Sonic Cinema

Sounds, Visions and Insights by Brian Skutle

News

There are some pleasant surprises with the nominees for this year’s Georgia Film Critics Association awards, but also some not-so-pleasant snubs. There are still several I haven’t seen, though. Here are the nominees, what won, and my thoughts as a voting member. I hope you enjoy! This was a fairly impressive selection this year. 2023 Georgia Film Critics Association Awards Best Picture “American Fiction” “Barbie” “Godzilla Minus One” “The Holdovers” […]

Categories: News, News - General

The excess of overspending on blockbusters and relying too much on audience goodwill for franchises, and not putting enough creative muscle in stories, finally caught up with Hollywood in 2023. This summer was a reckoning for studios on a number of fronts: first with the studios penny-pinching and disregard of creatives in the form of multi-month strikes by both the Writer’s Guild and Screen Actors Guild (with more potential strikes […]

Categories: News, News - General

Sonic Cinema Podcast

In this episode of the podcast, we take a left turn into anime, and a long-running manga character and a couple of their adventures. The character is the colorful and arrogant but wonderful Lupin the 3rd. Bringing two of the character’s adventures- “Jigen’s Gravestone” and “Goeman’s Bloody Spray”– to the podcast is fellow podcaster Robbie Sherman, whose show- Conversations with Robbie Sherman– I was on earlier this year. I hope […]

Categories: News, News - Podcast

This is an episode that I wanted to do because it gives me a chance to discuss movies I’ve been a fan of since my early years of movie fandom. I have never read any of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan novels, but in particular, two film adaptations of his work- 1992’s “Patriot Games” and 1994’s “Clear and Present Danger”– were films I really loved watching. We don’t strictly stick to […]

Categories: News, News - Podcast

Repertory Revues

This is my third year doing the “Movie a Week” series, and I continue to find it a rewarding endeavor. Sometimes, it takes a little longer to get myself worked up to watch the movie I intend to review, but especially if it comes to a movie I wasn’t too sure about at the time I first saw it, that gives me an opportunity to reconcile my initial thoughts with […]

In its second year as a regular column on Sonic Cinema, “A Movie a Week” has found its sea legs…as well as its own section on the front page of the site. That means no more obstruction of Oscar blogs & end-of essays. I figure some of you will be happy about that. I know I am… 🙂 As for the column itself, the basic structure of it (with films […]

Music News

In January 2011, Atlanta-area composer Brian Skutle had an idea for an EP that would return to the more exploratory type of musical craft he did in his years at Georgia State University. The result is his sixth release, and first digital-only album, “Arpeggiations & Atmospheres”. Inspired by electronica artists such as BT and Daft Punk, Skutle wanted to try his hand at something more in keeping with “popular” notions […]

Categories: News, News - Music

After the ambitious scope displayed in his last two albums, Atlanta-area composer Brian Skutle returns to the more compilation-like approach of his first two albums with “Storytelling”. The original title of his fifth album (“Storytelling Through Sound,” later shortened to just, “Storytelling”) was inspired by an “artistic mission statement” Skutle wrote in 2006, in which he said, “As early as my first compositions back in 1998, a common thread connected […]

Categories: News, News - Music