The Biggest and Best Movie of the Summer of 2015 Will Be…
Before getting my hopes up too high for this summer’s seemingly promising crop of films, I decided to go back and assess the respective film lineups of the past three summers. 2014: Guardians of the Galaxy, Transformers: Age of Extinction, Maleficent, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, The Amazing […]
Ranking the 2015 Best Picture Nominees
It occurred to me the other day that, despite seeing every film nominated for the 2015 Best Picture Oscar, I’ve only formally reviewed one. What?!? And it was a dud of a film—The Theory of Everything. Maybe that speaks to my general indifference toward this crop of nominees; after all, it’s easier and way more […]
Best Quotes from Paul Thomas Anderson Movies
Last year around this time, I put together a post featuring the best Wes Anderson quotes. I was rewatching some of Anderson’s films, and Bottle Rocket made me laugh; that was the inspiration. It’s been one of my most successful posts over the last year, weirdly enough, so I thought I’d so more. Digging into […]
What Are the Best Movies of the Decade So Far?
It’s hard to imagine we’re five years removed from the myriad “Best Movies of the Decade” posts of 2009. That was fun, and each intervening year since has produced more than enough titles worthy of appearing on such lists. Of course, most of those titles won’t eventually make it when we get to the end […]
Plan the Ultimate Snowmageddon Movie Marathon
Potentially record snowfall is set to hit Boston, New York, and other areas along the East coast over the next 24 hours. It’s bad news for multiplexes—American Sniper might only make $20 million a day instead of $30 million—but the folks over at Netflix must be giddy. If you’re snowed in this week and looking […]
The 20 Best Performances of 2014
It was a great year for acting, and I still haven’t seen some of the year’s most acclaimed performances. If David Oyelowo (Selma), Julianne Moore (Still Alice), Benedict Cumberbatch (The Imitation Game), J.K. Simmons (Whiplash), Timothy Spall (Mr. Turner), Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Beyond the Lights), or anyone else bowls me over the way they have so […]
The Best Films of 2014
It seems you’re supposed to open your end-of-year favorite films list with an assessment of the movie year as a whole, but I’ve never really been interested in that. Good, bad, or somewhere in between—I have no idea what I’d say about 2014 other than I love the 20 films I’m writing about today and […]
10 Movies I Can Watch Any Time
My favorite movies are The Godfather, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Psycho. But I’m not always in the mood to watch three hours of the mafia, apes and wormholes, or Janet Leigh getting murdered. There’s a big difference between best movies and favorite movies, and there’s an even bigger difference between favorite movies and most […]
34 Things That Are Wrong in Draft Day
Ivan Reitman’s Draft Day—I’m not sure I’ve ever reacted to a movie the way I did to this one. It tells the story of Sonny Weaver, Jr. (played by Kevin Costner)—the embattled general manager of a fictional version of the Cleveland Browns. This version of the Browns is similar to the real one insofar as […]
2014 TIFF Preview
The 2014 Toronto International Film Festival is fast approach, and as I usually do, I’ve combed through every lineup and pulled out the 50 most exciting films for my 2014 TIFF preview. I won’t be attending the fest, but I’ll be waiting with bated breath for news about the quality of these and other great […]
Top 10 Movies of the “Filmspotting Era”
Webster’s Dictionary defines Filmspotting as “a force of good in the universe.” Or maybe that was Rian Johnson. Whatever the case, my favorite film podcast turned 500 this past week, and to celebrate the occasion it held a live event where hosts Adam and Josh counted down their top five favorite films of the “Filmspotting […]
10 Criterion Documentaries You Should Buy This Month
My latest post for Sound on Sight (and first in a while) went up over the weekend. It’s a plea to cinephiles everywhere to consider some non-fiction when they make their half-off Criterion purchases this month at Barnes and Noble. A new Blu-grade of Hearts and Minds, the infinitely interesting Qatsi trilogy, the 3-D Pina, […]
2014 Summer Movie Preview: Part 2
I can’t remember a summer—hell, I can’t remember any period of time—during which a crop of indies was so far and away better/more promising than its blockbuster counterpart. My 10 most-anticipated major Hollywood motion pictures list included no honorable mentions, and if I’m being honest, I’m not extremely excited about a few items I actually […]
2014 Summer Movie Preview: Part 1
You can’t go anywhere—on the internet, your television, or in person—without being inundated with The Amazing Spider-Man 2 ads, which tells this guy one thing: the movie is coming soon…though you could have said the same thing a year ago considering the over-saturation of this baby. I jest because I care—or at least I used […]
5 Essential 30 for 30 Documentaries
Over at Sound on Sight, I wrote a piece on the best of ESPN’s incredible 30 for 30 series of sports documentaries in honor of March Madness and the debut of its latest film, Requiem for the Big East. I still have caught up with Requiem, but I did watch a lot of films in […]
