CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD
I just watched CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD for the second time, as producer Kevin Feige and director Julius Onah came to my class at USC for a q&a following the screening… and you know what? I enjoyed it…
THE MOVIE GUIDE IS BACK—AND REINVENTED
With a change in format and a new platform, The Movie Guide is back: it’s a podcast that I co-host with a savvy Australian “journo” named Guy Davis. Every week Guy and I compare notes on a favorite film of the…
EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE
I am taking a deep breath as I write this, and apologize for the tardiness of this report. Award shows and ceremonies took a backseat to the terrifying wildfires that raged all over Southern California, which meant that many…
NEW AND NOTABLE BOOKS JANUARY 2025
GIANT LOVE by Julie Gilbert (Pantheon) One doesn’t read most film books to savor the prose. This one stands out from the crowd because Gilbert is an exceptionally good writer. She is the great-niece of Edna Ferber, the subject…
UNSTOPPABLE
Unstoppable is a mashup of an underdog sports movie and a domestic drama about a family terrorized by an abusive father. The worst thing I can say about it is that it is conventional, but since when is that a…
I’M STILL HERE: AN UNSOLVED MYSTERY
I admire Walter Salles’ work, and I’m especially fond of his acclaimed features Central Station and The Motorcycle Diaries. He has returned to his Brazilian roots for another exceptional narrative, I’m Still Here…but he hastens to explain that it’s not the story, or…
REMEMBERING DAVID LYNCH
Some forty years ago I first met David Lynch in a setting that could have come from an episode of Twin Peaks: the now-defunct Studio City branch of DuPar’s, an all-American coffee shop where he had come to enjoy a well-crafted…
