Sonic Cinema

I’m not going to write this from a perspective of trying to understand what a lot of women, LGBTQIA+ and minorities are thinking in the aftermath of the United States electing Donald Trump as President for the second time in eight years. This is only my perspective, my feelings, expressed in a medium that I express myself best at. Tuesday night, and Wednesday morning, was anxious for me. I was […]

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 […]

As I began to prepare for my recent episode with Jason from Binge Movies on Fascism in Cinema, it occurred to me that this would be a fascinating ongoing series in the next year or two in American history. For the next episode of the series, we are looking at authoritarian violence and the idea of due process in our society, and how it can be reflected in films. Joining […]

On the next episode of the podcast, I’m joined by a fellow podcaster whom I’ve only talked to on social media, and will be my first new guest on 2025. The topic of the day is Mary Harron’s controversial dark comedy, “American Psycho”, which turns 25 this year. The guest is Pete Abeyta, one of the co-hosts of the Middle Class Film Class podcast. I hope you enjoy! Episode 165 […]

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 […]