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- 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- “I don’t represent anything.” — Liz Phair
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- “Some syllables are swords.” — Metaphysical poet Henry Vaughan
- “To me, music is no joke and it’s not for sale.” — Ian MacKaye
- “All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl.” — Charlie Chaplin
- “As a cinematographer, I was always attracted to stories that have the potential to be told with as few words as possible.” — Reed Morano
- “Even though I’m writing about very dark material, it still feels like an escape hatch.” — Olivia Laing
- “It’s just one of the mysteries of filmmaking that sometimes you do something that you don’t even think it’s important, then it turns out to be.” — Lili Horvát
- “Ballet taught me to stay close to style and tone. Literature taught me to be concerned about the moral life.” — Joan Acocella
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Tag Archives: Natalie Portman
October 2024 Viewing Diary
Downfall (2005; d. Oliver Hirschbiegel) I’ve watched a couple of times. Always good to have a reminder of the madness of those final months, where even the most hardened monstrous men were like, “… uhm, yeah, he’s a lunatic, I’m … Continue reading
Posted in Monthly Viewing Diary, Movies, Television
Tagged animation, Australia, biopic, documentary, drama, England, France, Germany, Ginger Rogers, historical drama, Iranian film, Japan, Michelle Pfeiffer, Natalie Portman, Palestine, Poland, Pre-Code, Robert De Niro, romantic comedy, war movies, women directors
31 Comments
Review: May December (2023)
Todd Haynes’ latest, starring Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman, is super good. I reviewed for Ebert.
Year in Review: Running my mouth in 2018
Thanks, everyone, who hangs out here, who likes what I do, whether you’re an Elvis fan, a Supernatural fan, a general cinephile, a book-lover, or just someone who’s been checking in periodically for almost 16 years – WHAT? – I … Continue reading
Posted in James Joyce, Movies, Television
Tagged Anne V. Coates, Burt Reynolds, documentary, Doris Day, Dorothy Malone, Elvis Presley, England, Finnegans Wake, Frank Sinatra, Gena Rowlands, Germany, Gold Diggers of 1933, Grace Kelly, Hal Ashby, Howard Hughes, Ian McEwan, James Cagney, Joan Didion, Joaquin Phoenix, Julie Christie, Lynne Ramsay, Mexico, Minnie and Moskowitz, Natalie Portman, Paul Thomas Anderson, Play It As It Lays, Robert Altman, Russia, Sanaa Lathan, South Korea, Supernatural, Warren Beatty, women directors, Woody Allen, year in writing
10 Comments
2018 Movies: An Embarrassment of Riches
My non-definitive Top 10 is here. Many of the films in the list below had spots on the Top 10 until I had to bump them off. But here are the films that were alternates for my Top 10, movies … Continue reading
Posted in Movies
Tagged Argentina, Coen brothers, documentary, Italy, Josephine Decker, Lady Gaga, Natalie Portman, South Korea, Spike Lee, Stalin, women directors
4 Comments
Review: Vox Lux (2018) This movie, y’all …
So glad I was assigned this one. I reviewed for Rogerebert.com.
The Line
In the summer of 2001, a production of The Seagull, directed by Mike Nichols, played in Central Park at the outdoors Delacorte Theatre. It starred Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Natalie Portman, Marcia Gay Harden, Christopher Walken. It … Continue reading
Posted in Personal, Theatre
Tagged Meryl Streep, Mike Nichols, Natalie Portman, New York, Philip Seymour Hoffman
42 Comments
From Rogerebert.com: The Great Performances of 2016
This is a really fun list. Rogerebert.com contributors each talk about a different great performance from 2016. I wrote about Trevante Rhodes in Moonlight. You can read the full list here.
Posted in Actors, Movies
Tagged Hugh Grant, Isabelle Huppert, Natalie Portman, Susan Sarandon
6 Comments

