Under the Silver Lake and Unexplained Explanations
In which a mystery is solved and also not solved and anyway why are you so concerned with solutions, bub?
Category Archives: Active Observation
Baby It’s You, John Sayles’s Un-‘80s ‘80s High School Movie
An ’80s high school movie not like the other ’80s high school movies.
The Beach Bum Has It Figured Out (Unless He Doesn’t)
In which Harmony Korine returns to befuddle and amuse you.
Us, in Which A Metaphor is Mistaken for A Movie
Thoughts on a scare-less horror movie.
The Best Movies of 2018, and A Bunch More Besides
So many movies, so little time, so few brain cells.
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Does Whatever a Whole Bunch of Spiders Can
Do we need this many spider people? Come inside and I will tell you.
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, In Which The Coens Dust Off a Sextet of Death
The old west, Coens style.
Hopper’s The Last Movie Exhumed
Spoiler: turns out it was not, in fact, the last movie. It is, however, pretty dang nutty.
Hal: A Documentary That Proves Hal Ashby Loved Me Best
In which we get closer to answers and insights regarding one of the best—and least discussed—directors.
John McEnroe: In The Realm of Perfection, In Which Tennis Is Fiction
A pleasurably peculiar documentary about the intersection of film and tennis, of lies and truth, of McEnroe and clay.
BlacKkKlansman Sets History On Fire
Spike Lee’s period piece fights its way into the present and kicks you in the face.
The Falls: Peter Greenaway’s Violent Unknown Event Movie
A 92 part mock documentary that makes the horrors inflicted by Hitchcock’s birds seem downright pleasant by comparison.
Mission: Impossible – Fallout Is A Bunch of Malarkey
A movie desperate to be fun suffers from desperation.
If Unsane Is Not Insane, Neither Is It Normal
A slightly off-kilter movie that could have used a little more off-kiltering.