Reviews and comments on movies & television
It’s that time of year again! The eve of the Academy Awards. For those who are interested, here are my thoughts on 9 of the 10 Best Picture nominees. It was a pretty strong year for films, IMO. My favorites were American Fiction, Barbie, and Past Lives, but all have their virtues and rewards. Note: there may be some spoilers here, so beware if you care about that. American Fiction, dir...
A rundown of my favorite books, movies, and TV shows of 2023.
The beginning of this year has been much more full of work than I’d like, so I have not had time to engage in many recreational activities. But I have managed to see all but one of the Oscars best picture nominees as well as quite a few others in the major categories. It was a strong year for films (but a bad one for donkeys). Read on for more details, which I have tried to keep (mostly) non...
Last month I learned about a movie-watching challenge called Noirvember that was founded by “cinema fanatic” Marya E. Gates. The goal is to watch one film noir movie a day during the month of November. It was a daunting prospect, but I’ve always been interested in the genre, and this month happened to be a mostly fallow period in my TV viewing schedule, so I jumped in by signing up for a 2-week...
After watching the first season of Loki on Disney+ (highly recommended!), I realized I barely remembered the events of the first Thor movie in which Loki was introduced. Plot points from the film are mentioned several times in the show, so I decided to rewatch it, and just for kicks write a full-on recap – an activity that is particularly fun when the film being recapped isn’t great art. Spoiler:...
I’ve been watching quite a bit of television this spring, and some of it has been quite good! Read on for more about the highlights as well as my thoughts on a couple of mixed bags. Mare of Easttown Kate Winslet plays a dumpy detective in suburban Pennsylvania who is struggling to process the death of her son while also dealing with a lot of other family drama. And Jean Smart plays her...
I didn’t make as much of an effort to prepare for the Academy Awards this year, because… pandemic. I’ve had less energy to engage in projects that take a lot of time and concentration, and I’ve been reluctant to shell out $20 to digitally “rent” some of the nominated films. However, I did manage to see six out of eight of the best picture nominees as well as a smattering of the rest. Below are...
Despite all the craziness in the world recently (or perhaps because of it), I’ve been all about movies in the past few weeks. Specifically, prep for the Oscars! This year I made an effort to see all of the Best Picture nominees before the awards ceremony — and I succeeded! My thoughts on the films are presented below, in the order in which I watched them. There are some minor spoilers...
To be clear before I start, I am a huge science fiction nerd, in all media forms — books, TV, movies, comics, games… everything. But I am not what I would call a fan of Star Trek. Have I watched a lot of it? Absolutely. For long stretches of time, Star Trek (in various incarnations) was the only SF on television, and for much of my life it has been a wonderful bonding experience to...
As always, I remain fairly indifferent to spoilers, so continue at your own risk. MOVIES Faces Places (2017) A documentary about a road trip around rural France that is also a documentary about itself and the growing friendship between the directors, New Wave legend Agnès Varda and “photograffeur” JR. There’s a free-wheeling openness to experience and the people they meet as well as a touching...