watched Anthony Mann's RAW DEAL expecting a nifty little noir before he became a god of westerns, only to get a wilderness crime caper full of some of the most stunning deep focused Wellesian compositions i've ever seen

people keep saying how good the visuals looks but it's obvious they just spiked the contrast with some warm tones after the backlash. it's overcooked to the point there's tons of crushed shadows so you can barely see Holland's eyes at times. it's better but still doesn't look great imo!

my favorites of the decade so far:

not to question the marketing of DISCLOSURE DAY when it opened higher than expected, but in retrospect it was a bad choice to center the wonky CGI animals and little girl so much –– and drawing intense scrutiny all over –– when those are pretty small parts of the movie

I loved THE FURIOUS, a walloping greek tragedy of a martial arts movie with each fight is propelled by a character's passions. some of the wildest hits, kicks and throws in years, with a tilting wide-lensed camera that lets you follow every hit. I have no idea how they made this

I ranked Spielberg's sci-fi movies for @nextbestpicture.bsky.social, writing about how many of them –– CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, E.T., and yes even READY PLAYER ONE –– are allegories for Spielberg himself nextbestpicture.com/ranking-the-...

i will simply never understand when people talk about spielberg like he’s held back by sentimentalism. i would argue he’s one of our most repeatedly cynical directors.

if THE FABELMANS is Spielberg processing the traumas of his childhood and the way art shapes our lives, then DISCLOSURE DAY is about Spielberg processing the autobiographical turmoil of making THE FABELMANS

I never do this, but editors please let me write about the ending of DISCLOSURE DAY and what it says about the film, Spielberg, and his career as a whole. very eager!

Oh my god just realized this moment from SECRET AGENT was a callback to the lovely silent father/son scene from JAWS… the levels to this

happy to see PRESSURE has reached its target audience

MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE is a fascinating object, a celebration of 80s fantasy camp that also wants to be BARBIE for boys; it constantly questions how to "be a man," yet mostly resorts to talk about "having feelings" and "talking things out" that never impact story or character.

it's wild how much THE MANDALORIAN AND GROGU is not really a feature film. it reminded me most of anime movies that try and condense a season into two hours and guts everything good about the series. it's offensively bland, ugly and oddly joyless. periodically an okay time

with AVATAR: FIRE AND ASH finally hitting disc this week, here's my 6,000 word essay for @brightwalldarkroom.com on Cameron's deeply personal dreamland, where a radical and transportive empathy summons the origins of cinema itself: www.brightwalldarkroom.com/2026/03/02/d...

I was winding down with a really great COLUMBO last night only to be hit with this reveal when it cut to credits

speaking of THE ODYSSEY, the "adventure" section –– IE, the cyclops, the sirens, etc –– literally takes up 20% of the entire poem. the rest of it follows Telemachus and Odysseus fucking around. it would be pretty funny if Nolan made an "accurate" adaptation with that exact ratio

We’re all heartbroken that Tony Stella is gone, and so grateful for all he contributed to BWDR over the years. Here’s our loving appreciation of Tony and his art from editor-in-chief @chadperman.bsky.social

Do you like your Kill Bill's seperately or together? @brendanhodges.bsky.social  and @oneblakeminute.bsky.social  discuss on #OneHotTake. #BangBang

just watched the devastating 2026 film about two close artistic collaborators chasing musical fame and whose friendship falls to pieces and that pain turns dangerous and paranormal as they try and repair it but enough about NIRVANNA: THE BAND - THE SHOW - THE MOVIE

walking out of MOTHER MARY I saw two young teen girls sitting next to the dad they clearly dragged to the movie and he was standing up in utter disbelief at what he’d just seen. I was once those teens and that dad was once my parents and I think that’s lovely

"TENET is the ultimate expression of Christopher Nolan’s decades-spanning project of capturing subjectivity on screen, conjuring a twilight world where the nature of reality, God, time, right and wrong, and free will, are left in the trenches of ambiguity." - @brendanhodges.bsky.social

finally watched HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER and loved it. a gothic horror where Eastwood uses his iconic status to subvert the classic western in the most morally scathing terms. how often can you say you saw something truly unlike anything else? a dark, strange and special movie

the Nine Inch Noize disc is incredible and I can't get over how the boys turned songs written over 30 years into a cohesive, brilliant album. if this was your first NIN, you'd just think this is their sound. it's a real achievement in sounding classic and contemporary all at once

have many thoughts on THE PITT finale but for now I'll just say Robby's arc this season was devastating and beautiful and real and Noah Wyle gave one of the best dramatic performances of the last several years. not everything this season was perfect, but that pretty much was

considering how much marketing feels desperate these days, it’s awesome Nolan keeps holding back 99% of the epic footage from trailers, the prologue, and marketing events for THE ODYSSEY. he knows what he has

the photos NASA is releasing of the moon mission are really incredible

the most annoying thing about tickets going on sale 6-12 months in advance is how insanely effective it is –– tickets sell out in seconds, people angrily post how they are they didn't score any tickets, and all it does is built more scarcity and hype around the release

watched A HIDDEN LIFE for Easter and man, the film's unwavering rejection of complicity while asking hard questions about faith, suffering and moral obligation hits incredibly hard given everything that's been happening in the U.S. in the last 12 months. one of Malick's best

Happy Trans Day of Visibility! We've just unlocked our Trans Cinema issue from 2023, guest edited by poet Spencer Williams. It is now (and forever!) entirely free.

pretty disheartening quote considering PROJECT HAIL MARY is a lot like an episode of STAR TREK; it's a first contact story about mutual cooperation, where friendship transcends linguistic and cultural barriers. which yeah, absolutely makes it "political" and about social issues

this season of THE PITT started a bit slow but it's been incredibly effective watching everyone's slow descent to despair, climaxing into everyone telling Robbie he's acting like a fucking lunatic while Dana calls him out after what seems to be one of the worst days of her life

I cannot express how sick I am of franchise nostalgia slop becoming the dominant cultural product of our time

I wrote about Best Picture winner ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER for @nextbestpicture.bsky.social, and how Anderson allegorizes revolution as a dad's confessional on time, parenting, and trying to support your kids to save a world you couldn't: nextbestpicture.com/in-one-battl...

finally saw LE BONHEUR and loved it, Varda's rictus portrait of doomed domesticity and solipsistic male violence; it reminded me of PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK in how it corrupts picture-perfect spaces through haunting absences. one of the most upsetting endings I've ever seen

I wrote about THE SECRET AGENT for @nextbestpicture.bsky.social, a hauntological thriller that shows how memory itself can be an act of resistance, doubling as a shield against regimes that seek to silence the future of their enemies: nextbestpicture.com/how-the-secr...

I wrote about THE SECRET AGENT for @nextbestpicture.bsky.social, a hauntological thriller that shows how memory itself can be an act of resistance, doubling as a shield against regimes that seek to silence the future of their enemies: nextbestpicture.com/how-the-secr...

I wrote 6,000 words on AVATAR for @brightwalldarkroom.com, diving into how James Cameron's stereoscopic dreamland is a conduit for a radical, transportive empathy that harkens back to the origins of cinema itself: www.brightwalldarkroom.com/2026/03/02/d...

New on the site! Our Best of 2025 issue continues, with @brendanhodges.bsky.social on AVATAR: FIRE AND ASH (🎨 by @mosesleeart.bsky.social)

A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS was a near perfect season of tv

one thing about THE PITT I’m always impressed by is how effectively they narrow in on entire character dynamics between staff (Robby and Langdon this episode) through one or two perfectly designed pieces of dialogue that crystallize those arcs amidst the chaos of the E.R.

finally caught up with NO OTHER CHOICE and there's nearly nobody better at digital cinema shenanigans than Park Chan-wook

grateful to all at @brightwalldarkroom.com for letting me tackle an unwieldy idea, this time for their best of 2025: on the money, music, capitalist critique, & doubles in SINNERS, and how I'd take this movie's explicit engagement with history over SIRÂT. www.brightwalldarkroom.com/2026/02/17/m...

that episode of Dunk and Egg captured the dirty chaos of medieval combat better than anything I’ve seen since THE LAST DUEL. it maybe overdid the stylistic tricks a bit but that was as visceral, grueling, clumsy, and haphazardly deadly as it needed to be in the best possible way

for @letterboxd.social's list of underseen romances, I wrote about Lubitsch's TROUBLE IN PARADISE, a flirty caper about lustful thieves:

I love how A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS starts out as one kind of show –– a knight tries to join a tournament –– and you think you know what kind of show it is, only to become a more politically complex, grander show before you quite realize it's happening. it's perfect

I've been doing LORD OF THE RINGS at home and it's surreal to watch what helped create your childhood as an adult and discover they impact you the same if not more; the particular blend of deep nostalgia and refreshed awe is a unique kind of emotional in a way nothing else can be

The incredible mind of @brendanhodges.bsky.social and I go deep on Tarantino’s mean and violent mirror to the America of the past and the now - THE HATEFUL EIGHT on the 2015 #DecadeProject on @ohmpods.bsky.social open.spotify.com/episode/4mG9...

I've been frustrated how much media overcomplicates itself lately, trying to be meaningful by length or contrived importance. So trust when I say A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS is one of the most enjoyable things I've seen in ages, a show elegant in its simplicity. it's wonderful

Big news! WHO KILLED SARAH SHAW is now available at Barnes & Noble stores nationwide! Thanks to everyone for their continued support on this book. It means the world to me.

for @letterboxd.social, I wrote about Edward Yang's century-defining masterwork YI YI, a compassionate city symphony that shows us who we really are: letterboxd.com/journal/yi-y...