Chad Comello
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  • Those tender trenches

    Wanted to spotlight something from A.O. Scott’s interview with Steven Spielberg, where he talks about collaborating with screenwriter Tony Kushner on The Fabelmans: It’s hard to hold someone’s hand over Zoom, but Tony did a good job in giving me the kind of comfort I needed when we were tapping into moments in my life, […]

    December 10, 2022
    Etc.
    film, quotes, Steven Spielberg
  • Top 5 Christmas Movies

    Originally published at Cinema Sugar. 1. It’s A Wonderful Life The once and future king of Christmas movies. I could praise a lot of things: the cinematography, the supporting cast, the dramatic depth of Jimmy Stewart’s first postwar performance. But its magic ultimately comes down to Harry’s closing line—“A toast to my big brother, George, […]

    December 6, 2022
    Film
    best of, Christmas, Cinema Sugar, film, lists, movies
  • Movie trailers ruin movies

    Alissa Wilkinson preaches the truth about movie trailers: At best they’ll just show you stuff you probably knew anyway, or don’t need to know — who’s in the movie, what’s on the soundtrack, the basic plot setup. Maybe the look or the tone or the vibe. But trailers aren’t designed to give you a glimpse […]

    December 3, 2022
    Film
    film, movies
  • 7 Hard-Boiled Lessons from Noir Films Old and New

    Originally published at Cinema Sugar. These are dark times. It’s tempting to feel that it’s never been darker, that the weight of our modern struggles is unprecedented.  But I take comfort in knowing that film noir—a genre that has existed for almost 100 years—has been there before. It’s seen some shit. To show this, I’ve […]

    November 28, 2022
    Film
    best of, Cinema Sugar, film, film noir, lists, movies
  • Librerapy: the life-changing magic of library browsing

    As parents of littles know, going to the library with kids is a very different experience than going solo. (“Traveling with young kids is not a vacation, it is a trip.”) When in chaperone mode, if I’m lucky I can wrangle the three year old for just long enough to let me quickly browse the […]

    November 22, 2022
    Libraries
    libraries
  • Media of the moment

    An ongoing series Athena. Come for the gangbusters opening 10 minutes—stay for the tense, heart-pounding drama of Children of Men-meets-The Battle of Algiers in a French apartment complex. (Streaming on Netflix.) The End of Education by Neil Postman. My third Postman book after Amusing Ourselves to Death and Technopoly. Would probably rank it below those […]

    November 17, 2022
    Books, Film, Television
    books, media of the moment, movies
  • Lord of the Rewatch

    I just finished a rewatch of the Lord of the Rings trilogy extended editions, something I was saving for after I finished season one of The Rings of Power. And I’m glad I did because I was able to appreciate the trilogy that much more, with the events of Middle-earth’s earlier age as captured in […]

    November 7, 2022
    Film
    Lord of the Rings, movies
  • Top 5 Noir Movies

    Originally published at Cinema Sugar. 1. Double Indemnity This isn’t the first major noir (fedora-tip to The Maltese Falcon) but damned if it isn’t the genre’s absolute peak: femme fatale, no-nonsense narration, crime gone wrong, investigator on the case. It’s hard to pick Billy Wilder’s best movie but this has to be near the top. […]

    November 4, 2022
    Film
    best of, Cinema Sugar, film, film noir, lists, movies
  • 5 Okee Dokee Brothers songs I’m envious I didn’t write myself

    If you’re an artist of some kind, you’ve probably experienced this before. You encounter a piece of art and the first feeling it provokes is Awe (“This is amazing”), followed by Envy (“I wish I’d made that”), and then Inspiration (“I want to make something like that”). Ideally this becomes a virtuous cycle, a continuous […]

    November 3, 2022
    Music
    creativity, music, Okee Dokee Brothers, songwriting
  • Recent Views

    More photography here and on my Instagram. The view of the capitol building in Madison from the Madison Children’s Museum rooftop: Mr. 3 Year Old and his cousin on the slide at the Madison zoo: Stumbled upon this view atop a slide at a nearby suburban park: Ascending a magically wooded tunnel of stairs adjacent […]

    October 18, 2022
    Photography
    Baby Comello, Madison, nature, photography, recent views
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