It’s exactly one year since I released my best of 2018 list, so points for consistency if not timeliness? Here’s this year’s edition. 1. Parasite My number 1 is the world’s #1: the Cannes Palme d’Or winner is also the first foreign language film to win Best Picture at the Oscars. I…

Wow, I’m late this year — Every year I swear to do one of these sometime between New Year’s Day and the Oscars. This year I took it down to the wire. Two 2018 films with which I have a personal connection get special mention above and apart from any formal top 10: punk rock slasher…

If you’re too young to have programmed a VCR, be very, very glad — As a budding, teen cinephile in the VHS era, I used to dream of unlimited, unfettered access to All The Movies. “All” is a big number, but in effect my dream has come true. For those of you too young to remember life before streaming, or even DVRs, let me…

a.k.a. the last ‘Best Movies of 2017’ list you’ll read this year — 1. Get Out Jordan Peele decides it might be fun to make a movie and knocks it out of the park on his first try—thanks to a rich, layered screenplay, an exceptional cast and a Kubrickian knack for composition. Most great horror films are also “social thrillers,” and this is undoubtedly both. …

*according to Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes — I don’t envy professional television critics. Don’t get me wrong: watching TV for a living sounds like fun, until you add up the sheer tonnage of scripted series out there. According to FX, there were new episodes of more than 450 comedies and dramas; odds are, 2017 will match or…

And why this surprise Netflix series is one of 2017’s best — The statement “everyone loves a good dick joke” has never been less true than at this moment in time. (See also: C.K., Louie). Which is why it’s a very good thing Netflix released American Vandal in mid September, a scant three weeks before The New York Times broke the Harvey…

a.k.a. Yet Another Excuse to Write About Tom Waits — After my piece on the cinematic oeuvre of Beatles drummer Ringo Starr (TLDR: mixed in quality but fucking fascinating), I opted to dig deeper on musicians (singers and rappers to be specific) who aren’t best known for their acting chops but can legit deliver the goods in notable, big screen…

I recently wrote a piece for Culture Sonar on one of my favorite cinematic cul-de-sacs, namely the weird, extremly ‘60s/’70s films of Richard Starkey MBE, better known as Ringo Starr. I once e̶n̶c̶o̶u̶r̶a̶g̶e̶d̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶c̶e̶d̶ commissioned @patricklee_10429 to write about this subject as part of an overview of all Beatles-related films…

“Send…more…paramedics.” That memorable line from Return of the Living Dead never fails to crack me up. In fact, those may be my three favorite words in any horror movie, ever. Which is why I was so saddened to learn this morning that the man behind that line, screenwriter Dan O’Bannon…