Scoob! movie review: Scooby dooby don’t
A spectacularly scattershot, pandering mess of pulp junk, cheap-looking animation, and poisonous gender dynamics. A charmless cash-grab that can’t be bothered with the slightest stab at originality.
Year: 2020
curated: how we look at art… and how we think about looking at art
I suspect these essays hit me hard because how we see and think about the world is changing rapidly and dramatically as everything pauses during the coronavirus pandemic…
my 2020 film ranking is filling out… even with cinemas closed
A peek at my ongoing ranking of 2020’s new movies — there are plenty! (The full list is now available to all Patreon patrons at all pledge levels. This post is free for all.)
Becoming documentary review: hope floats
Verges on an ad for Michelle Obama’s memoir, but a sincerely warm one. We glimpse a woman authentically funny, self-aware, down-to-earth. Like spending time with a friend you didn’t realize you had.
Spaceship Earth documentary review: under the dome, and under a scrutinous eye
Was Biosphere 2 scientific adventure or eco-entertainment? This is a gripping portrait of the billionaire’s folly/performance-art project, a hippie SF soap opera with unsettling resonance for today.
How to Build a Girl movie review: instruction manual not included
The hypocrisy of the world’s expectations of girls gets a gently sardonic knock via an audaciously confident young woman battling to be herself. This is a lovely, goofy movie, easygoing and chaotic.
Capital in the Twenty-First Century documentary review: eat the rich (cuz they’re eating us)
Attention, social justice warriors. French economist Thomas Piketty’s howl-of-rage academic treatise is now a hugely engaging documentary, eye-opening and brutally entertaining. Man the barricades!
Bad Education movie review: school for scandal
A laugh-until-you-cry dramedy burlesque, brilliantly structured and horrifically compelling, about the endless grift that passes for an economy in America. Hugh Jackman is at the peak of his powers.
The Assistant movie review: the realities of being a girl
A quietly brutal film that shows the dark underbelly of an industry — of a world — dominated by often predatory straight white men. Could be an eye-opener on a larger scale… if only we listen.
Extraction movie review: meet the sociopathic white savior
Who are we rooting for in this accidental parody of the empty absurdity of modern action films? Everyone is awful, or a human macguffin. This is soulless technical wankery bereft of humor or humanity.
