On Movies & Media

I’ve been dreaming of trying out a new venture in long-form film criticism — reviews as fiction. I plan to write them as speed-writing exercises, fiction published in first-draft form. And I’m dedicating this first episode to… well, you’ll see when you read it.

“We started up an email friendship,” says Todd Rendleman, who teaches film history and aesthetics at Seattle Pacific University. He’s talking about his new book "Rule of Thumb: Ebert at the Movies," and how the book’s subject — legendary film critic Roger Ebert — came to write the forward.

Does God believe in the Coen Brothers? Join me and legendary film reviewer Matt Zoller Seitz as we wrestle with this question in an Easter Sunday special event.

Watching Richard Linklater's "Before Sunrise" in preparation for the trilogy's upcoming conclusion, I found a reason to love this movie that I'd never thought about before.

It's been more than 12 years since "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" opened. But the movie is on my mind on this Good Friday in 2013. And, given its theme of "dead men" who are "raised" through the influence of the Gospel (well, Gospel music, anyway), maybe it's a good movie to revisit the weekend of Easter.

The last film that enthralled me as much as this one? It may have been "Certified Copy," the last Kiarostami film, which I've revisited almost ten times since its release.

In which Steven Greydanus talks me out of spending money on Sam Raimi's Oz movie. "It’s not awful. It’s misguided and uninspired, but competent and watchable..."

This story stars a gunslinging hero, some Trappist monks, a French chef, and a little golden statue called Oscar...