Saw BUGONIA. Chuckled at times, Robbie Ryan continues to be one of the most reliable cinematographers working today, and Stone and Plemons are obviously very good, but I really needed this script to go farther, not just louder. My love for KINDS OF KINDNESS continues to surprise me. boxd.it/bwfV6V

Suffice it to say that I'm on Instagram far, far more than here or anywhere else. @ cipolla.matt

Dead Cab for Kennedys

To Wong Foo, Thnks fr th Mmrs! Julie Newmar

Got a *ton* of writing done on another screenplay, then went for a motorcycle ride at around 11:45 pm. Rode past a stranger with a nice Heritage Softail, circled back around to say hi to him, and then we rode around the city for over an hour and chatted at a gas station. What a good day.

The last two days have really been making me think of “The Misery Chick” from DARIA, easily one of my favorite episodes.

Fun! A screenplay of mine, MEXICAN WINE, is a Second Rounder in Austin Film Festival's Drama Feature competition. It also got a 9 on a Black List evaluation a few months back, which about 0.5 percent of all projects get, so if anyone's interested in reading it... or buying it from me... #scriptsky

Saw LURKER. A script this rushed and staccato against such emotionally passive direction would be nice if the film actually used its conceit to any (a)moral purpose, but it’s too rushed and just sort of… there. boxd.it/aXgW4X

I saw POOLS last night. It was at least the third time in a year that I saw a new movie and thought, Oh, this feels like a web series from 2012. boxd.it/aRPIDb

BOYS GO TO JUPITER kind of reminded me of this. youtu.be/5Tp2acZ95dk?...

So… has anyone else’s electricity bill been skyrocketing lately?

72 degrees, rode up and down Lakeshore Drive past midnight, putted around the city, filled up my tank. I feel cleansed. Also, I bought this bike with faaar past 9,000 miles on it, but yay, a nice round number!

I had a nightmare last night that I was at a SCREAM marathon and someone told me that Jonathan Glazer used AI for THE ZONE OF INTEREST.

Glad I was able to get a quick ride in today before the sky completely opened up.

Pleasantly surprised to see a Criterion release for perhaps the best movie ever. When they didn’t do anything when it turned 25 last summer, I just figured it wouldn’t get anything ever.

Impromptu thread! I’ve kind of been having a minor existential crisis over the last year or so as to whether I ever actually loved movies in particular or if I’ve always just loved art that’s good. Maybe the medium of film was, for lack of better phrasing, incidental. (Sorry, Marshall McLuhan.)

Happy (?) 22nd anniversary to this

I finally saw SINNERS. It didn’t do a ton for me. I don’t think it’s bad; its bright spots are quite bright and it’s clearly earnest. I do think it’s sort of a mess, though, partly due to a running impatience the movie seems to have with itself. (Why is it edited like a trailer?) boxd.it/aIZPP3

Charli XCX is a SCREAM 4 fan yaaay

Went for a very quick afternoon ride earlier today. Then when midnight hit, I thought, Oh, I want to just putt around when there’s virtually no traffic. So I did, and I don’t know if there’s a better feeling.

EDDINGTON dilutes itself with thinly sketched nonsense because it doesn’t seem to realize what it’s actually about. Ari Aster is still a good director when things all fall into place, but God, someone else needs to write his scripts at this point. boxd.it/aCYX6p

Death Cab tickets became available at the last minute? Oh?!

The toy rifle pops out an umbrella with the Italian flag on it. Because of course it does.

Now on day three of feeling like I’m hungover or something just because the air quality is so bad. Anyone else?

I finally bought a motorcycle! The air quality is also the second-worst in the world right now and I’ve listened to “Karma Police” about 45 times today already. Big day!

Spent last summer going through the first 28 years of the VMAs in as great of detail as I could. 1984 to 2011, only stopping there because I couldn’t find 2012 or subsequent years in their entireties. Might be one of the most fun projects I’ve ever done. Now I kind of want to go through them again.

Back in Chicago. Went to a lake house by Traverse City with family, saw everyone at once for the first time in almost three years, showed some of them EEPHUS, got sunburnt, and watched my sister get sucked back to high school as I played “Hands Down” by Dashboard Confessional on a boat. Good times.

Wasn’t expecting an “alderpeople vs. cops” headline. “Despite the merciful hitting strategy, some of the cops clearly relished the opportunity to beat up on the government body that approves their budget.” blockclubchicago.org/2025/07/21/a...

Boat chic, summer fashion, etc.

Wait. Even if you just want to print black text, you also need the three color cartridges with ink in them too? The $62 black ink isn’t enough? HP, you monsters.

Quick thoughts on CASTRATION MOVIE ANTHOLOGY I: TRAPS, which is now the longest movie I’ve ever seen in a theater. Frustrating at points and perhaps deliberately so, but also deeply, deeply fascinating in the ontology of its camera in ways intrinsically queer—and patently millennial. boxd.it/amKGOx

Important historical artifact right here.

I don’t think Coldplay’s A RUSH OF BLOOD TO THE HEAD is perfect, but I still listen to it about once a year and largely find myself transported. Then my brain reminds me of whatever the hell they started doing circa 2010 and I wonder if a 21st century music act has had a worse nosedive in quality.

A peculiar little idea I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is that the average male life expectancy is about 76 years. That would make prime middle-age for dudes 38 years old. And when guys refer to a “quarter-life crisis”? Yeah, that’s really 19 years old—about one’s sophomore year of college.

Just went to Sleeping Village for the first time. Somehow, virtually everything about it made me feel 150 years old in the span of 90 seconds?

I keep wanting to refer to Federico Fellini’s CITY OF WOMEN as PLANET OF WOMEN and now I’m imagining ZZ Top composing the score to a Fellini film.

La Dolce Vida of Zack & Cody Is this anything

EEPHUS baseball cards! They’re fun!

THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME is like a lot of Wes Anderson’s work of the last decade in that its images don’t underwhelm because they lack context. They underwhelm because they refuse context. It also reinforces my feeling that ASTEROID CITY was good by accident. boxd.it/abO1Hz

Had a dream last night that Karyn Kusama and Megan Fox hosted a double feature of JENNIFER’S BODY and FRIENDSHIP. I ate Raisinets and drank red wine in the theater.

God, this is grim. www.npr.org/2025/06/24/g...

Went to the Secretary of State today. They had to take another ID picture, did it in about six milliseconds, and zoomed in weirdly. I look like an ‘80s serial killer, or sort of like this mugshot of Jim Morrison.

Your move, Sofia Coppola

"I Will Follow You into the Dark" in the streets, "I Will Possess Your Heart" in the sheets Is this anything

Okay, I did The List™ in about seven minutes

Just saw a dude in his 60s driving a John Deere tractor through traffic at Sheridan & Irving Park with a fat cigar in his mouth. I want to buy that man a beer!

Just got sucked into a wormhole back to high school listening to this again open.spotify.com/track/3uqDfa...

PAVEMENTS! Some of the most fun I’ve had at the movies in some time, and not even just for gushing over the semiotics and the inductive structure of Malkmus’ lyrics. It’s so joyous! boxd.it/a2sgRJ

Had a dream that there was some UK cut of UNDER THE SKIN that I was never aware of whose final 40 minutes basically turned into DOGVILLE. It was… so much.

Ananda Lewis passing breaks my heart.