Earlier this year, I was honored to join the Southeastern Film Critics Association critics group. It is my third critics group to vote in, and was the second that needed my ballot this year. Unfortunately, I had no real time to get to anything between AFCC and SEFCA, so it was basically the same ballot. Hopefully, next year I’ll have more time. Here are this year’s winners. If anything, it […]
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 […]
As we’ve gone through this series, many of the topics have been more inspired by the larger atmosphere around the United States during Trump Administration II. This episode, however, had a very specific inspiration in the recent UFC cage fight on President Trump’s birthday- and part of his celebrations for America’s 250th anniversary. The idea of a UFC fight in front of the White House made me think of films […]
In the discussion of fascism and authoritarianism in cinema (and in real life), it’s impossible to not discuss conspiracy theories. Over the past few years, conspiratorial ideas is almost hat in hand with the politics of the time. In our latest exploration of fascism in cinema, come down the rabbit hole with my guest, Ben Friedman of Ben Talks Film, and I as we look at how three films take […]
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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