In Maddie's Secret, director John Early plays the lead character, a woman dealing with a long-standing eating disorder, in this case, bulimia. A comedian, actor, and singer, Early's sex isn't the secret to which the movie's title refers. Early plays a female character. That’s it. The movie’s secret involves Maddie's bulimia, a condition she has been hiding for years. Maddie works in the food industry, beginning the movie as a dishwasher on a cooking show. A vegan who also knows how to cook,…
I really enjoyed Daniel Kremer’s IT’S A ZABRISKIE, ZABRISKIE, ZABRISKIE, ZABRISKIE POINT, a doc/video essay that productively compares two sorta films maudit, while also stirring into the mix a bunch of other films about the American desert, from GREED to THE TRIAL OF BILLY JACK: Some of this is illuminating — it certainly made me […]
by Nathaniel R Can Daisy & Esmé pull an Emma & Kate in the new version of SENSE & SENSIBILITY? With such a banner Best Supporting Actress season in the rearview mirror, how can the next race even dream of topping it? Who will be our next Madigan... our Wunmi or Teyana? Will we get another Inga & Elle twofer? Sight unseen the films of 2026 don't appear to be offering us a wealth of contenders. And yet, who can really know in the spring or summertime? Promos and buzz and rumors of greatness for…
— A massive orange blob of a monster tries to devour much of Hollywood. — Images of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Dooley Wilson, the piano player in Casablanca's Rick's Cafe, speed by.— An animated George Lucas under glass asks to be released from his display at a museum.— Georges Milies's A Trip to the Moon crops up. All of that can be found in Minions and Monsters, the third stand-alone Minions movie since their solo debut in 2015. For the record, the Minions first appeared in 2010's…
This is just what it says on the tin, and is HILARIOUS. Lockwood has previously been featured here eviscerting John Updike, meeting the pope, and discussing David Foster Wallace. BTW, that last link includes me urging you to read the whole piece on Wallace & to in particular not miss the final three paragraphs. I stand by that rec today, three years later.
We've had a very special and unique visitor in EKSN: Fairchild PT-19A Cornell ‘163’ “Spirit of Little Norway” (reg. LN-BIF). Also TIL: Little Norway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Norway
I wasn’t sure if I should bring up Travis Knight’s MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE on these pages but hey, the movie features some awesome looking monsters (Beast Man!, Moss Man!, Mer Man! Etc.) so I say it’s all kinds of welcome here. Who knows, maybe Skeletor’s evil glowing eyes will freak out a few kids and create future Kindertraumas? One can hope. Yours truly was a smidge too old when the toys and eighties cartoon first appeared but I was well aware of the characters thanks to my friend’s younger…
A classic red-string wall appears in Past Life (dir. Simeon Halligan, 2026). ▲ Past Life (dir. Simeon Halligan, 2026) ▲ Past Life (dir. Simeon Halligan, 2026) ▲ Past Life (dir. Simeon Halligan, 2026) ▲ Past Life (dir. Simeon Halligan, 2026) ▲ Past Life (dir. Simeon Halligan, 2026) ▲ Past Life (dir. Simeon Halligan, 2026)
I've been joining in the IndieWeb Movie Club carnival for a while now. This has enabled me to watch a wide range of movies that I would probably never have come across. For each month where I have participated, I have written up my review in my monthly summaries. For July 2026 edition of the IndieWeb Movie Club, I have chosen "Charlie Chaplin" as the topic. The goal is to watch a movie directed, starring or about Charlie Chaplin. Out of the artist's illustrious career, I have only seen two of…
Discovering "Enter The Void"I first found this movie through Jacob Geller's most recent video. All I knew from that video and the letterboxd synopsis was that the movie was in a First Person View and about a guy dying and seeing his past, present and future in the afterlife. My friend then chose this movie for us to watch after reading the letterboxd synopsis of this and a few other movies those being Hardcore Henry and Maniac by Franck Khalfoun and so it was of to the races watching this…
The Frock Flicks team is a taking a little summer break, so we’re repeating some
Heute ist der Einsendeschluss für den elften Zinetausch von zines.cool und ich habe—mit leicher Verspätung, sorry Jenni—auch was fabriziert. Mein Beitrag fällt unter die Kategorie PerZine, kurz für Personal Zine, und enthält einige Gedanken zu meiner Alkoholabstinenz im Kontext von Freundschaft, Kreativität und Gesundheit. Ich bin sehr froh, einige meiner Beobachtungen auf Papier gebracht zu haben. Zines sind genau für sowas ein fantastisches Format. Nicht so froh bin ich darüber, dass das Zine…
Need some tips on how to get past The Vortex? It's the story of BBC2's Douglas Adams and Dungeons And Dragons-inspired game show, The Adventure Game!
Leona Kruczkowskiego & Aleje Jerozolinskie, Warsaw, 2026 I never met Om but I’d followed his writing for decades, and his photography has long been an inspiration. I waited for many years before going on a photography workshop which is being organized in Venice: it’s Om’s images, there, that showed me what photography can do in that city. His work has pulled me across the ocean and so later this year I’ll have a chance to see Venice through my own eyes, while simultaneously being inspired by…
Destination Moon (1950)
There are two different narratives I hear about AI in movies right now:“We’re moments away from uploading a script and making movies!” (This is usually followed by the person trying to get me to look at a demo of their “ground-breaking” vibe-coded AI-to-storyboard start-up).“It’s all hype and will burst any second, returning moviemaking to how it’s always been” (These folk also complain that GenZ don’t understand customer service and the generation below that can’t read). Between these two…
The last few months have been intense, so I haven’t updated the newsletter, but here I am. I also haven’t been watching as many Chinese dramas as usual. I tried to finish Zhan Zhao Adventures (emphasis on try). The drama had everything going for it except, for some reason, tension and urgency. It’s not a terrible script, nor is anything terrible per se, but that’s the problem: it’s very mid. I expected Zhan Zhao Adventures to be a highlight drama—something amazing and memorable—but it turned…
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
Rutger is an impulsive dickhead artist, until he meets redheaded Olga while hitchhiking and they get the amour fou. He does not murder her – that was a fantasy scene to set a sour doomed tone early on, but she does crash the car while he’s being reckless, my second one of those in consecutive weeks. Rutger with a different girl and Jane Fonda: The couple with his friend Paul (Dolf de Vries, whose name was stolen for Black Book): No normal scenes in this movie, there’s something intense or…
A difficult story to film, but major film artists keep trying for some reason: Bela Tarr, Joel Coen, Polanski, Kurosawa. Welles turns in one of the crazier versions, the actors having a great time with their Scottish accents then lipsyncing (very well) their own performances on an abstract paper-mache stage. The opening 8-minute overture over black would be impressive if it wasn’t big symphonic 1940s music. Lady M would not become a star, but had decent parts in Ford and Lang films and voice…
Leap in the Dark, as I wrote in A Year In The Country: Lost Transmissions (2023), is a paranormal-orientated British television anthology series broadcast on the BBC for four series in 1973, 1975, 1977 and 1980. There were 24 episodes in total, with the first series being documentaries, while series two and three mixed documentary footage with dramatisations of real-life cases of paranormal events. Series four featured original dramas themed around the paranormal, and included episodes written…
In 2006, my friends at Infernal Bridegroom Productions collaborated with Austin musician and outsider artist Daniel Johnston to create a rock opera based on his work. The result, “Speeding Motorcycle,” was a local hit. It traced the arc of Daniel’s “Laurie” material through to a burst of extravagant joy delivered in a new song Daniel wrote for the production (“Lovin’ Feelings”). This show was one of the finest things I’ve ever seen in my life. It was beautiful and wrenching and touching and…
James Burrows, who co-created the classic sitcom Cheers and directed shows from The Mary Tyler Moore Show to Fraiser, died on June 19, 2026, at the age of 85. James Burrows was born on December 30, 1940 in Los Angeles. His father was composer, director, and writer Abe Burrows. He was fairly young when his family moved to the West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Given his father's profession, as a boy, he got to spend time backstage of such Broadway shows as Guys and Dolls and How to Succeed…
by Cláudio Alves This year, I was lucky enough to attend the 50th edition of the Annecy International Animation Film Festival and Market. The festivities ended this past weekend, with Ervin Han and Raúl García’s The Violinist taking the prestigious Cristal prize for Best Film from the feature competition. Past winners include such titles as Arco, Memoir of a Snail, Flee, I Lost My Body, Coraline, and many other unforgettable pictures. But it wasn’t all fun and games and glory. While the…
Last month, I was excited to share one of my straw hats appeared in the new Little House on the Prairie teaser. Well……. Little House on the Prairie premieres on next week……. and I am still excited! 😊 🤗 I do not know if one of my pieces will appear or if more will be […]
Supergirl (2024) • View trailerThree stars (out of five); rated PG-13, for strong action violence and occasional profanityAvailable via: Movie theatersBy Derrick BangIn and of itself, the notion that Kara-El (Milly Alcock) has become a self-destructive tear-away is appropriately poignant. Kara (Milly Alcock, left) repeatedly tries to protect Ruthye (Eve Ridley), by insisting thatshe remain safe, but the plucky, sword-wielding young woman refuses to be left behind.Unlike her older cousin Kal-El…
A song about Los Angeles, the land of broken dreams. Of our time in Los Angeles, of the love and hurt we each experienced. LA is what you make of it - and if nothing else, that’s where we met each other. Lyrics: Out of my head, out of my mind Caught in a spiral Chasing the wind, chasing the lie All the colors, they have faded All the time I've wasted Lost in dreamland Wake up, wake up Lost in dreamland Wake up, wake up I know where I wanna be Somewhere in reality Lost in dreamland Wake up Under…
CELA S’APPELLE L’AURORE is a pretty good movie but as a Bunuel movie it isn’t very Bunuelian. A donkey gets beaten, on the one hand, which is moderately Bunuelian, but there are a great many kittens, and nothing terrible happens to them, on the other hand. But one thing the movie has is two (count […]
What is Il Cinema Ritrovato? A few years back at a Bologna dinner, an important person with far more right to speak on these matters than I have, announced that for them, Il Cinéma Ritrovato was not a festival, but a museum. They spoke eloquently, and sincerely, but honestly I think that is a nonsense. … Continue reading So this is Bologna: Il Cinema Ritrovato XL 2026 →
I usually take pictures to remember what happens during the week. This was not the case for this one, so the notes themselves may not be as long as some of you may expect! Still, a lot of things happened. This second paragraph is being written right after I was done with everything here, turned out to be just as long as usual so, I don’t want any complaints! 🕹️ I am now the proud owner of a red New Nintendo 3DS XL—Why did Nintendo thought adding “New” to the name was helpful?—and I love it!…
