question of the weekend: do you miss video-rental stores?
If you’re too young to have had experienced them, what do you imagine you might have missed?
The Card Counter movie review: unnatural stillness at the center of the storm
Grim, mysterious, and unsettling, never more so than when it is quiet and still. But a brutality lurks below its calm, slick surface. Oscar Isaac’s performance is a work of astonishing minimalism.
Copilot movie review: how love warps women’s lives
Tragic anti-romance uses cinematic conventions and the presumptions of fiction to disorient us. Bursts the bubble of a certain kind of movie delusion to highlight a harsh reality of women’s lives.
question of the weekend: what movie do you most associate with autumn?
Maybe it’s a film set in the autumn, or maybe there’s some other association for you.
Cinderella (2021) movie review: from the ashes…
Fairy tale goes jukebox musical with a feminist, gender-fluid spin. Throws irony and sarcasm at heterosexuality, patriarchy, even monarchy. Pretty darn fun, with a sweetly spunky Ella in Cabello.
‘Cultural Artifacts’ now on Kindle Unlimited
With links to try Kindle Unlimited, Amazon’s all-you-can-read buffet, for free if you’re not already a subscriber…
question of the weekend: what is your seminal movie?
Define “seminal” however you like. Or perhaps you have a seminal movie experience or movie moment, not a film itself but a moviegoing experience or an association that made you fall in love with cinema.
curated: “Trailers Use Slower and Moodier New Versions of Classic Songs to Lure Viewers”
We’re not paying enough attention to trailers. The beatings will continue until morale improves.
The Last Bus movie review: middle of the road
British twee is baked into this slight travelogue. Spall’s performance is lovely, and though the film mostly avoids overt schmaltz in favor of mild sentimentality, it’s gentle to the point of inertia.
Together movie review: lockdown love-hate
Fresh, raw, wielding physical and psychological intimacy like a shiv, this is a deeply compelling, empathetic emotional roller coaster fueled by McAvoy’s and Horgan’s intense and cutting performances.
