On Movies & Media

This list of fifteen more represents all of the movies that I cannot believe I’m not including in my final Top Ten list.

The Academy Awards are about to hand out a bunch of Oscars, and they're going to throw around the term "best" a lot. That's a relatively meaningless term. I want to know about the films that moved and inspired you. Here's Part One of a three-part post on my own favorite films of 2022.

This Oscar-nominated animated short is a rare wonder that will likely become an early-childhood treasure for young viewers and families.

The great Bill Nighy is masterful in a strangely simplified adaptation of "Ikiru."

A flashback to the '80s: Here's a new reflection on a "comfort food" movie worth revisiting during the holidays.

Ten years ago, I wrote about The Muppet Christmas Carol for another website, marking the film's 20th anniversary. Here, at the film's 30th anniversary, I'm bringing that review to Looking Closer.

On the week that I watched The Wonder , I had a challenging encounter with a stranger that brought the movie's central tension vividly to mind. It seems that the best way I can highlight my admiration for the movie is to share my experience alongside my review.

Star-gazing again, I'm pointing to one of the brightest in the cosmos of criticism: Steven D. Greydanus. I'd be hard-pressed to think of a critic who has had a more consistently inspiring influence on me over the last 20 years of my engagement with film and with film essays.

Do we need another epic war movie in 2022? Yes, if it serves to strip away any sense that battlefields are about heroes or glory. All Quiet has always been about telling the truth, and this new German-made adaptation on Netflix is no exception.