For this episode, Travis and I discuss our favorite movies of the year, which coincides with my article on the same subject.
Todd Wofford
For the first time since high school, I've made an effort to see just about every movie out there. I didn't quite bat 1.000, but I'm comfortable with a belated review of Holmes and Watson if you are. If that movie somehow turns out to be East of Eden, well, then we'll squeeze it on here.…
"I hope that nobody has ever had to look at anybody they love through glass." These words open If Beale Street Could Talk, with every syllable coated in aching, anguished sadness. Since the dawn of theater, a thousand tragedies have struck a thousand characters with the burden of inevitability, whether that be in the form of…
As a young dweeb, I found great joy in flipping to the "How to Increase Your Word Power" Section of a Reader's Digest. It's truly an invaluable tool for infusing your vernacular with big, flowery words that make people roll their eyes and walk away from you at parties. I remember being struck by how many…
In Roma, Alfonso Cuarón's camera often pans languidly across a scene, like a mind wandering into its own corners. Cuarón's vivid recollections of childhood rise like a slow swell of water, from the gentle lapping of drainwater that opens the film to the pounding ocean waves in its final act. If a river can reshape the…
Between the age of twelve and eventual adulthood lies a gaping, treacherous chasm, filled with the wilderness of puberty. Hormones rage, bullies reign, and our once-beloved parents become pariahs. Not surprisingly, most movies approach this awkward time of life awkwardly: Actual teen issues of anxiety, depression, and burgeoning sexuality are difficult and three-dimensional, so it's…
The old saying goes that, "war is long periods of tedium punctuated by moments of sheer terror." No film in recent memory captures that contrast with more crystalline ferocity than They Shall Not Grow Old. In the hands of Peter Jackson, this documentary never feels like a simple remastering or a coloring of the past with crayons. Instead, Jackson…
When offered the vice presidency, Daniel Webster was succinct: "I do not propose to be buried until I am dead." Vice, Adam McKay's scorching dramedy, posits that Dick Cheney took a cold, clinical look at the same office and saw boundless opportunities. McKay spends over two hours skewering Cheney on a spit, placing many of…
Bumblebee makes a wise move by chucking the mechanical three-ring circus of past Transformers films into the dumpster. In place of all that clunking cacophony we get something surprising: A fun, patiently-paced film, filled with characters who do more than run, scream, and hide. This is a prequel that feels more like a rejuvenation.
It's 1987, and…
Aquaman takes 100 minutes worth of rollicking escapism and dilutes it into 145 minutes worth of movie. At some point, all the subplots and flashbacks and supporting characters and mythic beasts and sweeping aquatic battles amount to an overpacked suitcase, with the filmmakers sitting on it to get the latches shut. Jason Momoa is great…
