Archives

September 2023

September 11, 2023
Fassbinder was my way into melodrama. True enough, I grew up catching my grandma’s stories...
September 10, 2023
Strongmen face a paradox: you need your guys. They must be skilled, capable, and efficient....
September 09, 2023
Michael Moore suicide bombing Mount Rushmore. A Parisian rue paved with cobblestones shaped like croissants....

August 2023

August 08, 2023
There’s an episode from one of my favorite childhood cartoons, Recess (1997-2001), called “The Game.”...

July 2023

July 22, 2023
Greta Gerwig’s Barbie (2023) is what the ads led you to believe. Barbieland is stunning...
July 21, 2023
There’s a reason no one’s ever found Jimmy Hoffa’s body. Ask anyone lucky enough to...
July 19, 2023
While watching Luchino Visconti’s The Damned (1969), my wife blurted out: “The Nazi budget for...
July 11, 2023
A recent book review asks: “There are Herzog memes, but no Fassbinder memes. Why is...
July 05, 2023
After absorbing Federico Fellini’s La Strada (1954) I didn’t say much for a few hours....

June 2023

June 23, 2023
Elmer Gantry (1960) is an easy movie to reduce to one of its elements. You...
June 21, 2023
It may come as a surprise to some Halloween (1978) fans that John Carpenter’s debut...
June 16, 2023
Found footage movies face a fundamental problem: editing. For a film to be “found” its...
June 12, 2023
With the Confessional Poets, there’s candor, yes. But more than that there’s shame. There may...
June 09, 2023
Influencer (2022) is the sort of movie in which a ruddy, sopping-wet Englishman sidles up...

May 2023

May 24, 2023
Low-hanging fruit but fruit nonetheless—I stand by (or slink past) my title. I’ve been down...
May 19, 2023
Someone remarked to me recently that Mick Foley, the ex-professional wrestler, may be among the...
May 15, 2023
Help me find the golden mean. One end, draped in the ole stars and stripes...
May 02, 2023
My distaste for director Ari Aster’s movies is, if not well known (because who would...
May 01, 2023
Dungeon and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023) crystallizes just about everything about moviemaking in our...

April 2023

April 24, 2023
Jeff Baena’s Spin Me Round (2022) is a work of décollage. But of what? Romantic...
April 17, 2023
I caught some flak for trashing Barbarian (2022). I’m not surprised. I hated the pilot...
April 11, 2023
You can rip his pair of striped pants off and slash away his mustache, but...
April 04, 2023
In 1959, bit TV actor and anti-Lee Strasberg workshop founder John Cassavetes filmed a 16mm,...

March 2023

March 29, 2023
When I went to summer camp in New Jersey in the late 90s and 2000s,...
March 27, 2023
Before there was Superbad (2007), there was The Daytrippers (1997). Director Greg Mottola’s debut feature...
March 23, 2023
Imagine if Kevin Smith made Dogma (1999) but in the flat, unaffected style of Clerks...
March 14, 2023
The thesis of John Cassavetes’ Minnie and Moskowitz (1971) is that most people are a...

February 2023

February 28, 2023
In recent years, I have mostly avoided weighing in on specific religious issues or controversies....
February 27, 2023
At the risk of sounding like de Maistre or Kierkegaard, “genius” is a bad word...
February 21, 2023
Bob Balaban. The name’s enough really. If I had seen it on a page before...
Related posts from Jappers and Janglers
Entertainment
The McPherson Tape: Do You Believe?
Jappers and Janglers
Entertainment
Drop: Date-Night Thrills
Jappers and Janglers
Entertainment
Volver: Light on the Melodrama
Jappers and Janglers
Entertainment
Fight Club: The Middle Child of History
Jappers and Janglers
POPULAR CONTENT