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Joni Mitchell famously wrote, “You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.” I suspect that sentiment will become even more commonplace over the next few years. Don’t get me wrong, I u…
Joni Mitchell famous…
Joni Mitchell famously wrote, “You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.” I suspect that sentiment will become even more commonplace over the next few years. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that the only constant in the universe is change, and to wish for the present to be frozen in amber is, at best, wishful thinking. One of those things that’s disappearing - or perhaps changing - is trust in the media. I learned from Gallup* that in 1972, sixty-eight percent of Americans had between a great deal to a fair amount of trust in mass media. As of 2024, that number has plu…
Tim Brennan
January 20, 2025
These days, a lot of people proclaim with absolute certainty that they know where God is and what God is doing. They’re positive that, on July 13 of last year, God altered the trajectory of an assas…
These days, a lot of…
These days, a lot of people proclaim with absolute certainty that they know where God is and what God is doing. They’re positive that, on July 13 of last year, God altered the trajectory of an assassin’s bullet and saved Donald Trump at a rally. The fact that God didn’t see fit to save rally goer Corey Comperatore isn’t commented on much. We’re absolutely sure God is on our side, though there’s significantly less talk about if we’re on His side. I wonder if God is in Gaza. I’m not sure, but I know with absolute metaphysical certainty that miracles have occurred there. A stra…
Tim Brennan
January 13, 2025
Do I believe in America? That’s a good question. While I wasn’t raised in a particularly patriotic household, I grew up in Reagan’s 1980s and graduated high school in the early years of Clinton…
Do I believe in Amer…
Do I believe in America? That’s a good question. While I wasn’t raised in a particularly patriotic household, I grew up in Reagan’s 1980s and graduated high school in the early years of Clinton’s 1990s. During those formative years, I was told that hard work would pull you up the socioeconomic ladder, that in every way that mattered we were here for each other, and that you could be anything you wanted to be. In my experience, America doesn’t operate quite like that. The proof is the epidemic of homelessness we’re experiencing right now. The guy who was just re-elected President…
Tim Brennan
January 6, 2025
It’s true we’re in a transition period for movies, and I have no idea what that transition will lead to. I’ve seen gloom and doom headlines about the creeping death of theaters, and I’ve also …
It’s true we’re …
It’s true we’re in a transition period for movies, and I have no idea what that transition will lead to. I’ve seen gloom and doom headlines about the creeping death of theaters, and I’ve also seen hopeful pieces about people re-prioritizing theaters. I’ve heard anecdotes about studios using A.I. to replace creatives, and anecdotes about streamers utilizing “casual viewing,” films designed to have plot information repeated for those who have movies on in the background and aren’t paying attention.* The one thing I do know is that every year that movies exist is a good year fo…
Tim Brennan
December 30, 2024
The thing about biopics is, they’re hard to make. If you’re a filmmaker and want to tell a story about a famous person, common wisdom says that there are one of two ways to do it. The first is to …
The thing about biop…
The thing about biopics is, they’re hard to make. If you’re a filmmaker and want to tell a story about a famous person, common wisdom says that there are one of two ways to do it. The first is to portray the entirety of a famous person’s life and try to capture their essence. Oliver Stone’s Nixon does a nice job of that, as does Spike Lee’s Malcolm X. The second option is to compress time, and show a few key events in the famous person’s life. David Fincher’s The Social Network and Danny Boyle’s Steve Jobs pull this off magnificently. Biopics about famous musicians are much,…
Tim Brennan
December 23, 2024
One of the joys of independent film is the sense of risk. Studio films have always, to a degree, played it safe. These days they’re even more risk averse, due to the flood of executives from the fin…
One of the joys of i…
One of the joys of independent film is the sense of risk. Studio films have always, to a degree, played it safe. These days they’re even more risk averse, due to the flood of executives from the finance and tech industries. The majority of those people have very little interest in making art or pushing the limits of cinema. Instead, they want the maximum return on investment with the minimum amount of risk. If that means making decisions based on algorithms or artificial intelligence, so be it. An executive with Disney or Sony will greenlight the most offensively stupid piece of junk, and if…
Tim Brennan
December 16, 2024
If you know anything about the 1922 silent horror film Nosferatu, it’s probably the iconic image of actor Max Schreck. In his role as the vampire Count Orlok, Schreck didn’t play a suave nobleman …
If you know anything…
If you know anything about the 1922 silent horror film Nosferatu, it’s probably the iconic image of actor Max Schreck. In his role as the vampire Count Orlok, Schreck didn’t play a suave nobleman decked out in evening wear. He plays a monster, a near-feral creature with a ratlike visage. Nosferatu features one of the earliest and most indelible performances in the history of horror.* It was also a ripoff. You see, Bram Stoker’s novel “Dracula” was quite a sensation upon its publication in 1897. So much so that, after the birth of the film industry, the novel was considered to be a…
Tim Brennan
December 9, 2024
Tell me good things don’t emerge from big-budget studio franchises. On the one hand, a good friend of mine has nothing but contempt for cinematic tentpoles. She sneers at the MCU, rolls her eyes at …
Tell me good things …
Tell me good things don’t emerge from big-budget studio franchises. On the one hand, a good friend of mine has nothing but contempt for cinematic tentpoles. She sneers at the MCU, rolls her eyes at Star Wars, thinks the Jurassic Park/World films are a fool’s errand, and believes the Mission: Impossible franchise is little more than a decades-long vanity project for a narcissistic movie star. Maybe so. Conversely, those four-quadrant franchises can act as a springboard for new talent, and give that talent a shot at building a real acting career.* The James Bond franchise has been viewe…
Tim Brennan
December 2, 2024
Everything is a mess. I don’t just mean now, though right now as I write this and right now as you read this, there’s some degree of messiness. I also don’t mean things are a mess in the politic…
Everything is a mess…
Everything is a mess. I don’t just mean now, though right now as I write this and right now as you read this, there’s some degree of messiness. I also don’t mean things are a mess in the political sense, even though they one hundred percent are. It’s more personal than that, and it always has been. Family is a mess, and that’s where it starts. Mine certainly is. My son is a senior and is making some very distressing noises regarding a college education. My wife enthusiastically and joyfully pressured me into adopting two kittens. That is, considering we already have two cats and t…
Tim Brennan
November 18, 2024
We don’t see many epics in film these days. To be clear, I’m not talking about big movies, because we already get those on the regular. Deadpool & Wolverine is a big movie, but it’s not an e…
We don’t see many …
We don’t see many epics in film these days. To be clear, I’m not talking about big movies, because we already get those on the regular. Deadpool & Wolverine is a big movie, but it’s not an epic. Twisters is a big movie, just like Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, and just like Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. But they’re not epics.* “So what is an epic, Mr. Smarty Pants Critic,” I hear you muttering. Fair enough! For me, I think of a cinematic epic as possessing the following traits: It has hundreds, if not thousands, of people on screen. They’re used for massive battles, po…
Tim Brennan
November 11, 2024
As a movie dork, one of the most thrilling things for me is when a typecast actor defiantly refuses to be typecast. We humans rely on pattern recognition to try (and often fail) to make sense of the w…
As a movie dork, one…
As a movie dork, one of the most thrilling things for me is when a typecast actor defiantly refuses to be typecast. We humans rely on pattern recognition to try (and often fail) to make sense of the world. When things are as they’re supposed to be, we’re content. When the pattern breaks, it can either be catastrophic or wonderful. Movies are no different, and when Dwayne Johnson plays a confident yet good hearted beast,* we get the sense that the world is in balance. Imbalance can make movies interesting, such as when Tom Cruise plays a profane Hollywood executive in Tropic Thunder,…
Tim Brennan
November 4, 2024
Over drinks with a friend last weekend, talk turned to movies.* We discussed what we liked, what we didn’t, what would be forgotten, and what would become future classics. As so often happens, the c…
Over drinks with a f…
Over drinks with a friend last weekend, talk turned to movies.* We discussed what we liked, what we didn’t, what would be forgotten, and what would become future classics. As so often happens, the conversation drifted into genres. He asked me what I’d thought the most wide-ranging and versatile genre of movie was.** My answer will probably change later, but right this minute, I’d say Westerns and superhero movies are the most versatile of all genres. With Westerns, you can go full action with The Wild Bunch, do a meditative drama with Unforgiven, have an envelope-pushing comedy with B…
Tim Brennan
October 28, 2024
We are firmly in a vibes era. That’s particularly true now, in this cursed year of our Lord 2024. We’re in the midst of a vicious Presidential campaign, and the vast majority of ads, speeches, and…
We are firmly in a v…
We are firmly in a vibes era. That’s particularly true now, in this cursed year of our Lord 2024. We’re in the midst of a vicious Presidential campaign, and the vast majority of ads, speeches, and platforms aren’t really based on concrete and coherent policy arguments. They’re based on how the candidates and their operations make voters feel. Art is firmly vibes-based. It always has been, and the entire point of art is to coax out some kind of an emotional response. I’m more than okay with that. If you’ll forgive me for being pedantic a moment while I put on my screenwriter hat,…
Tim Brennan
October 21, 2024
Donald Trump is one of the twenty-first century’s most important people. I don’t just mean from a fame standpoint, though I’d bet you could show a picture of him to nearly anyone on the planet, …
Donald Trump is one …
Donald Trump is one of the twenty-first century’s most important people. I don’t just mean from a fame standpoint, though I’d bet you could show a picture of him to nearly anyone on the planet, and they would recognize him. When I say he’s important, I mean as a person who influences the course of world history. Someone with influence. As you read this, Trump is a person who can make things happen. In a strange way, the outcome of the 2024 election almost doesn’t matter in terms of his influence. Whether or not he wins, he still has influence with a speech, a social media post, or…
Tim Brennan
October 14, 2024
As I write this, the first episode of what would come to be known as “Saturday Night Live” aired nearly fifty years ago. On October 11, 1975, one of the most influential shows in the history of te…
As I write this, the…
As I write this, the first episode of what would come to be known as “Saturday Night Live” aired nearly fifty years ago. On October 11, 1975, one of the most influential shows in the history of television premiered. It would go on to spawn hundreds of episodes, dozens of stars, scores of iconic moments, and now fifty seasons of television. If you ask people their SNL opinions, their favorite cast members or sketches, a few generations* worth of people will eagerly and authoritatively reply. SNL is one of the few institutions left, and it is an institution, that transcends nearly every…
Tim Brennan
October 7, 2024
Are racing movies also sports movies? I think so. Even when the focus is someone piloting a car, motorcycle, bicycle, scooter, hydrofoil, or hovercraft, those kinds of films share a great deal with th…
Are racing movies al…
Are racing movies also sports movies? I think so. Even when the focus is someone piloting a car, motorcycle, bicycle, scooter, hydrofoil, or hovercraft, those kinds of films share a great deal with the sports genre. So much so that they feel like a subgenre. At the end of the day, they share multiple tropes, including: The protagonist is directionless initially. They are usually working class. A love of the sport provides them with focus and/or moral clarity. They initially compete and, due to overconfidence, get their ass spanked. They form a rivalry, and their rival is usual…
Tim Brennan
September 30, 2024
Very, very, very few people make it through their teen years unscathed. Some people don’t make it through at all. It’s bad enough being a teenager, the acne eruptions, the hormonal explosions, and…
Very, very, very few…
Very, very, very few people make it through their teen years unscathed. Some people don’t make it through at all. It’s bad enough being a teenager, the acne eruptions, the hormonal explosions, and all the attendant drama that comes with the age. Suppose there’s more than that? Suppose there’s an additional weight you need to carry? What then? For me, I had two additional things that made adolescence worse. The first was amblyopia, a lazy eye that I’ve had since childhood. If I look at you straight on…I can’t. One eye is always a little introverted, as if it’s not quite ready…
Tim Brennan
September 23, 2024
Tim Burton is not a filmmaker. You can be forgiven for the confusion that previous sentence created, but let me explain. Tim Burton isn’t someone interested in making movies in the traditional sense…
Tim Burton is not a …
Tim Burton is not a filmmaker. You can be forgiven for the confusion that previous sentence created, but let me explain. Tim Burton isn’t someone interested in making movies in the traditional sense. Instead, he’s an artist. He’s more focused on eliciting an emotional response as opposed to telling a story, and he uses the trappings and equipment of cinema to craft his art. In his way, Burton is similar to Andy Warhol. Both men had passionate defenders and equally passionate attackers. Both men were driven by particular artistic inclinations. Both men did it their way. Good for Burton…
Tim Brennan
September 16, 2024
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