Category Archives: Movies

Reviews: Currents (2026)

Currents doesn’t help you interpret what you see. But what you see is so mesmerizing, watching the movie is like falling into it. You’re in the currents, if you will. Virginia Woolf’s extreme subjectivity in approach is an obvious reference … Continue reading →

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Reviews: Forge (2026)

What an interesting fun film about a brother-sister art-forgery team operating in the elite wealthy circles and/or art underground of Miami. Really good. I reviewed for Ebert.

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“Only the bad directors tell you how to read a line, how to define your character. The good ones let you do your job.” — Carroll Baker

It’s her birthday today. When you look back on your life – especially once you’re, how you say, OLD – it’s sometimes interesting to try to untangle some of the strands, the things that happened that made you who you … Continue reading →

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“I am in a prison: one wall is the avant-garde, the other wall is the past, and I want to escape.” — György Ligeti

György Ligeti – whose birthday it is today – was a classical composer, born in Romania, who lived in Hungary as a young adult, before fleeing Stalinist oppression to Austria. As he said in an interview much later, he lived … Continue reading →

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An Acting Lesson: John Wayne and the “Reality of the Doing”

An old piece, re-posted for John Wayne’s birthday: In one lengthy scene in Hondo, filmed in one almost unbroken take, Wayne makes horseshoes in the little outdoor smith in the yard. Geraldine Page hovers nearby. He talks to her about … Continue reading →

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Physical Media Booklet Essay

Physical Media Booklet Essay is the brainchild of Sean Abley, whom I have known since we were 20something actors running from blackbox theatre to storefront theatre and back up and down the stores of Lake Michigan. He had a theatre … Continue reading →

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The zine is here: Physical Media Booklet Essay

The new zine – created and produced and edited by Sean Abley is here. It is called PHYSICAL MEDIA BOOKLET ESSAY. The idea behind it, the concept – is rather high concept and we’re still not saying exactly what it … Continue reading →

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“It’s an absolute miracle that I’m still around.” — Dennis Hopper

It’s his birthday today. I’m so glad I used one of my columns at Film Comment -now on hiatus – to sing the praises of Dennis Hopper’s wild and nihilistic Out of the Blue, starring Linda Manz and Hopper. Of … Continue reading →

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For Joseph Cotten’s birthday: Gaslight: His Listening Is Active

Except for a couple of brief encounters in public settings, Joseph Cotten’s Brian Cameron and Ingrid Bergman’s Paula Asquist never meet until the final scene of Gaslight. Cameron is obsessed with the unsolved murder of Paula Asquist’s aunt, and is … Continue reading →

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“That’s the way I work: I try to imagine what I would like to see.” — Sofia Coppola

It’s her birthday today. Doing these posts is a way to pull up things from my gigantic archives. I might as well find ways to share them. But it’s also a reminder of how much I haven’t written. Topics I … Continue reading →

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