Week In, Week Out

This week’s automated podcast is available on Anchor. The Father (2020): Dementia (particularly Alzheimer) has been a theme in many successful movies during the last decade or so, clearly a significant concern for our ever-aging Western society. These movies are never easy to watch. What sets The Father a apart is its nonlinear storytelling and… Read more

Check out the automated podcast here. The Map of Tiny Perfect Things (2020): If you’ve followed this blog at all, you know by now that I’m a sucker for time-loopy-rom-coms. What that in mind, I was surprised to come across TMoTPT, a time-loopy movie starring Kathryn Newton and Kyle Allen. The two make for a… Read more

Automated podcast here. Nomadland (2020): Chloe Zhao’s The Rider was a revelation and I’m glad to write that Nomadland is an equally accomplished piece of filmmaking. Telling the story of people living on the periphery of what most of us consider society to be, often the tales of actual people, playing versions of themselves, it… Read more

Listen to the (automated) podcast version of this week’s review at Anchor. Fourteen (2019): This is a powerful, lesser known drama about two friends, Mara and Jo, one sober and pragmatic, the other exuberant and quirky, and the frustrating dynamic between them. It almost feels like I am spoiling what the movie is about by… Read more

Holiday (1938): It’s good to see that even going back to the 1930s, there were people thinking of ways to retire in their 30s – if only they’d had some crypto to speculate in the day! Starring Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn, George Cukor’s romance shows its age at time, both thematically and in how… Read more

In & of Itself (2020): A surprising find (from the HBR podcast), Derek DelGaudio’s “documentary” is the rare example of an engrossing one-man performance that’s both clever and insightful, without feeling forced. It’s not your usual piece of filmmaking, as DelGaudio incorporates some impressive illusions to tell tales about himself and his (our) sense of… Read more

The Dig (2020): A good period piece is always enjoyable and, for the most part, The Dig is just that. Ralph Fiennes and Carey Mulligan are fascinating to watch in the interbelic story of one of Britain’s greatest archeological finds and while the movie focuses on them and their intrepid exploration, it’s engrossing. Unfortunately, about… Read more

Une fille facile (2019): A little dormant gem on Netflix, Rebecca Zlotowski’s An Easy Girl is a coming of age story that turned out considerably more wholesome than I expected. Leaving prejudice at the door, it tells the story of 16-year-old Naima’s summer with Sofia, her older cousin, who is, as many would surmise, the… Read more

See You Yesterday (2019): We’re back in the Bronx, this time with a time-travel story that proves considerably more impactful than last week’s vampire saga. In a way it’s funny, because there are a lot of similarities between the movies – pop reinterpretations of popular concepts, starring teens from US minorities, using the fantasy/sci-fi stories… Read more

Minari (2020): We’re getting close to awards season, Minari being one of this year’s contenders – and definitely a movie I relished. Looking at familiar tales of family and patriarchal pride, it tells the story of “a Korean family moving to Arkansas to start a farm in the 1980s” (via IMDb). The slow, deliberate pacing,… Read more

Requiem for a Dream (2000): So why not start the year with something shocking and daunting? Twenty years ago, Aronofsky rocked our puny world with his ramped up, drug infused drama on addiction and loneliness – and I’ve always felt that Requiem is more about the latter, than the former. Critics disliked the heavy handed… Read more

The End of the Tour (2015): This movie set me on a four-year adventure of reading Infinite Jest, which I finally finished last week. So, naturally, I immediately re-watched James Ponsoldt’s adaptation of David Lipskey’s book on meeting and interviewing David Foster Wallace. It was a good watch the first time around and remained as… Read more