weekend watchlist: some much needed yet very realistic eco-optimism
Plus adventures in drinking, hanging out in bars, and murder. (First published August 7th, 2022, on Substack and Patreon.)
Mads Mikkelsen
Riders of Justice and Pig movies review: rethinking the revenge movie
Two brilliant dramas upend cinematic tropes of male vengeance with precision, patience, and grim humor. These are radical rethinks in emotional maturity surrounding men’s grief, remorse, and shame.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story movie review: the high price of hope
There’s genuine fun here, but the humor is cynical, the heroics are tinged with regret, and it’s all delivered with a cold smack of — yes — political relevance.
Doctor Strange movie review: even Marvel is now tired of origin stories
Busy with CGI to hide the emptiness where the emotional core should be. Even the mechanics of getting a man from mere mortal to demigod-in-a-cape are rote.
female gazing at: Hugh Dancy
In the wake of Hannibal…
Everyone’s Going to Die movie review: black comedy among the blues
Strange and wonderful and unclassifiable in the best way, this is an unexpectedly touching and oddly funny platonic romance. Sort of.
The Salvation movie review: manifest density
Nearly Blazing Saddles without the jokes: all genre conventions with none of the fun, just your inescapable expectations met around every sun-blighted corner.
movies I can’t wait to see at the 58th BFI London Film Festival
LFF is a veritable orgy of cinema, and I love it. It’s exhausting, but I love it.
Sherlock Series 3 teaser trailer: too much a tease!
Oh, this is torture. More! Now!
