Calling all academics! In this new Filmsuck episode, co-hosts hoot and despair over Luca Guadagnino's AFTER THE HUNT, a tendentious drama starring Julia Roberts and Andrew Garfield as hot untenured Yale University profs rocked by a student's sexual assault charge. www.patreon.com/posts/after-...

Odd attempt at a feel-good holiday-themed movie based on a true-crime case that ends in an Army veteran's life imprisonment. Or maybe in contemporary America, that IS a happy ending--at least he'll have a roof over his head and three meals a day. jacobin.com/2025/10/roof...

Latest Filmsuck! My essay on the new horror movie GOOD BOY, which seemed especially designed to draw me to the theater and then torment me. All about a dog named Indy whose seriously ailing human moves them into a haunted house. But only Indy can see the ghosts. www.patreon.com/posts/good-b...

Still enthusing about ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER, this time in podcast episode form! It's time for the inevitable backlash against the film that occurs whenever a lot of people sing the praises of almost anything. Ignore it! You can be jaded when you're dead! www.patreon.com/posts/its-go...

New Filmsuck essay! In praise of the Val Lewton Gothic horror film THE SEVENTH VICTIM, in which a woman seeking wisdom finds out nobody has any to offer, including the Satanists. www.patreon.com/posts/sevent...

My review of a totally tanking fantasy romance you'll probably never see! jacobin.com/2025/09/big-...

New Filmsuck episode! We take on a remarkably savvy 1939 melodrama featured on the Criterion Channel called TWO GIRLS ON THE STREET. It's about two young women beset by predatory men who join forces to make a better life for themselves. www.patreon.com/posts/two-gi...

Latest Filmsuck essay celebrates the haunting Hollywood star Kim Novak, who's just received a lifetime achievement award at the Venice Film Festival, where the new documentary KIM NOVAK'S VERTIGO premiered. Produced by my friends P David Ebersole and Todd Hughes! www.patreon.com/posts/haunti...

My tribute to the wiliness of Robert Redford (RIP RR): jacobin.com/2025/09/robe...

New Filmsuck episode! Dolores and I enthuse about CAUGHT STEALING. It's doing pretty badly at the box-office, though it's a timely dark comic noir of chaotic working class life, and Austin Butler has a delightful co-star in the cat actor playing Bud. www.patreon.com/posts/darren...

New Filmsuck essay! After seeing HIGHEST 2 LOWEST, I went back and re-watched Kurosawa's HIGH AND LOW. Great as ever, and I wrote about the ending, which is a killer. www.patreon.com/posts/cumula...

Hey, Darren Aronofsky made a nice lowdown genre movie I enjoyed! *pigs begin flying all over the world* jacobin.com/2025/09/caug...

Hey, Darren Aronofsky made a nice lowdown genre movie I enjoyed! *pigs begin flying all over the world* jacobin.com/2025/09/caug...

I thought if I didn't re-watch Akira Kurosawa's HIGH AND LOW, which I hadn't seen in decades, it would help Spike Lee's loose adaptation HIGHEST 2 LOWEST have a greater impact. Ehhh, it didn't help. jacobin.com/2025/08/high...

New Filmsuck episode! Co-host Dolores is back and we're discussing the new Ethan Coen-Tricia Cooke film noir-comedy HONEY DON'T. We enjoyed the hell out of this second film in the Coen-Cooke "lesbian B-movie trilogy"! www.patreon.com/posts/honey-...

New Filmsuck essay! In which I investigate the missing persons case of the actor John Cusack, long absent from mainstream screens and doing straight-to-video schlock like the vile malefactor Mel Gibson. What condemned Cusack to such a fate? www.patreon.com/posts/whatev...

I guess Sydney Sweeney is such a big deal now because of that rank American Eagle jeans/genes ad that the box-office failure of the film AMERICANA is described in every headline as "Sydney Sweeney's AMERICANA." Whatta world! Anyway, here's my review. jacobin.com/2025/08/amer...

My review of WEAPONS, the current horror film must-see, which is actually a pretty interesting movie. I demonstrate how fancy I am by quoting the great WB Yeats poem "The Stolen Child." jacobin.com/2025/08/weap...

Latest Filmsuck! Special guest Asali Echols, documentary filmmaker, talks to me about the current state of documentary films. We discuss a recent trend toward reviving the strict "observational documentary," led by filmmakers like Elizabeth Lo (STRAY, 2020). www.patreon.com/posts/strayi...

The number of Americans receiving unemployment benefits for at least a week rose to the highest level since late 2021, according to Labor Department data.

New Filmsuck essay! In which I consider the relative merits of NAKED GUN (1988) and NAKED GUN (2025). Because this is honestly so important right now. www.patreon.com/posts/naked-...

New Filmsuck episode! While Dolores is making the world safe for opera in Santa Fe, I'm talking to my friend M Dalebout, whose area of scholarly expertise is identity construction in onscreen comedy. We start off with the 2025 HBO Max documentary PEE-WEE AS HIMSELF www.patreon.com/posts/cracki...

On JAWS as a great 1970s movie, when leftist political values infused even the most commercial films jacobin.com/2025/07/jaws...

New Filmsuck essay! This one's about an aspect of the new SUPERMAN movie that I call "Me and Mr. Terrific: A True Confession." www.patreon.com/posts/me-and...

New Filmsuck episode! I rage against Lena Dunham, who cursed us all with GIRLS and is back doing further harm to impressionable minds everywhere with her new, semi-autobiographical Netflix romantic comedy TOO MUCH. How high is your Lena Dunham tolerance? www.patreon.com/posts/how-mu...

It's a summertime Jurassic Park movie. Everybody goes, everybody complains. My review: jacobin.com/2025/07/jura...

Latest Filmsuck essay! On MY MOM JAYNE, Mariska Hargitay's somber HBO/Max documentary about her mother, movie star Jayne Mansfield. Personally, I can't help joining director John Waters in celebrating Mansfield's "lunatic glamor" and exhibitionist joie de vivre. www.patreon.com/posts/my-mom...

New Filmsuck episode! Gotta hand it to writer-director Celine Song in a way--she got us all to grapple with her damn "romantic comedy" MATERIALISTS. Here are Dolores and I grousing about it in pitiless detail: www.patreon.com/posts/materi...

Here's the new Filmsuck essay about the animated film PREDATOR: KILLER OF KILLERS that's running on Hulu and Disney+. Its all-action structure of successive human fighters--Viking, Samurai-turned-ninja, WWII pilot--going up against aliens induces a nice trance state! www.patreon.com/posts/mesmer...

I say bleah to MATERIALISTS, a Tinder-era rom-com that's Celine Song's second feature after PAST LIVES. jacobin.com/2025/06/mate...

Hey there action fans, here's the new Filmsuck episode delving into the world of JOHN WICK 1-4 which also includes the new spin-off BALLERINA. Special guest Forrest "Flacko" Miller of the Movie Night Extravaganza podcast joins me in pondering the fantastical mayhem! www.patreon.com/posts/john-w...

New Filmsuck essay! On the inventive cinema of Rene Clair which got its start in the Dada art film movement that followed the horrors of WWI. Just knowing about the revolutionary politics of avant-garde filmmakers of that era makes the films a lot more accessible. www.patreon.com/posts/rene-c...

Latest Filmsuck! An intellectual exercise in which co-hosts Eileen and Dolores parse why the new HACKS Season 4 is great while the new POKER FACE Season 2 sucks. www.patreon.com/posts/hacks-...

In honor of graduation season, here’s a tribute to a weirdly timely screwball comedy called THE MALE ANIMAL (1942), which is set at a university and takes on threats to academic freedom and freedom of speech in general at a time of increasing political repression. www.patreon.com/posts/defend...

In this new Filmsuck episode open to the public, Dolores and I appear in film noir-appropriate clothing to discuss the distressingly timely new Criterion Channel series "Noir and the Blacklist." www.patreon.com/posts/its-no...

BREAKING: The scene at the Rayburn Building is pure rebellion. Protesters are swarming in during live hearings on Medicaid cuts. Security’s losing control. Because when the government wages war on the poor, the poor fight back.

Image of library book display labeled: “It's A Warning Not An Instruction Manual.” Books on display: • On Tyranny • Twenty Lessons From The 21st Century • 1984 • A Handmaids Tale • Diary of Anne Frank • Parable of The Sower • Fahrenheit 451 • Animal Farm • Brave New World ~TAiLS of a Bookworm

New Filmsuck essay! In which I indulge my unhip love of mysteries, especially the comedy-mysteries that got a boost from the huge success of KNIVES OUT. The latest faves are the David Mitchell vehicle LUDWIG, and THE RESIDENCE, featuring a murder at the White House. www.patreon.com/posts/knives...

If you take an interest in the craft of acting, it's worth seeing Florence Pugh bring emotional power to the new Marvel movie THUNDERBOLTS. My review here: jacobin.com/2025/05/mcu-...

New Filmsuck episode on SINNERS! Because we've never seen anything quite like it, and Dolores and I are enthusiastic about its delirious genre-bending thrills. www.patreon.com/posts/praise...

New Filmsuck essay! I'm clearly trying to avoid the horrors of current reality by writing about clothes in film. Specifically, the designing of costumes and the way actors do or don't make the most of them. (Pictured: Brando's T-shirt in A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE ). www.patreon.com/posts/clothe...

SINNERS is a wild ride. The demonic Irish jig done by the head vampire will remain green in my memory. jacobin.com/2025/04/sinn...

New Filmsuck episode open to the public! We're discussing the new star documentaries on two gay icons--one on Liza MInnelli, one on Rock Hudson--that offer fresher takes on famous subjects than is typical of a generally stale genre. www.patreon.com/posts/liza-a...

Gah, with a few rare exceptions, I hate war films, especially American ones. But WARFARE is doing great with critics and the public. "War is hell" posturing is big business. jacobin.com/2025/04/warf...

New Filmsuck essay! It's worth taking another look at Alfred Hitchcock's grim semi-documentary drama THE WRONG MAN (1956) about being run through the machinery of the American justice system. A real McCarthy era masterpiece of dread that's all too timely right now. www.patreon.com/posts/bleak-...

New Filmsuck episode, "How Deep Is the Water? WHITE LOTUS Season 3." As Mike White says, in spite of the reverence for HBO/Max "prestige TV," what he's really doing is "basically a reboot of LAVERNE & SHIRLEY meets FANTASY ISLAND with some SURVIVOR dropped into it." www.patreon.com/posts/how-de...

In this "Tribute to the Totally Forgotten," I celebrate the career of tap-dancer Eleanor Powell, who was so good she intimidated the legendary Fred Astaire, who complained, "She dances like a man." Her mentor was Bill "Bojangles" Robinson. www.patreon.com/posts/tribut...

My review of SNOW WHITE, which is lucky to have Rachel Zegler in it, because at least she salvages something out of this trainwreck: jacobin.com/2025/03/zegl...

Latest Filmsuck episode, audiovisual and open to the public! It's the celebratory when-Dolores-interviewed-director-Todd-Haynes episode! www.patreon.com/posts/meet-y...