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- 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Twelfth Night: or, What You Will
- “Literature is the written expression of revolt against expected things.” Happy Birthday to the least happy man ever, Thomas Hardy
- “I’m not interested in money. I just want to be wonderful.” – Marilyn Monroe
- “[My ambition is to] give something to our literature which will be our own.” — Walt Whitman
- “I don’t want to show things, but to give people the desire to see.” — Agnès Varda
- “I never made a message picture, and I hope I never do.” — Howard Hawks
- “If I am going to be a poet at all, I am going to be POET and not NEGRO POET.” — poet Countee Cullen
- Reviews: Currents (2026)
- Reviews: Forge (2026)
- “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
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- sheila on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Hamlet
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- Dave on Review: The Chronology of Water (2025)
- Biff Dorsey on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Hamlet
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Tag Archives: reviews
Closed Curtain (2014); directed by Jafar Panahi
A man enters a seaside villa and before doing anything else goes through every room, closing all the curtains. There are huge windows on every floor, looking out on the vast expanse of sea. There are a lot of curtains … Continue reading
Review: Behaving Badly (2014)
Grim. My review is now up at Rogerebert.com.
Review: The Strange Little Cat (2014)
“The Strange Little Cat,” a debut feature by German director Ramon Zurcher, is such a strange little movie. I can’t stop thinking about it. My review is now up at Rogerebert.com.
Review: Ida (2014); directed by Pawel Pawlikowski
Ida is one of those miraculous films where the images on the screen are so startling, so unique, so themselves, that the visuals take on a whole subterranean level of meaning, coursing beneath the actual plot. The power of the … Continue reading
Review: This Is the End (2013)
Hilarious. Thought-provoking. Self-aware. But also with an undercurrent of true worry, a gnawing and growing awareness of “How do we live a good life? How do we be good people?” It is truly concerned about these things. This Is the … Continue reading
Review: Wish I Was Here (2014); directed by Zach Braff
There are many things in this world that make me angry. Zach Braff isn’t one of them. My review of his second film, Wish I Was Here, is now up at Rogerebert.com.
Snowpiercer (2014); directed by Bong Joon Ho
In order to combat global warming, various nations on the planet decide to inject the atmosphere with a coolant. The film opens with a bright blue sky, and three planes careening by far above, leaving behind a white trail of … Continue reading
Boyhood (2014); directed by Richard Linklater
I was about to start off by saying “Movies like Boyhood…” and stopped myself. Because there are no other movies like Boyhood. There are other films about a boy coming of age, there are other films about a child becoming … Continue reading
Posted in Movies
Tagged drama, Ethan Hawke, Patricia Arquette, reviews, Richard Linklater
17 Comments
Review: Affluenza (2014)
Not good. My review is now up at Rogerebert.com.
Barbaric Genius (2013): Interview with Paul Duane and John Healy
In 1988, the British literary scene was rocked by the publication of London-Irishman John Healy’s extraordinary memoir about his life as a wino, The Grass Arena. It won the top prize in England that year for literary autobiography. It was … Continue reading

