Beltmann

I tend to like Jason Statham movies, but A Working Man is colossally bad, a tired, by-the-numbers stump that is substandard in every which way. Each scene is presented as if the script never evolved past the outline stage. There's no personality, no style, no suspense. But it's worse than that: The last thing we need right now is a dopey cartoon that glorifies extralegal measures and knowingly stokes the same fears that are currently being used to justify such authoritarian impulses. "It's just entertainment," you might say, and I hear ya. But right now, I can't help but feel that "escapism" a

Last month one of my most inquisitive students engaged me in a discussion about the role those with settler privilege might play in decolonization. When might gestures toward allyship become a form of recolonization? That’s an important question, but it’s one that primarily occupies the Western mind and presumes a Western point of view. Our conversation came to mind while watching Mati Diop’s excellent new documentary Dahomey, which chronicles the return of 26 treasures that were stolen from the Kingdom of Dahomey more than a century ago by French colonial troops. Today in the West

I didn't buy large swathes of Magazine Dreams, but I was nevertheless riveted. Sometimes a fearless performance, and the right tone, can carry a movie right past its many flaws. We are invited deep into Killian Maddox's head, and we leave with him deep inside of our own.

"If you understand what I'm talking about, you're gonna take the money. If you don't, then I'm gonna have to worry about you." Liked Bound a bunch in '96, but at the time I wouldn't have guessed that it was destined to become one of the decade's defining movies. (I've seen this watery, handsy noir more times than just about any other movie from that era, and the new Criterion 4K makes all those whites and blacks and reds look better than ever.)

Update: Watched and LOVED.

Hell yes. Awesome!

I've really been rocked by this loss, much more than I anticipated. Obviously David Lynch was a major artist--some of his films mean a great deal to me--but he was also an articulate advocate for personal art and in every which way a fantastic human being. Those familiar only with his movies might be surprised to discover that the artist behind that strange, abrasive content was in real life the (slightly off-kilter) Guy Next Door, a big softie, a generous spirit who loved people and loved being kind. I think this loss hits me harder than most "celebrity" deaths because he's been a constant pr

That's a strong list. I liked all of 'em--except for The Seed of the Sacred Fig, which I haven't seen yet. (I have a copy here, though, and am eager to watch soon.) Speaking of Mohammad Rasoulof... I'm friendly with an obscure Iranian documentarian who splits her time between Tehran and Milwaukee, and some years back I invited her to see Rasoulof's Manuscripts Don't Burn with me. Afterward, she dropped the bombshell that she knew Rasoulof and was a little pissed: "I'm going to yell at him when I go back to Iran. He didn't warn me that it would be so grim. It was like watching a documentar

The chemistry between Keke Palmer and Sza is so electric, their hijinks are so funny, and the pace is so zippy that when the main plot arc of One of Them Days succumbs to formula it feels a little deflating. Still, when no one's looking the movie spikes the punch bowl: The coolest thing about this supercool comedy is the way the script sardonically reflects upon American economic inequality and the intersection of class, race and capitalism. It's all so breezy that it might be easy to underestimate its lethal takedowns. Heed has not been taken!

Yesterday I stumbled upon an old Super 8 film shot by my father in the summer of 1980. It features the six-year-old me riding a bicycle on the dead-end street leading to our village apartment in Jackson, Wisconsin. No cars, no fear... until, as the movie undeniably proves, our asshole mailbox refused to yield the right of way. My mind doesn't actually remember that crash--I must trust the movie when it tells me about that day, including how my silly faces mugged for the camera--but I do remember the sensations of that chrysalis age, and comprehend how those sensations entered a kind of perpetu

I've seen All of Us Strangers three times now (this viewing: Criterion's 4K disc) and it just keeps getting better. It's the kind of film that asks you to scoot forward and lean in before it whispers its secrets to you. I love this movie.

Despite their stylistic differences, both Edward Berger's Conclave and Clint Eastwood's Juror #2 feel like distressed responses to the same five-alarm fire. At a time when ideological divides in the Western world have led leading democracies to empower strongmen, Berger contemplates what it means to be a good leader and Eastwood goes even further, pondering whether "truth" and "justice" have been made so malleable that their utility has been vaporized. Both of these movies put on a good show, but it's hard to watch without trembling, too. The closing shots of Juror #2 have been wid

I'm unfamiliar with Gregory Maguire's novel and the Broadway musical, so perhaps they have more to offer than this movie's primitive proposal: What if everything we knew about the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good Witch was wrong? The first two-thirds of the movie answers that question in the most generic of ways, with a patchy songbook, sludgy visuals, and interminable scenes that simply do not have the dramatic weight to warrant such bloat. (The best this anti-fascism allegory can muster is some performative dismay, which hardly meets this moment in American history.)

Showed my wife My Old Ass (sorry). There's a tactile beauty to the cranberry farm and the surrounding lake that creates a real yet modest sense of place; similarly, this is a movie that wears its wisdom lightly.

Imagine this lugubrious movie being made in the '80s as a bright buddy comedy and marvel at what they've taken from you.

Emilia Pérez / dir. Jacques Audiard, 2024 Often the real mission of criticism isn't making precise observations but rather deciding, when set against each other, how much those things matter. Those carping about the flaws of this garish musical melodrama aren't wrong--by turns it is clunky, tone-deaf, maybe even irresponsible. But it also obliterates conventions in exhilarating, joyful ways, and I suspect over time those pieces that work will overwhelm those that don't. They will emerge as the ones that most matter.

Slumber Party Massacre II (1987) is a slasher with a disembodied tone--the loopy, late rockabilly rupture between what we see and what we feel creates pure '80s delirium. Is this good? Is this bad? Ohh, God. Anybody got any tranqs?

You say Saturday Night dodges any real character insights or thematic reasons to exist? Well, la-di frickin da! This SNL kid with an encyclopedic knowledge of every era of one of TV's true institutions was left helpless to resist. Rather than present a factual portrait of that galvanizing opening night in 1975, director Jason Reitman aims instead to capture SNL's animating spirit, the one that knows irresponsibility is part of the pleasure of art. Like SNL itself, Saturday Night embraces high-wire chaos, volcanic highs and lows, and a naive yet sincere conviction that the "let's just put on a

Some of the reliable Wisconsin contingent was in attendance, so it was terrific to run into quite a few friendly faces. We missed you, pal! Jeff's banter was in top form, even if some of the "material" was recycled--for example, he told familiar stories about Sue being upset about that one time Jeff didn't dedicate "I'm the Man Who Loves You" to her and about the shenanigans that went down when he managed a liquor store at an age too young. One highlight: While Jeff was setting up "Lou Reed Was My Babysitter," a patron near the front stood and hastily made her way up th

I saw Terrifier 3. In my view, Art the Clown should be arrested for murder.

Announced today: Jeff Tweedy and Karly Hartzman have contributed a live Solid Sound recording of "How Hard It Is For a Desert To Die" to Cardinals at the Window, a 135-song collection of previously unreleased material being sold at Bandcamp to assist the victims of Hurricane Helene in Western North Carolina.

In Azazel Jacobs' His Three Daughters, estranged sisters Carrie Coon, Elizabeth Olsen and Natasha Lyonne gather to watch over their dying father. One of my favorite choices is to set this three-hander in a small, plain, undistinguished apartment, rather than the kind of sprawling estate that normally houses such stories (first to come to mind: Cries and Whispers, August: Osage County, September, This Is Where I Leave You). For me, the choice is especially uncanny--and unnerving--because the furnishings and cramped layout of this particular space closely resemble the modest condo where I spent

True! Pure gold.

Sports junkies are usually open to any story recapped in the "30 for 30" style, but the new documentary Just a Bit Outside: The Story of the 1982 Milwaukee Brewers might prove perplexing for anyone who isn't a local fan still clinging to the 1982 season. After all, it's not an underdog story (the Brewers were expected to contend) nor a triumph-over-adversity story (the Brewers came up short). Why chronicle a glorious run that ended in failure, ushering in another 40+ years of franchise futility? I'm not sure this movie can answer that question for anyone who isn't True Blue Brew Cr

FYI: All six songs were shared on Wilco's YouTube page on Thursday.