left in the eligibility window for new contenders to pop up. I’ve seen all the likely nominees from 2020 and several more yet to be officially released, but some buzzed about performances […]
Read More Not-Oscars 2020It’s become a tradition for me to call out an additional 15 strong films from every year, and since there was plenty more good stuff that didn’t make it into my Top Ten for 2020, I’m carrying on with it. Nearly all of the following films have some political or sociological importance. I didn’t do […]
Read More The Best Of The Rest Of Film: 2020“We are gathered here today in remembrance of The Motion Picture. To bid it adieu, and to share some of our fondest memories from its final year. Thank you very much to Netflix for providing the catering at this difficult time.” That’s how I opened last year’s top ten list — with a mock eulogy […]
Read More Top Ten Films: 2020A decade at the movies is serious business. When the 2010s began, Avatar had just opened in theaters. It went on to top the all-time box office and spawned the short-lived resurgence of 3D, a fad that has mostly died out (again). Netflix, then known for its DVD rental services, was just beginning to expand […]
Read More Best Of The Decade: 2010sThings have changed.
Read More Top Ten Films: 2018It’s the morning of the Oscar nominations, and I’m not upset. This is weird. All the films I wanted to see nominated for Best Picture are. All the actors I hoped to see receive nominations for this year’s performances were. Compare and contrast to last year’s fatal omission of Kathryn Bigelow as Best Director, or […]
Read More The Not-Oscars 2013Hollywood is obsessed with money, I say. Duh, you think in response. But hear me out. In 2013, Hollywood was particularly obsessed with money. Not just with making money, but with telling stories about making — and losing — money. In my Top Ten list last year, I named Zero Dark Thirty my favorite film […]
Read More Top Ten Films: 2013Sometimes, you feel like a movie is just speaking directly to you. I saw Steve McQueen’s 12 Years A Slave last night, and I could so identify with the protagonist Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor) — because I, too, have been subject to the twisted whims and brutal hand of cruel fates and a merciless master. […]
Read More Solomon Chained: McQueen Unleashes A Mighty ‘Slave’It’s that time of year again, folks! What I like to call “movie Christmas.” And like an actual holiday, the Academy Awards often end up as more of a disappointment than anything else — any Oscars handed out to not-so-great nominated films like Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close and The Iron Lady can be chalked […]
Read More The Not-Oscars 2011Is it me, or were 2011’s movies more united by theme this year than is usual? Nostalgia was the big one, with several titles capitalizing not just on our nostalgia of a past era, but of movies from a past era — from silent films to Spielberg blockbusters and everything in between. Films like The […]
Read More Top Ten Films: 2011(Movies discussed in this post: Shame, Hunger, and Drive.) In film criticism, it is trendy to champion the smallest of movies. Micro-budgeted, artsy, foreign language — any or all of these qualities will do. The more bare-bones and stripped down a film is, the better. Basically, the less a movie has going for it to appeal […]
Read More Fuck Fuck, Splat Splat: The Best Sex & Violence Of 2011
REAL NOBODY 