Tag: Coen Brothers

• 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.…

  Nov 4, 2022

  # Alfred Hitchcock, best of, Cinema Sugar, Coen Brothers, film, film noir, lists, Memento, movies, The Third Man

• Down from Basswood: Voices from the Boundary Waters

  A friend of mine recently moved to northern Minnesota’s Iron Range. He said he’d been looking online for information about the region when he stumbled upon mention of an obscure book that was supposed to really capture the area well. It was the short story collection Down from Basswood: Voices from the Boundary Waters by…

  Feb 25, 2021

  # books, Boundary Waters, Chippewa, Cliff Huhta, Coen Brothers, Communism, Down from Basswood, fiction, Finland, history, Lynn Maria Laitala, Minnesota, Native Americans, nature, reading, review, Sigurd Olson, Wendell Berry, Wisconsin

• Favorite Films of 2018

  My theme for last year’s movies was the strength of women. This year, it’s time for some manly love. (Archer voice: “Phrasing!”) Since June, when I found out I was going to be a father, I’ve been keenly aware of how fatherhood has been portrayed in this year’s crop of movies. What strikes me now,…

  Jan 4, 2019

  # Alfonso Cuarón, best of, Coen Brothers, fatherhood, film, John Cho, lists, movies, Paul Dano, review, Spider-Man, Spike Lee, The Death of Stalin, Yorgos Lanthimos

• Favorite Books of 2018

  Goodreads tells me I read 72 books this year. Though I didn’t read as many as last year, with a baby on the way I’ve been trying to read abundantly while I can, for both quality and quantity. Here are the books published in 2018 that I enjoyed the most. (See previous best-of book lists.)…

  Jan 2, 2019

  # 2001: A Space Odyssey, best of, books, Boom Town, Circe, Coen Brothers, lists, Madeline Miller, Oklahoma City, quotes, review, The Odyssey

• Favorite Films of 2016

  According to my records I watched 83 films in 2016, 33 of which came out this year. As is the case with my reading, I’m in a “watch as much as I can” zone because I love movies and there’s so much great stuff and there are too many movies and I’ll never have this…

  Jan 3, 2017

  # Arrival, best of, Coen Brothers, film, Hell Or High Water, Jeff Nichols, lists, Marvel, Moonlight, movies, review, Richard Linklater, The Wave