Reviews I, TONYA. In aging and being slowly, reluctantly drawn into what someone decided to call adulthood, I have developed what I consider a cagey defense that some might consider paranoia regarding those most dangerous among us: the Dumbass and the Devious. Dumbass, devious people, in my experience, possess what I would call a gift […]
The Miniplex
Posted inArts + Scene
Lost in the Darkness
Reviews HOSTILES. I’ve been perhaps misguidedly attempting to sort out my feelings about writer/director Scott Cooper’s work — generally but also in this column — since Crazyheart (2009), his feature debut. That movie got all kinds of press, most of it for Jeff Bridges’ lead performance and most of that well deserved. Even then I […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Monsters and Phantoms
Reviews THE SHAPE OF WATER. Guillermo del Toro loves a monster movie. He’s been working on variations within the genre for 25 years or so and he seems to be one of its last, great practitioners. As modern and self-aware as he may be, his work still belies a reverence for the classics of early […]
Posted inSpecial Sections
Follow the Beat
On any given night, you can follow the sound of music and find yourself a good time in Arcata’s bars, restaurants, clubs and on sidewalks. Here are five rock-solid places to let the sound of local and visiting acts move you. The John Van Duzer Theatre on the Humboldt State University campus is the closest […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Post Up
Reviews THE POST. My brother, an attorney quicker both in wit and temper than I, said to me some months ago, “When they go after the free press, we must take up arms.” Based on that, you might call him something of a firebrand, a reactionary. You wouldn’t be wrong. But he is also a […]
Posted inArts + Scene
About a Boy
Review THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER. On the heels of my uncharacteristically optimistic (surprised myself with that one!) survey of the cinema of 2017 last week (“The Best of 2017,” Jan. 4), I can’t quite decide if I’m glad I hadn’t seen this yet. On one hand, it is certainly one of the most […]
Posted inArts + Scene
The Best of 2017
Years ago now, some friends of mine were at a shooting range taking some target practice. They were alone in the place, except for a pair of women, one of whom was hurriedly re-familiarizing herself with the operation of her pistol because, as she had very openly explained to my friends, her estranged husband was […]
Posted inStories
Follow the Beat
On any given night, you can follow the sound of music and find yourself a good time in Arcata’s bars, restaurants, clubs and on sidewalks. Here are five rock-solid places to let the sound of local and visiting acts move you. The John Van Duzer Theatre on the Humboldt State University campus is the closest […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Honey, I Shrunk Downsizing and Jumanji Can’t Fill the Screen
DOWNSIZING. A sprawling sci-fi satire, ironically, Downsizing can’t seem to shrink its ambition into a manageable story. Alexander Payne’s (Election, Sideways) take on American ambition, class inequity, climate change, consumerism, predatory dream capitalism and the end of the world might’ve fit if its ostensible hero Paul Safranek (Matt Damon) wasn’t such a milquetoast. His struggle […]
Posted inArts + Scene
The Force is Strong With This One
Star Wars: The Last Jedi. A dispatch from the outer fringe, where I have, after much struggle and soul-searching, come to the conclusion that it is perfectly fine to be a Star Wars fan without being a super-fan. The release of The Last Jedi brought back some of the sense memories and reluctance that hampered […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Beautiful Losers
Reviews THE DISASTER ARTIST. So … The Room. When I became aware of The Room, sometime in the mid-2000s, it was only peripherally. I was still avidly reading Sight & Sound and FilmComment and Movie Maker, spending a fair amount of time at the video store and building an almost impenetrable Netflix queue; I was […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Signs of the Times
Reviews THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI. I have struggled to understand and articulate my feelings about this, the third feature from acclaimed and award-winning playwright-turned-slightly-less-acclaimed-but-still-award-winning writer-director of movies Martin McDonagh. It calls back to his debut In Bruges (2008), with its balance of goofiness and emotional desolation, but also to the more recent Seven Psychopaths […]