A tongue-in-cheek Letterboxd review of Weapons (2025) caused me to reflect on the film's use of tropes which have historically antisemitic connotations. Is Weapons antisemitic? I don't think so, but it reminded me a lot of the ballad of "Sir Hugh." Some thoughts: open.substack.com/pub/perfidia...

Recently reflected upon the dubious role of educators in Hong Sangsoo's informal campus trilogy, consisting of Oki's Movie (2010), Nobody's Daughter Haewon (2013), and Our Sunhi (2013). Some thoughts on one of Hong's craftiest and most sublime narratives: open.substack.com/pub/perfidia...

A friend and I spent a rainy Saturday afternoon revisiting Jeanne Dielman, which is playing in cinemas in a new 4k restoration. We spent the next couple days feverishly discussing this enduring masterpiece of slow cinema. You can read at: open.substack.com/pub/charlies...

Wrote briefly on the blog about some movies I really enjoyed in 2024. I can never narrow it down to just five or ten; this year I formed eight thematic pairings. open.substack.com/pub/perfidia...

Anyone disenchanted by A Complete Unknown ought to consult Murray Lerner's 2007 documentary, The Other Side of the Mirror, which chronicles Bob Dylan's transformation from folkie wunderkind to rock 'n' roll poet over three summers at the Newport Folk Festival, 1963-1965.

I caught Hong Sangsoo’s latest film last night. I’m fascinated by the meta-narrative that seems to extend from 2021’s Introduction up to this year’s A Traveler’s Needs. Hong’s reflections of a director have transformed into a fractured portrait of an artist. boxd.it/7ZqRqt

Bob Dylan’s sensitive cover of “Christmas Blues,” on his 2009 album, Christmas in the Heart, presages his later turn toward the Great American Songbook; written by Sammy Cahn, it fuses Dylan’s croaky, border town swagger with a reverence for mid-century song stylings.

Went from sudden ecstasy to abject despair after discovering both Nomad and My Heart is That Eternal Rose, two of the best movies I’ve seen this year, are forthcoming on Blu-Ray—but in the UK.

Revisiting Pablo Neruda’s little book of anti-fascist poetry, published in 1936 amidst the Spanish Civil War. An excerpt from his Memoirs, which prefaces the book, poignantly reads, “Time passed. We were beginning to lose the war.”

(1/6) During Donald Trump’s first presidential administration, I heard my anxieties echoed back to me through Woody Guthrie’s song, “Lindbergh,” about celebrity aviator turned Nazi sympathizer, Charles Lindbergh. I return to it now, on the eve of Trump’s second term.