"Strangely, I'm never more myself than when I'm writing."
I count myself fortunate to have seen this film at the historic Plaza Theatre in Atlanta with not only Ethan scheduled to attend but Maya showing up as a surprise guest. They treated us to a full hour of conversation, and I wrote about it for Garden & Gun. It's my first assignment for them, so you should read it and then maybe they'll let me write some more.
Shouts out to Anton Jackson for the photos! (Yes, that's me on the third row.)
"Thank you so much for shopping with us over the years."
The circle of life as reflected through the prism of a small-town shopping mall an hour from where I grew up. It's all here, but everything must go.
Documentarians truly are the prospectors of the film industry, and these two directors dug up some golden moments, all the while keeping it in service of a bigger picture. An old domino hound eagerly waiting to meet his maker. A little…
[Seen via the 2025 Slamdance Film Festival]
"I love your house. And all the clowns."
This particular brand of hyper-awkward mumblecore simply isn't my thing. And the score was also a choice. But anyone who's able to get on the film's wavelength should be able to find lots to enjoy from the concept and the characters.
My distant cousin Colin Burgess is innocent though. And I still have high hopes for Blu Hunt's career even after the first two things I saw her in didn't really work for me.
[Seen via the 2025 Slamdance Film Festival]
“Hey, so’d they win or lose?”
“Uh. Lost.”
“I can’t even tell anymore.”
There’s an early Safdies energy here that really works in the film’s favor. What feels mundane and trivial in the first act begins to boil until it spirals out of control into a satisfying conclusion. Impressive work out the gate from McKee.
But what I’m really curious about is the choice to focus on not just a real school but…
[Seen at the 2017 Nashville Film Festival]
"You made them, America. What did you expect?"
I was not familiar with the true story of Brian Deneke, but had we lived in the same town, our paths might've crossed. I was born seven years later, but I grew up going to punk rock shows in Birmingham at Cave 9 and the Boiler Room and the Two-Way and anywhere that would have us. I didn't dress quite like Brian and his crew,…
"Don't say your philosophy, Daddy. Embody it."
Utterly fascinating. Too incoherent and incomplete to achieve its lofty goals, but too interesting and full of ideas to be considered a failure. It almost succeeds on its own terms as a child of Coppola's brain; not a film about its creator as much as it is a film purely from within him. More often than not, the dialogue feels like something he would either say to himself in a mirror or mutter…
