There are a lot of things we know about Jonah Hill. He was born on Dec. 20, 1983; he worked at Hot Rod Skateboard Shop in L.A.; he made his film debut in I Heart Huckabees; he’s been nominated for…

One of my favorite things about narrative, especially in film, is how stories can add layers of meaning by having characters as symbolic representations of abstract concepts. A Star is Born does this really well, creating a whole secondary dimension of meaning to the movie—especially…

To convey the nuance of its thematics, Clouds of Sils Maria primarily relies on dialogue between characters. So this ending explanation involves a lot of dialogue. But once you have the context of the dialogue, the whole movie becomes clear.…

Think back to the first few months of Trump’s America. Crazy shit, right? Especially if you voted for Hillary Clinton. There was so much despondency among young people and liberals who, just hours after the results, were already yearning for…

Season 7 of Game of Thrones has been met with more openly negative complaints than any season I remember. Most of this has to do with throwing travel logistics out the window. Trips that used to take weeks now seem like…

It speaks of David Lynch’s absolute discipline that his first Oscar-bait feature didn’t opt for a hokey or crowd-pleasing  ending. The closing moments of The Elephant Man are tragic, forceful, and ambiguous all at once, but more than anything, Lynch’s…

Frank operates on two levels. The first level involves the story of Jon Burroughs.  The second level is the story of The Soronprfbs.  Frank is interesting because so much of the movie is about Jon and his experience with the band The…

Think of the most controversial films of the last few years. Drive certainly fit the bill for 2011, in both its lack of action sequences and its viewers’ anti-Semitic readings of the film. In 2010, people were equally turned off…

Kumail is performing in an New York comedy club. In the middle of his bit, he hears a “woo-hoo!” And, wouldn’t you know it, it’s Emily with some of her friends. He tells her that yelling at a comedian during…

When looking through the Other Worlds Austin film schedule, I see a ton of amazing concepts and ideas; it’s full of films that I find intriguing, enthralling, that make my eyes light up and my brain start racing. Sci-fi films,…

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri left me in a weird spot. Which is true with a lot of people. I found it problematic that I was being asked to sympathize with Jason Dixon. Dude was the embodiment of awful cops. And…