Sonic Cinema

When it comes to a particular genre of narrative storytelling, science fiction remains my favorite genre, but I will be honest- over the past several years, documentaries have just started to hit differently for me. I think it’s due to my starting to cover film festivals in 2019; while yes, seeing some narrative films before the general public has been exciting, there have typically been 2-3 documentaries from festivals like […]

The past few months have been a bit more of an emotional roller coaster for me than I’ve had in awhile. It hasn’t been tied to a particular life event; it just feels as though something shifted with my social media circle, and it’s been something to work through. The saying is “social media isn’t real life,” but the more time you spend on it, the less true that becomes, […]

For this year’s wrap-up episode of my coverage of the 2025 Renegade Film Festival, I’m taking a slightly different approach. You can read my thoughts at Sonic Cinema and In Their Own League about what I took away from the festival this year. both in terms of perspective of the time it took place, and the films I loved from it; this episode is about giving the filmmakers their voice […]

It’s that time again. Amanda Spears returns to discuss the Oscars and help predict the winners. I also share my 10 Best list for 2024. I hope you enjoy! Episode 163 – Oscar Thoughts with Amanda Spears & Brian’s Top 10 of 2024 Read Brian’s Retrospective on 2024 here. Read Brian’s Thoughts of the 2024 Atlanta Film Critics Circle Winners here. Read Brian’s Thoughts of the 2024 Georgia Film Critics […]

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 […]

Last year, I decided to start a weekly blog, entitled “A Movie a Week.” Inspired by Roger Ebert’s “Great Movies” series and AICN’s Quint’s “A Movie a Day” (and later, “A Movie a Week”) series, I decided to look at older movies in my collection. Some, I had wanted to write about for a while (“L.A. Confidential,” “Braveheart,” “Andrei Rublev”), some I was inspired to do as I went along […]

Last year, I was given the chance to listen to, and review, an album entitled, “Passing Through Veils,” by a good friend of mine, Darren Nelsen. A year later, I finally got around to doing so. The reasons for the delay are one part pure laziness, but also, listening to music for the purpose of review is a very different beast than reviewing movies, and I wanted to do right […]

“Brian Skutle’s passion is for storytelling, be it through music, film, or creative writing, with the story dictating the medium that best brings it to life. In his music, though, it may not be a specific story that inspires him, but a feeling. A sense of longing; of mystery; of tension; of serenity; of sensuality; of something beyond the humdrum normalcy of life, though sometimes, his goal is to just […]