Scarecrow Academy goes tomorrow (4/11) at 2pm Pacific Time. I'll lead a conversation about a little film called DR. STRANGELOVE. The free online series is devoted to "The 60s on Film," and this is definitely that. Join us, or you'll answer to the Coca-Cola company. scarecrowvideo.org/posts/scarec...

I say something about Sergei Loznitsa's superb TWO PROSECUTORS, which plays in Seattle at @siffnews.bsky.social Uptown this week. scarecrowvideo.org/posts/the-se...

I found Joss Whedon's MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING to be glib (somebody sign up the screenwriter, though), but this little ditty has been going through my head in the week since I watched it www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_lV...

Having watched PSYCHO so many times I'm not sure how there's another way to appreciate Joseph Stefano's ear for dialogue, but this time I wrote down: "No sense dwelling on our losses" - Norman (who is very good at savoring ironies)

Last week in Scarecrow Academy I compared the 1/2 hr post-suicide-attempt scene in THE APARTMENT to the 1/2 hr apartment scene in BREATHLESS (both 1960, both set in one apartment location), and hear me out on the way this indicates the way movie-time will evade expectations in 60s cinema ...

Read a Sports Illustrated online piece in which the author said the Seahawks had "lucked out" by missing out on some favored free agents - had bad luck, that is. Will this be a thing now, "lucking out" as a negative term? It was bad enough when "goat" became "GOAT"

Acknowledging some bewilderment with ALPHA, looking back admiringly to RAW. scarecrowvideo.org/posts/the-se...

I will be convening Year 8 of @scarecrowvideo.bsky.social Academy next Saturday. Online, free, 2pm PST. This year we go crashing through 1960s cinema, kicking off w/Billy Wilder's THE APARTMENT (last 50s film, or first 60s film? Discuss). Join us? scarecrowvideo.org/posts/scarec...

Oh yes, I liked THE BRIDE!, for my Seasoned Ticket column at the @scarecrowvideo.bsky.social website. scarecrowvideo.org/posts/the-se...

Just got back from seeing THE BRIDE! Hard to understand how anybody who loves movies can walk out of this thing without a big fat grin.

It seems we can conclude that a lot of people don't know how Tourette's works. Made me recall a movie on the subject, I guess forgotten: THE TIC CODE (1998), about a Tourette's kid (Christopher Marquette, excellent) who bonds with a jazzman (Gregory Hines), similarly afflicted. Nicely written by

Had to catch up with ELLA MACCAY because any movie that poorly received must have something going for it. But not this one, it turns out. It plays like a series of discrete sketches, with a few one-liners that sound like one-liners, a central performance that could be something if the character made

There is no stopping it now, but the plague of NPR correspondents greeting each other with "Hey" grows more grating every day. (Does it come from early exposure to TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD? That was the first time I ever heard someone use "hey" for "hello." I tried it myself for a while as a kid.)

Had a movie dream. Somehow involved watching a new Jarmusch film that ended with a low, sweeping shot across a beach. Movie ends and a woman turns to me and says, "He always was good with condiments." Condiments? Jarmusch? Probably true.

I wrote about Satyajit Ray's DAYS AND NIGHTS IN THE FOREST, which plays @siffnews.bsky.social Uptown in Seattle, for the @scarecrowvideo.bsky.social website. What a beauty this film is. scarecrowvideo.org/posts/the-se...

Wish someone had told me how delightful Donald Fagen's EMINIENT HIPSTERS is. Had to stumble upon a slightly water-stained Little Free Library hardback copy to get the gist. Among other things, he claims the first recorded "Yowzah" takes place on a Boswell Sisters record from 1932. Excellent madness.

Weird that amid all of Neil Sedaka's cheerful pop goodies, the bitchy "Bad Blood" was his best-selling single. The Elton Effect had a lot to do with it (cf. "Whatever Gets You Thru the Night"). Unless you were alive in '75, you can't imagine how frequently the track was spun on Top 40, which

Listened to "Band on the Run" LP for the first time in ages, having played it a few thousand go-rounds in the past. Really wanted it to defy the conventional wisdom that Macca's albums are a mix of rock-solid masterpieces and fill-in doodling. Nope. Despite fond memories, the title

Took a look at that McCartney doc for my Seasoned Ticket (that's Beatle reference) column at the Scarecrow website. roberthorton.wordpress.com/2026/02/27/t...

Watched Wiseman's HIGH SCHOOL. The image of the camera tracking behind a teacher as he roams the hallways looking for students who should be in class (“Got a hall pass? Got a hall pass?”) is a perfect emblem of a particular era in American schooling, a Salinger or Heller character + mise-en-scene.

Thinking about Huston's rather remarkable film of REFLECTIONS IN A GOLDEN EYE & happened on R. Ebert's appreciative 1967 review, where he's in fine pissed-off form: "There is a scene in which he [Brando] slowly breaks down and begins to cry, and his face screws up in misery. The audience laughed,

Returned to my frequently-in-hibernation radio show to survey this year's Best Original Score Oscar nominees. Got a couple of songs in there, too, even if they don't exactly fit the category. (The link will be live for a couple weeks.) voiceofvashon.org/episode/the-...

On HOW TO MAKE A KILLING, for the Scarecrow website. roberthorton.wordpress.com/2026/02/20/t...

In memory of owner Craig Wilson, former Queen Anne/Fremont rental shop Video Isle facilitated the donation of their extensive collection to Scarecrow this past weekend. Our largest donation ever!

Also, EX LIBRIS (2017) is one of Wiseman's best. This piece is originally from the Seattle Weekly. scarecrowvideo.org/posts/the-se...

Frederick Wiseman got greater as he got older, & MENUS-PLAISIRS – LES TROIGROS is one of the movies of the decade. It suggests that utopia is not where everything is perfect all the time but where people are talking to each other and working together to get things better. A Hawksian film.

Kinda jejune writing by (extremely youthful me), but Robert Duvall's directing debut ANGELO MY LOVE ought to be remembered. eightiesmovies.wordpress.com/2013/02/12/a...

Finally saw F1. Completism here: It’s nominated for Best Picture, so one must watch it. And – yikes. This is not a good movie, even at the pass-the-popcorn level. One takeaway: The fact that Kosinski has made a couple of decent movies, one genuinely impressive as sci-fi (OBLIVION) and

Recalling this remarkable film (from my NYFF '97 piece for Film Comment): Robert Duvall’s The Apostle is a raw, invigorating, just slightly overlong look at a southern preacher, a man who sometimes does bad things but is not a bad man. Duvall’s aggressive Holy Ghoster, Euliss “Sonny” Dewey, cracks

On "WUTHERING HEIGHTS": roberthorton.wordpress.com/2026/02/13/t...

If you only listen to Pam Bondi's voice, she sounds exactly like one of Catherine O'Hara's utterly vapid SCTV self-deluding characters

Reading reviews of MELANIA, I wondered how all those music cues had been approved. So this is interesting. I'm not the first to say this, I'm sure, but using PHANTOM THREAD music (wife slyly poisons control-freak husband) is certainly a choice. Or high-level trolling. variety.com/2026/film/ne...

Was I hallucinating or was John Schneider wearing a Hugh McElhenny T-shirt under his jacket? If so, that is a deep, deep PNW football cut.

Something on Lav Diaz' MAGELLAN, naturally paired here with Craig Brewer's SONG SUNG BLUE. Reason: cinema! roberthorton.wordpress.com/2026/02/06/t...

If you watch WALK DON'T RUN (1966) you pretty quickly get why Cary Grant thought "Eh, I think I'm finished here."

An "On this day in pictures" thing from February 3rds of the past popped up in my email.

The best there was.

Quick riff on THE RIP. roberthorton.wordpress.com/2026/01/27/m...

Here it is. Took a long road to get here, and there's a long road ahead, but - frickin' wow.

Francis Iles' novel BEFORE THE FACT (basis for Hitchcock's SUSPICION) is strong as suspense, but superb as a study of a toxic relationship; the Joan Fontaine character is at least as fucked up as the shifty husband.

HI IS FOR HAWK: On the one hand, a somewhat numbly well-made British drama; on the other, an authentically weird and sometimes abrasive protagonist, ably played by Claire Foy; on the other, it all seems too neat; on the other hand, amazing shots of a noble goshawk; on the other hand, are we allowed

The night before the NFC Championship game, I watched H IS FOR HAWK. Coincidence, or omen? (Go Seahawks.)

So many Safdie projects seem inspired by the same key noir.

Thinking about MARTY SUPREME reminded me of co-writer Ronald Bronstein and DADDY LONGLEGS; he stars in that Safdie Bros. film, and co-wrote it, too. My 2010 Herald review is here (on my antique website, sharing space w/WINTER'S BONE). roberthorton.wordpress.com/2010/06/25/i...

Weighing in on MARTY SUPREME & ANN LEE through a post-Oscar-noms lens: roberthorton.wordpress.com/2026/01/23/t...

Casting category voters did themselves proud w/two of the most extraordinarily precisely-cast movies I've ever seen, SECRET AGENT & MARTY SUPREME. (Other nominees, also cool.) But will this category always favor movies with a huge roster? That old Oscar truism: people vote for most, not best.

You don't pick the Neil Diamond songs that get stuck in your head. They pick you.

Interesting that SIRAT (terrific movie, but strange, gauzy, hard to peg) gets International Oscar nom rather than, say, THE PRESIDENT'S CAKE (also good, but much more conventionally satisfactory). Oscar voting/voters really HAS changed in recent years. True in Best Pic, too, where

Since @siffnews.bsky.social is going through some things, it's worth noting their current bounty: new Dardenne bros., restoration of JU DOU, 4K of J Tourneur's CANYON PASSAGE, AW's MYSTERIOUS OBJECT, + year-end awards worthies. Good idea to support w/$ right now. www.siff.net/cinema/in-th...

Another nail. www.kiro7.com/news/local/s...