Search Results for: first reformed

[Initially posted six years ago — 8.12.18] If there’s one thing film twitter wants you to abandon, it’s your comfort zone. Be brave, step over the fence and experience the exotic, uncertain, challenging realms that exist outside of your little piddly backyard. Of course! Hollywood Elsewhere agrees that people who refuse to step outside of … Read more

Paul Schrader‘s Oh, Canada isn’t as good as First Reformed, but it’s definitely better than the last two (The Card Counter, Master Gardener), and it surprises a bit by reaching inward and letting go. It’s basically about the last dying days of cancer-afflicted radical left documentarian Leonard Fife (Richard Gere), and an Errol Morris-type interview … Read more

Forgive the lateness but five months ago (4.6.23) six Hollywood Reporter critics — Jon Frosch, David Rooney, Sheri Linden, Livia Guyarkye, Leslie Felperin and Jordan Mintzer — posted their choices for the 50 Best Films of the 21st Century. Nobody is an absolute authority and we all have our special passions and allegiances, but boy, … Read more

Three days ago (4.6.23) the Hollywood Reporter ran one of those “taking stock and honing it all down” laundry-list articles that happen every so often. It’s called “Hollywood Reporter Critics Pick the 50 Best Films of the 21st Century.” Co-authored by the highly esteemed Jon Frosch, David Rooney, Sheri Linden, Lovia Gyarkye, Leslie Felperin and … Read more

[Originally posted on 11.3.22] To me a comfort movie is one that presents three basic things. One, semi-recognizable human behavior (i.e., bearing at least some resemblance to that which you’ve observed in your own life, including your own something-to-be-desired, occasionally less-than-noble reactions to this or that challenge). Two, some kind of half-believable story in which … Read more

Originally posted on 8.12.18: If there’s one thing film twitter wants you to abandon, it’s your comfort zone. Be brave, step over the fence and experience the exotic, uncertain, challenging realms that exist outside of your little piddly backyard. Of course! Hollywood Elsewhere agrees that people who refuse to step outside of their c.z. are … Read more

…and is therefore wrong, wrong and terribly wrong for having stated that Spider-Man: No Way Home is one of the six Best Picture “longer shots” (right behind the list of six “possibilities“) on his THR checklist. In strictly numerical terms, Feinberg has Spider-Man: No Way Home in 19th place. Let me explain something right here … Read more

The 2022 Spirit Award nominations dropped this morning. Congrats to all nominees, but HE especially salutes the top nomination-getter — Janicza Bravo‘s Zola. Seven nommies = the almost certain winner of the Best Feature prize. Otherwise, wokey-woke changes continue apace. For decades the Spirits have been held the day before the Oscars, and were therefore … Read more

I wouldn’t call myself “sad and lonely,” at least not in the Buck Owens sense of that term. But I do understand and relate to those anxious, intensely focused, mostly melancholy fellows who tend to populate Paul Schrader‘s films — aka “God’s lonely men”. Because I’m more or less one of them. Not in a … Read more

I am gratified to report that I’ve seen Paul Schrader‘s The Card Counter, and so that’s one film, at least, that I can write about before the Telluride Film Festival begins. I’ll most likely post my review concurrent with the Venice Film Festival debut. I could share a vague impression or two, but let’s hold … Read more

HE to Paul Schrader a few minutes ago: “Great news about The Card Counter (Focus, 9.10.21) allegedly going to Venice and Telluride. I don’t know this for a fact, but Jordan Ruimy alleges from Cannes that you spilled the beans during a recent q & a, stating that The Card Counter will in fact be … Read more