Beltmann

And so began the Cheese Touch Frenzy. Friend turning on friend. Brother turning on sister. It was madness.

Hey, bleedorange! Great to see you back in these parts!

Kicked off October, my usual month for nonstop horror, by watching the movie that has horrified the Twittersphere. There are deep divides inside of Andrew Dominik's Blonde, a movie that is not about Marilyn Monroe or Norma Jeane Mortenson, but rather "Marilyn," a fictional, cracked-mirror imagination of Monroe. The movie, not unlike Dominik's earlier portrait of Jesse James, uses this invented avatar to examine the duality of being both a person and a celebrity, expanding into a larger, impressionistic meditation on how the spotlight has the power to shine and to burn, whether it i

Today I thought I heard a guy driving down Main Street blaring "Kamera" and singing along maniacally as if it were 2002 and he was hearing such sonic gold for the very first time. Then I glanced in the rearview mirror and realized it was me. Phone my family, tell 'em I'm lost.

I've spent the last few months diving deep into Criterion's 15-disc Agnès Varda box set, rewatching many old favorites and taking in all of the bonus features and essays. There are also a handful of features that are new to me and man, I was really sleeping on Kung-Fu Master!, a knockout starring Jane Birkin that I should have seen years ago. It might be Varda's most underrated feature.

My 14-year-old enjoyed See How They Run so much that I'm going to show him Knives Out soon, hopefully in time to take him to see The Glass Onion when it arrives. It's nice to see a throwback entertainment meant to be light yet still well-crafted and eager to please. Twenty years ago, this kind of original movie was a regular item on the menu; these days, it feels like welcome nourishment after weeks spent in the desert. I've also been baffled by the studio's treatment of Confess, Fletch as an afterthought. The original Chevy Chase movie was formative for both my wife and me, so we planned to s

My weekend proved overstuffed, so I haven't yet had much opportunity to dive deep into the set, but just a cursory glance and listen at the contents has me over the moon. As someone who has spent decades with the YHF demos/engineer's demos, I agree with maxspr1 that there's still a treasure trove of unfamiliar material here. I'm also struck by how the tracks have been presented in a way that even the Criterion Collection might envy. Discs 2-4, especially, appear to be arranged into albums from the multiverse; these are what may have been the released versions of YHF had different decisions bee

Compared to most mainstream animation designed for kids, Netflix’s "The Sea Beast" feels like a tonic, a real movie rather than a manic machine. Yes, it has expansive, exciting action scenes, but it also takes the time to earn them through solid characterization. The first half is especially strong, which allows the movie to eventually challenge viewers to consider the generational pull (and consequences) of inherited bigotry. That's big stuff for a children's movie, and once it is introduced, the movie unfortunately shifts into a less interesting didactic mode. But the characters remain compe

Ti West’s “Pearl" exists in the same universe as March’s “X,” but provides a wildly different experience. This time around, the horror is built by re-shuffling colorful parts taken from Douglas Sirk, Busby Berkeley, “The Wizard of Oz,” and more. It also gives Mia Goth a ripe opportunity to expand an original character from “X” through a show-stopping performance that, if it existed in any other genre, might generate some awards buzz.

Do yourself a favor: See it in a theater and go in as cold as possible. I'll just say that it applies some impeccable satirical logic, skillfully maintains its suspense and pace throughout, gleefully embraces its wildest ideas, and deploys tonal shifts to hugely entertaining effect.

It was also great to see many old friends!

Spot on, as always, Paul. Stacy and I were standing at the "second rail," which provided a perfect view for the entire evening. For my money, it was the best Wilco show in Wisconsin since 2017, maybe.

I'm not interested in doing that, either, which is why I'm definitely putting CC at the very bottom of my list. Putting it anywhere else? The mind boggles.

I am so primed for something like this. (Fun fact: I once saw FoW and Wilco back-to-back at Summerfest. Still one of my favorite concert-going memories.)

That was a great post (thank you!) that echoes a lot of my feelings about the record, including the portion I quoted above. Those flashes of beauty and weirdness keep unfolding and expanding for me. "Unsettled" is the right word. I think the whole album, taken as a large concept in which the pieces are in conversation with each other, is a magnificent project that exceeds the power of its individual parts. The title strikes me as an easy gateway: It's about country music, yes, but it's also about a country, and it's about navigating what we think we know about each.

I'm having a complicated reaction to this album that seems to be rooted in competing sensors and expectations. Most of all, I respond to Wilco's multifaceted muse; I love both chaotic and folksy Wilco, so I'm prepared to follow the band wherever it wants to take me. Still, let me confess that after years of virus and dreary politics, and two brilliant yet relatively pensive albums, what I most wanted from new Wilco was a return to robust rock. And given Jeff's long months playing acoustic versions of his songs on the Tweedy Show, and his expressed desire to emerge from lockdown ready to b

Yes! I said the same to my wife yesterday while listening in the car.

I'm still in disbelief. I never met Dave in person, but his presence here and elsewhere on social media made him, to me at least, a larger-than-life member of our community. His absence leaves a gaping hole.

Has film discourse really devolved to, you must think "Everything Everywhere All at Once" is a perfect masterpiece or you hate art? Only slightly less exhausting than reading online reactions to the sci-fi black comedy is the experience of watching the movie, which I found simultaneously exhilarating and deflating. There’s no question that this fiercely original movie should be widely celebrated, but set aside for a moment the wild comic invention, the philosophical musings, the rich romanticism, and Michelle Yeoh’s shaded, career-defining performance as a Chinese-American who harnesses the ab

Agreed! Masterful.

On a basic story level, both VFW and Old Henry present variations on the action convention of a small band of men defending against siege that John Carpenter (and Howard Hawks) efficiently perfected. In the case of VFW, that means an aging squadron of Vietnam veterans protecting a ramshackle bar against marauding mutant junkies and dealers. The movie doesn’t pretend to have any aspirations beyond generic exploitation, but at least it has a capable cast that includes Stephen Lang, William Sadler, Martin Kove, Fred Williamson, and George Wendt. Much better is Old Henry, a Western abo

Benedetta has been received (and marketed) as “Paul Verhoeven’s nunsploitation movie,” and it’s hard to deny its willful embrace of iconoclasm, sacrilege, and, at times, a pervy male gaze. Still, by pulling viewers into a 17th-century Italian convent aiming to keep both the devil and the plague at bay, Verhoeven seems most interested in exploring power hierarchies and the intermingling of religion, corruption, and delusion. He also asks sincere questions about what it means to be a person of faith. It’s a showy, unruly melding of the sensational and the intellectual, and I kind of loved it.

Seen rather than heard. Fun sidebar in the newest issue of Entertainment Weekly.

Did you like it, Boss_Tweedy? I know many top critics, including those with whom I'm usually in sync, are hive-dumping on Belfast. But I've seen it twice now and am eager to stand up for it. It's not a deep movie (if you're looking for a historical, analytical look at the Troubles, you won't find it), but it has plenty of other virtues, including a generous catalog of impressionistic, bittersweet vibes from a child's point-of-view that are, cumulatively, very moving. Personal anecdote: In December I took my 13-year-old son to see Belfast, unsure about whether he would enjoy it

The uproar around the Spidey snubbing seems misguided, I think. First, it's silly to complain about the Oscars, which have never been a reliable barometer of artistic merit. It's all a fool's errand. Second, the griping is predicated on the specious notion that box-office hits should automatically be considered artistic triumphs and the false premise that the Oscars aren't populist enough (a stronger case could be made that the Oscars are too middle-brow, routinely overlooking the best, most artistically rewarding fare). Third, it presumes that awards ceremonies ought to cater to populism, to