From The Last Waltz to The Simpsons to Sabrina Carpenter’s album cover… Spinal Tap is everywhere once you start looking. New Substack post goes to...You know -

Masterly analysis by @jasonzinoman.bsky.social — stick around for the subtle but savage filleting of “Kremlin star” Jimmy Fallon [giftie] www.nytimes.com/2025/09/20/a...

A BIG BOLD BEAUTIFUL JOURNEY is sticky sweet and sludgy and cloyingly aesthetic. While the film has a techno-fantasy bent, Kogonada’s style is too self-consciously bespoke, the cinematic equivalent of a hipster carrying their old iPod in a hand-carved wooden case. www.latimes.com/entertainmen...

Do I like this weekend's new releases? Not really. Do I think it's kinda effed that AMC is so swamped with Taylor Swift traffic that it's telling audiences they have to buy movie tickets for tonight at the theater? Totally.

HIM wants to be “The Substance” with jockstraps: a Satanic-tinged, steroidal “Rosemary’s Baby.” Every shot is a stunner, from stark images of eerily spinning footballs to goalposts that loom like devil’s horns. But this GOAT plot is baaaaaaahd. www.latimes.com/entertainmen...

We strongly condemn the actions taken by Nexstar and Disney-ABC to pull JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE! off the air.

This episode at least goes up to 8 or 9

A salute to Robert Redford who used his all-American looks to get us to examine all of America -- good, bad and ugly www.latimes.com/entertainmen...

Toronto is finally in the rearview and @theamynicholson.bsky.social @indiefocus.bsky.social and I have our favorites from a lineup that kept us guessing. www.latimes.com/entertainmen...

Movie fans come to Toronto to get an early peek at the year’s awards heavyweights. I didn’t see a knockout punch, but I saw some strong contenders — and in a couple cases, I just got bludgeoned. www.latimes.com/entertainmen...

A dispatch from TIFF where I've been ordering Canadianos -- not Americanos -- while watching a bunch of movies about guys gone wild, including a gasp-inducing local comedy where the director shouted an onstage apology to the mayor of Toronto. (She liked the movie!) www.latimes.com/entertainmen...

I’ve been thinking about SIRÂT for months — it’s a movie that crystallizes my apocalyptic mood. Sitting down with its filmmaker Oliver Laxe was a pure pleasure. He’s a director who doesn’t wait for permission. www.latimes.com/entertainmen...

We're now pretty grown up. Have our hearts died?

Lions and Tigers and AI -- oh my! A dispatch from the premiere of THE WIZARD OF OZ at Las Vegas' Sphere. (The tornado rules. Shame about the Munchkins.) www.latimes.com/entertainmen...

I had no idea that Stephen P. Brown, a former book store clerk in Dupont Circle, made the initial discovery that Richard Bachman was Stephen King's pseudonym. Here's a fun 1985 article about it, with a detail toward the bottom The Long Walk is "scheduled to become a film." Only took 40 years!

This Wired interview with @bencollins.bsky.social is fantastic www.wired.com/story/uncann...

Surprise Joni Mitchell! For my queen Cyndi Lauper's farewell tour at the Hollywood Bowl! (They sang "Carey" twice in a row cause why not)

Hard to remember that 25 years ago, no distributor would buy this movie because they didn't think audiences would get it. New ep gets into how Steven Soderbergh was so spooked that MEMENTO went unsold that he said indie cinema was dead back in the year 2000.

In Vegas to see THE WIZARD 🔮

CAUGHT STEALING is the kind of intimate tour of New York that usually gets called a love letter to the city, except the corners Darren Aronofsky likes have so much grime and menace and humor that it’s more like an affectionate dirty limerick. www.latimes.com/entertainmen...

Audiences once adored big adult comedies. Jay Roach’s champagne-fizzy “The Roses” is a seductive attempt to lure them back into theaters. It's bright, mean and ambitious as the dueling spouses who aim insults at each other like explosive corks. www.latimes.com/entertainmen...

He's an instant star in SPIDER WOMAN. Cannot wait for people to see.

HONEY DON'T! is a smutty, sloppy, fun-enough desert mystery. I’d call the opening murder a red herring but it’s more like a fish left to cook in the Bakersfield sun. www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2025-08-21/honey-dont-review-ethan-coen-margaret-qualley-aubrey-plaza-chris-evans

Let's go to the movies

I wrote about the em dash

LURKER has been a fave since Sundance. This tense, ultra-dark comedy about a rising pop star and his entourage is all about the vibes, bro -- and these ones are cutthroat. www.latimes.com/entertainmen...

The most quotable comedy I saw last year at Fantastic Fest is FINALLY in theaters. Paul McCartney. Steve Wonder. Bickering about hot chocolate. This movie is for freaks -- the kind of freaks who are my people

Ok, so how cool were this summer's big movies?

FREAKIER FRIDAY. It's genuinely great to see Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis pal around having a blast. But the old crank in me wished that I laughed harder than I did. www.latimes.com/entertainmen...

WEAPONS is a grand statement of disorder-by-design. A compellingly sloppy tale, it splices together a half-dozen protagonists and no heroes — these six spiraling victims never grasp the full story behind the violence. www.latimes.com/entertainmen...

It was fun to go deep into the original NAKED GUN this week on the Unspooled Substack, Original Script Pages, Side by Side Comparisons to M Squad, A hilarious detail about Leslie Neilsen's Funeral, and more.

Heartbreak feels good reading a piece like this www.latimes.com/entertainmen...

Maybe the podcast of two people doesn't amount to a hill of beans. But this is our hill. And these are our beans.

TOGETHER is the only romance you’ll see this year that’s infatuated by John Carpenter and Plato. Gross? Totally. But empathetic too. www.latimes.com/entertainmen...

THE NAKED GUN is Liam Neeson’s best career move since SCHINDLER'S LIST. www.latimes.com/entertainmen...

We've lost our flipping minds. But in Unspooled's defense! When else are any of us going to get to see WATERWORLD on the big screen!? www.americancinematheque.com/now-showing/...

vibes are off. time to post Solid Potato Salad

Deltron 3030 reunion tour. Insane that an album recorded 25 years ago and set one millennium from now feels made for this very millisecond

The high-stakes romantic comedy OH, HI! is a backhanded compliment to lotharios like Rudolph Valentino, James Bond and Jordan Belfort. At least those frank seducers wanted quickies. Logan Lerman strings women along pretending to be a sweetheart. www.latimes.com/entertainmen...

Every word of this, from @tnyfrontrow.bsky.social: www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

My pals at @vidiots.bsky.social created an interactive experience during the film breaking fakeout scene in their screening of Gremlins 2: The New Batch last weekend. It's even better than what I had hoped to do in 1990! 😁

Very nice!

THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS slots into summer blockbuster season like a square peg in a round popcorn bucket. Watching it, I felt as snug as being nestled in the backseat of my grandparents’ car at the drive-in. www.latimes.com/entertainmen...

Wired is such a worthwhile subscription that it’s almost hard to believe it’s real in 2025?

Another piece for a Friday, on Stephen Colbert, past, present and ? www.latimes.com/entertainmen...

I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER: This perky update has a few things going for it, including low expectations. It loves its leads (Madelyn Cline!😍) and never becomes that kind of violent vaudeville where you can’t wait for the hook to drag someone off screaming. www.latimes.com/entertainmen...

EDDINGTON is the movie of the year. Maybe of the decade. Amanda, @brofromanother.bsky.social, and I dive into it on The Big Picture. Then Ari Aster joins me to talk about his new film. open.spotify.com/episode/3dSC...

Ari Aster’s EDDINGTON is such a superb social satire about contemporary America that I want to bury it in the desert for 20 years. More distance will make it easier to laugh. www.latimes.com/entertainmen...

It is once again the best day of the year.

This photo essay fills in over a century of history