Virginia Film Festival, Part 1: Day of Future Past
My first of two days at the Virginia Film Festival, on the eve of the 2024 election, was full of movies grappling with historical trauma.
Gone Girl at 10: Fifteen Minutes of Shame
A decade since its release, the date movie from hell is a post-breakup classic and a prophetic preview of the always-online life yet to come
Jimmy Carter: Rock and Roll President: He's History's Greatest Rock Star
The story of Jimmy Carter's friendships with musical royalty illuminates, even as it hints at the limits of his approach.
Alien: Romulus: The Cinemorph
The first Disney-produced Alien film cares more about referencing the original movies than it does actual originality.
Alien³: Scar Beast
The maligned threequel comes together often enough, and in such striking ways, that even its failures inspire fascination.
Forrest Gump at 30: Defund, Forrest, Defund
Forrest Gump and the Neoliberal Imaginary in 1990s Welfare Reform. In this essay I will...
The Straight Story: Zen and the Art of Mower (Riding) Maintenance
The most obscure David Lynch film is also his most accessible, and one of his most profound.
Old Movies on Getting Older
Tokyo Story and Dazed and Confused are two classics that speak in very different ways about aging.
