REVIEW: Anima [2019]

Please let me know when you’ve had enough. When you’re Thom Yorke and well into a career with one of the most recognizable rock bands in the world (they self-release records on a “pay what you want” scale after all), you can think outside the box where advertising is concerned. So don’t be mistaken where his short film collaboration with Paul Thomas Anderson is concerned. Anima is very much an advertisement for the album of the same name and Yorke himself as an artist about to tour. The same goes…

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Online Film Critics Society Ballot 2018

Below is my December 27th ballot for the 22nd annual Online Film Critics Society Awards honoring movies released domestically in the United States during the 2018 calendar year. Each category is ordered according to my preferential rankings. Group winners are labeled in red. (No option to abstain was supplied this year.)

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REVIEW: Velvet Goldmine [1998]

“It’s funny how beautiful people look when they’re walking out the door” What if Citizen Kane wasn’t about Charlie’s Foster Kane but instead the interviewer tasked with speaking to those in Kane’s life, mining for the meaning of “Rosebud”? This is sort of where director Todd Haynes (co-written with James Lyons) begins his fictional account of Brit glam rocker Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys Meyers). Velvet Goldmine deals with this enigma of a star and his tumultuous life before fading completely out of the public consciousness following a misguided stunt. (Or…

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REVIEW: Hurry Up and Wait [2013]

“They’ll go on tour for 40 days and end up playing 42 shows” Remember when Atlanta, Georgia based rock band Gringo Star was on everyone’s lips and selling out shows throughout the USA back in 2011? Well, it didn’t quite work out that way. Listening to their albums—Count Yer Lucky Stars and All Yall—right now on Spotify as I write, I’ll admit this quartet has the potential to make a mark in the music industry. At times reminiscent of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club‘s lo-fi sound while at others finding an…

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REVIEW: Meeting People is Easy [1998]

“Again, music to slit your wrists to” It was a batty animated music video lasting almost seven minutes for “Paranoid Android” that made me go out and buy OK Computer. Still in high school, I thought the album was the best thing I had ever heard and played it to death before finding out from a classmate that it was actually the band’s third disc. From there I experienced The Bends—my all-time favorite rock album—and with that Radiohead cemented its place at the top of my musical world. I made…

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