Tag: film
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Our Art, Our Lives: On ‘Salty’ and ‘The Last Movie Stars’
When we make our art, we are also making our lives. And I’m sure that the reverse is equally true. That line is from Look & See, the beautiful documentary about the life and work of Wendell Berry. I think about it often, and I thought about it again recently as I feasted on two…
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Media of the moment
An ongoing series Blood, Sweat & Chrome: The Wild Story of Mad Max: Fury Road by Kyle Buchanan. An excellent oral history of one of the greatest films ever made. One of the many tidbits: George Miller’s first choice to play Max was Heath Ledger, which I now can’t stop thinking about. The Northman. A…
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Media of the moment
An ongoing series Jackass Forever. A dirty, cringey, gut-bustingly funny cinematic soul-cleanse. Bound for my end-of-year top 10 just like the other Jackass movies. Everything Everywhere All At Once. I think I need to see this at least twice to fully appreciate it, not for any plot reasons but because it really lives up to…
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Six movies at the end
The small movie theater near me temporarily closed in March 2020 due to COVID, but then sadly never reopened. (The one movie I got to see there before the end was Knives Out—not bad…) Whoever closed the building for good clearly didn’t take a peek around the corner, because these movie posters are still on…
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Long live the limited podcast series
My recent experience with the Band of Brothers podcast made me realized I’m very much a fan of the modern trend of “official” companion podcasts released alongside limited series by the show’s creators—Watchmen and Station Eleven being two recent examples I enjoyed and appreciated. These are slightly different beasts from the popular post hoc recap…
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Media of the moment
An ongoing series Extra Life: A Short History of Living Longer by Steven Johnson. My favorite author does it again, using his signature storytelling savvy to explain how human life expectancy has doubled in the last century. Vaccines, epidemiology, pasteurization, drug regulation, penicillin, and automobile safety sound like dry topics, but how they came to…
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Media of the moment
An ongoing series Everything my son consumes. Obvs. Love on the Spectrum. Just finished the second season of this heart-warming and instructive Australian reality dating show on Netflix featuring people on the autism spectrum. The delightful dynamic between Michael and his mom should be its own show. Abbey Road. I previously wrote about encountering the…
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Marvel-less
As the capstone of an 11-year cinematic journey through the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Avengers: Endgame was so thoroughly conclusive and satisfying that it has made me consider giving up on the MCU. Seriously, how can you top this: I’m sure someone can “well, actually” me about other even more epic crossover events in the comics…
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Media of the moment
An ongoing series of what I’ve read, seen, and heard lately Schmigadoon. Though its story is a little loose at the edges throughout the show’s short six-episode run, the central conceit of a couple getting stuck inside the world of an old-timey musical was a fun journey. Watch out for “Corn Puddin’” because it’s an…
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Siskel & Ebert, Mark Driscoll, and the Power of Popularity
Among the podcasts in my regular rotation, there are two others I’m listening to that are both limited series, airing concurrently, and happen to share a surprising thematic overlap. One is Gene and Roger, an eight-part Spotify-exclusive series from The Ringer that serves as an oral history of Gene Siskel, Roger Ebert, and their movie…
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Mad Max on the Feminism Road
Really enjoyed this post from Freddie de Boer about his frustration with the common misinterpretation of Mad Max: Fury Road as “Furiosa replaces Max in a Mad Max movie”—a take that’s entirely false: It’s important to understand that Furiosa doesn’t replace Max because the entire movie demonstrates the failure of dictatorship and the superiority of…