You don’t get to look like me without being a foodie. I’ve joked with my wife that she married a man who will never have rippling muscles or six-pack abs. It’s all because I love food. The preparation of it, the eating of it, and the reminiscing of it. There’s something special about it, and the right meal eaten at the right place with the right people can be nothing short of magical. I’m a foodie, but I also know that the foodie scene sometimes gets to be…well, a bit much. At a local pizza place in Boulder a few years ago, our waiter regaled us with the quality of the ingredients.... Read More

It’s days like this that remind me of just how little I really know about movies. You see, I’m here to talk about The Northman, the gore-drenched film directed by Robert Eggers concerning the revenge of a Viking prince. As I was turning the movie over in my head, I began wondering, “Are Viking films numerous enough to be considered a genre?” As it turns out, they kind of are! We don’t quite have a time in cinema where Viking films reigned supreme at the box office. While gangster movies were very much a thing in the 1930s to 1940s, and westerns were the dominant genre for close to three... Read More

Watch movies long enough, and you’ll start to learn the individual traits that directors have. I think it would be physically impossible for Quentin Tarantino to make a movie with no dialogue.* If J.J. Abrams made a movie set in a lightless cave, he’d figure out a way to sneak a lens flare in somewhere. Some for-hire filmmakers are able to sneak under the radar by tailoring their style to the project, perhaps in a desire to let the story be the star. For the most part, you can eventually spot their tics. One of those tics for Edgar Wright is music. With the exception of Martin Scorsese, I’m... Read More

Movies aren’t for everyone, though people think they are. A bunch of years ago, my wife and I caught the very good film Adaptation in the theaters. If it’s been a minute since you’ve seen or thought about it, Adaptation is about a lonely screenwriter struggling to adapt a book about an orchid thief. It’s got strong performances by Nicolas Cage and Meryl Streep, and a great deal to say about the creative process. Joining us in our cinematic excursion was an Unnamed Member Of Our Extended Family. He’s a great guy, but the film tastes of the aforementioned UMOOEF, as he will be known going... Read More

When I was in high school and college, I fancied myself a bit of an actor. During that time, I learned two things. The truly great actors have impeccable timing, a precise understanding of their character and how it fits into the larger piece, and are compelling to watch. I was blessed with none of that. Shakespeare is Mount Everest for actors. If you can scale those heights and make the Bard’s prose sound natural, energetic, and real, you can say you’ve done it justice. As Old Seward in Macbeth, I didn’t do his words justice. As crimes against the arts go, it was more of... Read More

Horror is probably the most subjective genre in film, with comedy running a very close second. We all have our own individual cracks in our psyches, and certain fears strike us in different ways. What scares me may not necessarily scare you. It’s a shame, too, that horror is sneered at, looked down upon. It’s the red-headed stepchild of film. People with otherwise impeccable taste in any other art form will turn up their noses if you suggest a horror flick for movie night. These same people will then campaign vigorously for overrated tripe like Forrest Gump.  The color palate of... Read More