Sonic Cinema

It’s that time of year again when the winners of the Georgia Film Critics Association awards are announced. I’ve seen more of our nominees (and winners) than I have in previous years, and there’s a lot going on with these selections. Here are the nominees, what won, and my thoughts as a voting member. I hope you enjoy! 2024 Georgia Film Critics Association Awards Best Picture “Anora” – WINNER “The […]

It feels like every year since 2020 has been, “How is the box-office recovering post-COVID?” I think a big part of that is with how many massive films have seemed to underperform over the past few years. In 2023, it was a blood-letting, where surefire hits faltered, and some of the biggest hits over-performed relative to their probability of success. 2024 had a continuing of that uncertainty of what audiences […]

We wrap up the Sonic Cinema Podcast for 2024 with an episode that I’ve had on the brain for a couple of years. The topic is Christmas movies, and the mainline between the two is director Bob Clark, who in 1974 directed the slasher classic, “Black Christmas”, and a decade later, directed the beloved “A Christmas Story”. My guest is once again Phil Fasso, and we had an enjoyable discussion […]

Hello readers and listeners! We’re wrapping up 2024 with a handful of “Class of 1999” discussions, and this is one I’m delighted to share with you. The film is John Lasseter’s “Toy Story 2”, and joining me is returning guest Darin Lundberg of NostalgiaCast. This was such a wonderful dialogue and experience. You can hear the Yahoos With a Microphone commentary on “Toy Story” here. I hope you enjoy! “Class […]

I need to get this series back on track. When I changed up this series in 2020, I was not anticipating the pandemic, and not working for most of the year. Now that I have changed jobs, I’m finding maintaining two movies a month to be a tricky business. Part of that is because of how varied my work schedule can be, but it’s also because I find myself working […]

If you love film, you likely have been to a repertory screening at some point in your life. The chance to watch an older movie, on the big screen, with a crowd as in love with the opportunity to watch a movie in theatres, maybe for the first time, or maybe to recapture that sense of wonder of when you first saw it. The idea of repertory showings of movies […]

One of my favorite things in movies is when they show why a piece of music matters to a character. While a great soundtrack can help us figure out who a character is, when we see characters actively engage with music onscreen, that is a special thing for me. There are plenty of great examples of this- Max Cherry discovering The Delfonics in “Jackie Brown”; “As Time Goes By” being […]

**Author’s Note: The following essay includes scenes from “Touch of Evil” to illustrate my words. These scenes not only include spoilers to the film, but one involves implied sexual assault. Orson Welles never stopped pushing cinema form forward after “Citizen Kane”– the problem was his resources got more and more scant, and his freedom more and more bowled over by studio interference as he went along. But watch films like […]