Preparing to vote for the best of the year for the Atlanta Film Critics Circle for the second year has been an ordeal. This year, my screening schedule has been rough, with work taking me out of town a lot, resulting in limiting my possibilities of getting to movies early, so this year’s ballot was not nearly as complete as I normally hope to have it. That meant trying to […]
Last year, I joined the Atlanta Film Critics Circle. I voted in last year’s awards, and will do so again this year. This year is not just a normal year for the organization, however. Earlier this year, before other publications had done their respective lists of the Best Films of the 21st Century, we had begun to discuss the idea of doing our own. We begin by submitting our personal […]
We’ve looked at resistance to fascism. The police state. Faith peddlers. And journalists holding power accountable. The first few episodes in this series have looked at serious topics when dealing with encroaching authoritarianism. For the fifth and final episode of the series for 2025, it’s time to have a little bit of fun. While cinematic propaganda has been around for pretty much the entirety of the medium’s existence, when it […]
When it comes to authoritarian regimes- or those aspiring to be- a free and independent press can be its worst enemy. Fake news, Lugenpresse. “Liberal bias.” Those are just some of the ways they can be discredited by leaders with a fetish for dictatorships. In this episode in our “Fascism in Cinema” episode, listen as myself and the Editor in Chief at In Their Own League, Joan Amenn, discuss what […]
The title, “Repertory Revues,” just fits for this series. In a way, it feels like I’m operating my own, personal repertory series each year. One of the things you realize when you work at a theatre for as long as I have is how little autonomy one has when it comes to scheduling and booking. With new releases, you are beholden to the studio release schedule, and when it comes […]
Sometimes, the best laid plans can go awry. Even when it’s continuing a project you’ve been working on for years. When I choose a “bookend” filmmaker for the year, the expectation I hold for myself is that I will watch one of their films every year after their initial inclusion as a bookend, thereby making their filmography an imperative one for me to go through. This year, if you looked […]
My desire to write music for film predates me even putting pencil to manuscript paper for the first time. Even though I had been listening to film soundtracks and scores for years, it’s hard to describe the impact of what James Horner’s score for “Braveheart” did to me. For the first time, I went from appreciating the impact of a great soundtrack to thinking, “What if I was responsible for […]
There’s rock-n-roll excess, and then there’s Guns N’ Roses. My first experience with GN’R was the single for “Paradise City” in 1988-89. It had, as a B-side, “Move to the City” from “GN’R Lies,” and it was in rotation for me as I went through middle school, and started to form my identity in terms of the music I liked. Until I became a soundtrack junkie in 1993, I never […]
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