The man sits alone in his room. His name is Narvel Roth (Joel Edgerton) and he is a gardener, but he might as well be Reverend Ernst Toller (Ethan Hawke) or gambler William Tell (Oscar Isaac) or any one of … Continue reading MASTER GARDENER
On this week’s edition of After Image, I chat with Metro Arts’ producer Veronica Straight-Lingo about the latest from Paul Schrader, Master Gardener (out now in limited release), and the documentary, Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie (out in limited … Continue reading
Reverend Toller (Ethan Hawke, in one of his best performances) is having a crisis of faith. The parish pastor of New York’s 250-year-old First Reformed church—once a stopover on the Underground Railroad, now jokingly called a gift shop—watches with detachment … Continue reading FIRST REFORMED
What does it take to make a masterpiece? Not something merely good, but among the greatest of all time. Meaningful not just to the time and place it was produced, but to the time and place with which it is … Continue reading Top Ten Territory
On Friday, January 7, the Denver Film Critics Society (DFCS)—15 writers and broadcasters working in and around the Mile High City, of which I am one—cast their preliminary ballots for this year’s DFCS awards. How it works: Members are asked … Continue reading Denver Film Critics Society 2021 Ballot
If it’s not a labor of love, then it’s a labor of something,” Errol Morris said, drawing a laugh from the Friday morning audience. Morris’s comment referred to his latest work, the four-and-a-half-hour docudrama Wormwood, but was applicable almost every time … Continue reading When I Paint My Masterpiece: Dispatches from the 2017 Telluride Film Festival
It’s the story of the man who used to be a dog meeting a dog who used to be a boy. And it’s set in a mental institution built in the middle of the Israeli desert of Negev. All the … Continue reading ADAM RESURRECTED
In 2015, I thought about the images that defined the year in cinema. In 2016, I considered how cinematic output shaped the various tendrils of Hollywood. In 2017, I found solace in the cinema, no matter how downbeat it appeared … Continue reading 2018: An Embarrassment of Riches
The shadow of Alfred Hitchcock looms large in cinema. So much so that it’s hard to divorce his stylistic innovations from movies that may or may not have been influenced by him. Take Blow the Man Down, a recent release currently … Continue reading Two for the Master
Michael J. Cinema 
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