no idea

Seemed as good a time as any time to revive a 2002 @siffnews.bsky.social piece I wrote about Douglas Sirk, melodrama (as something other than a pejorative), and the critics, filmmakers, and critic/filmmakers who saw the value in his work and took inspiration from it. @seattlecritics.bsky.social

@seattlecritics.bsky.social noms are out! Come for Train Dreams, Sinners, One Battle After Another in BP, stay for Pacific Northwest awards, the best of PNW shorts, Eephus in ensemble, The Ugly Stepsister in International, and Bring Her Back in Best Villain. Proud of our group and picks as always.

Happy to accept FIFA prize for being the best at watching movies. Thank you for your attn.

Very unserious that Netflix owns so much cinema history. Good that they’re expanding beyond their business of sending movies in envelopes by mail finally.

Bong Joon Ho hit me up for the squad you legend deadline.com/2025/11/bong...

Always this. Write like you’re curious, not like you know everything already.

I also highly recommend The Making of a Color Animation (Shigeji Ogino & Noburo Ofuji, 1937). It's an educational film about animation creation that also features some beautiful color work.

Finally got around to watching this. A 1933 utopian film from Japan, A Day after a Hundred Years (Shigeji Ogino) has an amazing animation style that is simultaneously ornate, simple, and inventive. Think it'll go well with Things to Come (William Cameron Menzies, 1936) in my upcoming SF film class.

For @seattletimes.com, spoke with Lily Gladstone about lending her voice to the documentary BRING THEM HOME (which premieres Nov. 24 on PBS), recording her narration at her regular Seattle studio, and how history echoes with her upcoming film THE MEMORY POLICE 📽️ www.seattletimes.com/entertainmen...

Thanks to what the kids say today, some of the dialogue in High Sierra “hits different” (as the kids say today).

I interviewed ferociously brilliant filmmaker Mira Nair, a.k.a Zohran Mamdani’s mother, about how her voice and vision have shaped a man who sees a better way forward for all of us. SPOILER ALERT: Love matters. www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/feat...

Capturing the beauty of TRAIN DREAMS in words was a challenge that took a few days to even draft out. There are films that surround you, breathe, whisper, & carry you someplace both familiar & lost. TRAIN DREAMS is one of those films. It’s breathtaking. #FilmSky www.peliplat.com/en/article/1...

lol

Screenings of @seattlecritics.bsky.social' PNW nominees continue! Shorts w/filmmakers at @nwfilmforum.bsky.social Nov 19 and features w/filmmakers at @siffnews.bsky.social Film Center Nov 21-23: Twinless, Wolf Land, To Kill a Wolf, WTO/99, Not One Drop of Blood. We launched with Train Dreams Oct 29.

#Bugonia is a richly textured remake of a good South Korean movie that advances Yorgos Lanthimos’ credentials as one of our best working filmmakers. @seattlecritics.bsky.social

Reminder: If you use generative AI for *any of your writing tasks* you are a Slopper not a writer and should be ashamed of yourself. The end.

For Arc Raiders to ride the wave of human sociability all the way to the bank, while also being so contemptuous of the thing that makes us social animals in its own workflow demonstrates a lack of artistic integrity that I find impossible to ignore. Our review: https://bit.ly/49bVn01

Watching Our of the Past. So much beauty, in the actors' faces & bodies as well as in the photography & staging (as in a fistfight that plays out partly in the shadows combatants cast on a wall). Very adult in its understanding of attraction and how one choice can trap you for life.

Maybe the Mariners just need to spend more money, is the only lesson this year.

As someone who doesn't watch sports but does love human suffering, I'm having a great night

Addiction is a hungry ghost, that consumes everything in its path and can never be satiated. Ballad of a Small Player explores this philosophy around addiction through sumptuous visuals and a magnetic lead performance. @seattlecritics.bsky.social

I wrote a piece on the work of writer and director James Gunn, who is engaged in a pretty incredible ongoing enterprise that despises bigotry and authoritarianism and reaffirms patriotism for progressives. www.vulture.com/article/jame...

"In Ballad of a Small Player, we are given the gift of Colin Farrell overdoing it. Nobody overdoes it like Colin Farrell, and to take this for granted is a disservice." -- very enjoyable piece by @djmecca.bsky.social

Making my @rollingstone.com debut writing about Monolith's incredible F.E.A.R. and how the story's meaning has kind of gotten lost over the years. Alma isn't F.E.A.R.'s villain. Armacham and the people that made her are. She's as much a victim as anyone else, a spirit of vengeance made, not born.

Still reeling from this, still need a whole lotta help to cover next year, if you feel so inclined, consider a subscription?

Not the best at Fantasy sports cause I just want a team of players with cool sounding names.

I will forever be upset that James Horner invented a new kind of music for Avatar and Cameron was like "it doesn't test well can you destroy all recordings and only make sci fi action movie music please"

Forget Josh O'Connor fall as Brett W. Bachman, the Washington editor behind MANDY & PIG, cut not one, not two, but six 2025 movies. For @seattletimes.com, dove into his Spielbergian origin, working with Mike Flanagan on CARRIE, recutting SHELBY OAKS, and more 📽️ www.seattletimes.com/entertainmen...

Thanks to the Mariners for making baseball endlessly interesting and chaotically fun. We nearly got a taste of what everyone else has had (the World Series), but no other team has what we have (the most fun team in baseball).

Thanks to Alex Rubenstein and, of course, @jonbois.bsky.social for talking to me about making what not only remains the essential portrait of the team, the city, the state, & the country half a decade later, but most certainly will for many more decades to come 📽️ www.seattletimes.com/entertainmen...

Me going to Tron to take in the NIN score, huge.

Good time to take four hours and watch this if you never have before youtu.be/TIgK56cAjfY?...

mariners fans are my favorite bunch of fans of any team in any sport. i watched the bottom half of the last seven innings standing up in my living room. thanks for letting me hitch a ride

Once again have returned back from up north attending the Toronto International Film Festival to my home country where everything is completely fine. Thus, here are some of the best films I saw at the festival this year, many of which touch on the current state of things. Thread 📽️

This is exactly what I want from an interview with an artist--a probing, thoughtful questioner and a completely game subject. David Marchese's Q&A makes me want to revisit all of Cameron Crowe's film work. (It's Sunday--I'm taking a day off from fury.) www.nytimes.com/2025/09/13/m...

Trans rights are human rights. All humans should be for them.

throughout this month we'll finally drop SCORIGAMI on youtube, free to watch for everybody. first episode premieres live tomorrow night at 9 p.m. eastern www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHNw...

Outsider art is for the greater good and that couldn’t be more true when it comes to The Toxic Avenger — The Twin Geeks review about Troma and what it means when a rebellious DIY brand seeks mainstream distribution. @seattlecritics.bsky.social

Every year, The Twin Geeks covers the Penny Arcade Expo West’s selection of innovative new indie games, and this year, the selection is deeply inspired, from vibey rollerblading games to perplexing abstract designs, there’s something for everyone.

Cannot tell whether it’s a good or awful idea, but it’s one of those.

Always own your own work, wherever you can. ♥️

The first time I watched IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT I loved it. Upon rewatch I think Jafar Panahi’s Hitchcockian stained odyssey is damn near perfect. My review via @ebertvoices.bsky.social

A delightful aspect of the novelization is that Jonesy gets a fair amount of internal reflection.

Today is Lynn Shelton’s birthday & she would have turned 60. Lynn is my favorite filmmaker & I will take an opportunity to talk about how much her work means to me. I wrote about her & you can check out the piece below. And go watch one of her films today! www.femalegazefilmclub.com/blog/remembe...

This is fucking cool. www.fangoria.com/the-toxic-av...

The direct pipeline from getting rid of your film critic to boosting a fascist administration