BLOODY NOSE, EMPTY POCKETS (2020) is an incredible slice of life movie. It’s not a documentary but it sure feels like it is (you even see the camera operators a couple times). It’s kind of like a more verite take on another indie drama I love, LAST NIGHT AT THE ALAMO. It’s the story of the last day of operations for a dive bar called The Roaring 20s, from the morning to the next morning. You’re in this old place full of history, walls covered in photo collages and in-jokes, now joined by hand-written signs with messages like “Y’all don’t come back now, y’hear?” You’re spending a day and a night with a bunch of drunks and weirdos and bartenders, experiencing the power of human connection and the beauty of life in all its flaws and failures and sad endings. So much to love, so much to mourn, this is life.
I love how a movie like this creates a feeling of time. No matter when you watch it you experience the start of a day, the morning greetings, the guy who brought donuts. And eventually it’s dusk, and then it’s the middle of the night, then the sun rising, and though it was only the length of one movie you feel like it was a long day. But a good one. (read the rest of this shit…)
I enjoyed the extra strength absurdity of 
Last year there was a well-reviewed Valentine’s Day slasher movie playing in theaters. Normally I’d be all over that shit, but I boycotted for political reasons. You see, the production company behind it, Spyglass Media Group, were the assholes who fired the star of SCREAMs 
QUEENS OF THE DEAD is a 2025 zombie comedy written and directed by Tina Romero. Yes, that Tina Romero. The one who was in 
BLUE MOON is one of Richard Linklater’s two 2025 joints, the one that’s in English and that he didn’t sell to Netflix and that was nominated for two Oscars (actor and original screenplay). At a glance it doesn’t sound like the most typical Linklater picture, because it’s about the songwriter Lorenz Hart when his partner Richard Rodgers has just started a successful new team with Oscar Hammerstein II. But when you see it it turns out it’s very Linklater, because it’s basically a one location play starring Ethan Hawke (like 
Kelly Reichardt’s THE MASTERMIND is in a niche that really appeals to me: the unglamorous crime tale. It’s about an art heist, but there are zero Hollywood-style thrills involved, no witty dialogue, no gun fights, not much in the way of car chases. They seem like regular people, the plan isn’t complicated at all, lots of attention is paid to the slow, mundane details of the process. It’s a period piece, set in 1970 – that’s pretty cool. But it’s not, like… ’70s New York or anything. It’s Framingham, Massachusetts. The one very smart concession to cinematic fantasy is an excellent avant-garde jazz score by Rob Mazurek of Chicago Underground. He plays cornet and I think there’s some piano but sometimes it’s just drums, and it does make everything seem pretty cool.
KNIGHTS OF THE CITY is an incredible ‘80s b-movie fever dream that’s still only on VHS, and so up my dark, garbage strewn alley that it’s amazing I never knew about it before. Gives me hope for what else could still be out there.
THE WRECKING CREW is, in some ways, what the world needs: a buddy action movie starring Dave Bautista (
Sam Raimi is back! With a new movie. Not one of his best, but hey – we got a new Sam Raimi movie. SEND HELP was brought to him by screenwriters Damian Shannon & Mark Swift (
