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 […]
This past March, I was accepted to be a member of the Atlanta Film Critics Circle, which was founded in 2017, and looks to “fill a void in the local film community and in the representation of Atlanta’s media on the national stage.” This marks my second local film critic group to be included in, after the Georgia Film Critics Association (which I’ve been a member of since 2018). In […]
It’s a couple of months later than I hoped, but my wrap-up episode of the 2025 Atlanta Film Festival is finally here. I explain where the podcast has been the past couple of months, rattle off some of my favorite films of the fest, as well as share interviews with director David Fortune, executive producer Xavier Two Lewis and actor Njema Williams (“Color Book”), writers Omar Epps and 2 Chainz […]
It’s interesting how this episode lined up with events around it. My guest and I had been planning for this episode for months, and we happened to have time for it shortly after one of its stars passed away. My guest is a first-timer to the podcast, my dear friend Dawn Echols, and the subject is George P. Costamos’s 1993 film, “Tombstone”, starring the late Val Kilmer. In addition to […]
This year has been a challenging one. My schedule, both at home, and at work, changed in a lot of ways, sometimes making watching films for this series (and in general) difficult. I was behind much of the time. Yet, I persevered, mainly because I just enjoy doing this series too much. This year, I decided to do a couple of things different, first in my selection of filmmaker, then […]
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 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 […]
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 […]
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