November 2026 Reviews

These are the reviews and other projects I'm working on this month.

 

 

Seattle Film Blog: Elsinore, Christiane F. and  

Marie Antoinette [Criterion Collection Blu-rays].

The Stranger: TBA.

 

Video Librarian: TBA.

Unassigned: Barbarella [Blu-ray set], The Bat [Blu-ray], The Betrayal [Blu-ray], Blood Money: $10,000 Blood Money, Find a Place to Die, Vengeance Is Mine, and Matalo! [four Blu-ray set], Borsalino [Blu-ray], Desperate Teenage Lovedolls & Lovedolls Superstar: The Complete 4K Remastered Collection [Blu-ray], Fighting Back [Blu-ray], Flaming Brothers [Blu-ray], The Iron-Fisted Monk [Blu-ray], Last House on the Left [Blu-ray/UHD set], New First of Fury [Blu-ray], The Prodigal Son [Blu-ray], Savage Guns: Four Classic Westerns, Vol 3: El Puro, Four of the Apocalypse, I Want Him Dead, and Wrath of the Wind [four Blu-ray set], and That Most Important Thing: Love.

Image of Christian F. (Natja Brunckhorst) from Dazed.

October 2026 Reviews

These are the reviews and other
projects I'm working on this month.

Seattle Film Blog: LFF Dispatch #2: Kevin Walker and Jack Auen Conjure Up the Past as a Living Thing in Their Metaphysical Mystery Chronovisor, LFF Dispatch #3: The Mother-Child Bond Proves Frightful in Finnish Horror Nightborn, LFF Dispatch #4: Land of Hope and Gory - Horror Shorts from the UK, France, and Canada, LFF Dispatch #5: It Takes a Village in Fernando Eimbcke's Social Realist Charmer Flies, and A Behind-the-Scenes Documentary Becomes Something More in Making Marie Antoinette.

The Stranger: New York, I Love You, but You’re Bringing Me Down: John Turturro Is The Only Living Pickpocket in New York.

 

Video Librarian: Joan Baez: I Am a Noise and Natchez.  

Poster image from Grasshopper via the IMDb.

September 2026 Film Reviews

These are the reviews

and other projects I'm 

working on this month.

Cucalorus Film Festival: member of the 2026 narrative features judging committee.

Letterboxd: Night of the Juggler.

Seattle Film Blog: Sweaty Guys Who Smell Like Salmon: Dakota Fanning vs Alaskan Men in The Sun Never Sets and Begotten: E. Elias Merhige’s Debut Rises from the Dead to Freak You Out All Over Again.

The Stranger: How a Great Director Made a Very Bad Film That He Is Proud Of: Exorcist II Is the Star of Boorman and the Devil and Primetime Mines Comedy from the Sordid Series To Catch a Predator.

 

Video Librarian: Anatomy of a Fall, 

Mr. Nobody Against Putin, and Eternal You.

Poster image from the IMDb via Yellow Veil Pictures.

August 2026 Reviews

These are the reviews and other projects I'm working 

on this month.

Cucalorus Film Festival: member of the 2026 narrative features judging committee.

Northwest Film Forum: moderator of a Q&A with director/editor/DP Adam Sekuler after a screening of The Flamingo.

Seattle 48 Hour Film Project: member of the 2026 judging committee with Kris Swenson, Leslie Daniels, and Chase Hutchinson.

Seattle Film Blog: Original Maverick: James Garner, 1928-2014, Advance to Paradise with Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Murder Mystery The Samurai and The Prisoner, A Journey into a Mysterious Past with Carla Simón's Semiautobiographical Romería, and My Need to Possess You Has Consumed My Soul: On Eckhart Schmidt’s 1982 Der Fan.

The Stranger: If ‘Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma’ Gets Too Real, You Can Always Turn It Off.

 

Video Librarian: An American Pastoral, Anthropocene: The Human Epoch, Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story, and Mad About the Boy: The Noël Coward Story

Image from Everyman (Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson).

July 2026 Reviews

These are the reviews and other projects I'm working 

on this month.

Cucalorus Film Festival: member of the 2026 narrative feature judging committee.

Seattle Film Blog: Lilian T. Mehrel's Sweet, Funny Directorial Debut, Honeyjoon, with a Superb Amira Casar, Stranger Flashback: Gianfranco Rosi's Golden Bear-Winning Documentary, Fire at Sea, Remains Heartbreaking and Harrowing, All I've Got Is a Photograph: Looking Back at Lisa Cholodenko's 1998 Debut High Art, There's a Chick Who's Paid to Be My Slave: Sex and Scams in Georgia Bernstein's Night Nurse, and Not Everybody Does It But Everybody Should: In I Want Your Sex, Gregg Araki Returns to Give the Office Comedy a BDSM Makeover.

Front Row & Backstage: reference to my Stranger/Line Out preview of A Band Called Death from the Wayback Machine.  

The Stranger: The World Does Not Need A 7-Hour Odyssey.

Video Librarian: Every Little Thing and Soundtrack to Coup d’Etat.

Image from Two Coats of Paint (Radha Mitchell and Ally Sheedy).

June 2026 Reviews

These are the reviews and other projects I'm working on this month.

Cucalorus Film Festival: member of the 2026 narrative feature judging committee.  

Seattle Film Blog: I'm Tense and Nervous and I Can't Relax: On Cindy Sherman's Underappreciated Office Killer, Silas Howard and Harry Dodge Put a Queer Spin on the Buddy Comedy in Charming San Francisco Picaresque By Hook or by Crook, A Restless Spirit on an Endless Flight: Canadian Filmmaker Avalon Fast’s Enchanting CAMP, and revamped and/or revived versions of C.R.A.Z.Y., That Man: Peter Berlin, Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell, Milk, and Small Town Gay Bar.

Video Librarian: All We Imagine as Light.

Image from MoMA (Carol Kane in Office Killer).

May 2026 Reviews

These are the reviews and other 

projects I'm working on this month.

Crypticon: Moderator for 50th Anniversary of 1976 Horror, 40th Anniversary of 1986 Horror and panelist on Good Boy! (Pets in Horror).

Cucalorus Film Festival: member of the 2026 narrative feature judging committee.  

 

Good Docs: Quote from my Video Librarian review of Perfect Strangers.

Seattle Film Blog: SIFF 2026 Dispatch #1: Gothic Horror, Māori-Style, in Taratoa Stappard's Assured Mārama, SIFF 2026 Dispatch #2: Brief Words on Case 137, Drunken Noodles, and Franz (as in Kafka), SIFF 2026 Dispatch #3: Aberdeen-Born Actor/Director Mia Moore Puts a Lo-Fi, Queer Spin on Sci-Fi in Her Debut, Again Again, SIFF 2026 Dispatch #4: Music Heals in Radioheart: The Drive & Times of DJ Kevin Cole, SIFF 2026 Dispatch #5: Times of Trouble (and Sparks of Joy) in Body Blow and Valentina, SIFF Dispatch #6: Post-Millennial Mockumentary Meets '70s Surrealism in Lady, SIFF Dispatch #7: Music, Movement, and Community in Sky Hopinka's Powwow People, and Lost and Found Family-Oriented Film Reviews: Graduation and Rachel Getting Married, and Bob Fosse, Lenny Bruce, Honey and Kitty Bruce, and Fosse's Bleak as Hell Biopic Lenny.

Video Librarian: Green Is the New Red and The Librarians.

Image from Altered Innocence / IMDb.  

April 2026 Reviews

These are the reviews
and other projects I'm
on working on this month.

Seattle Film Blog: The Stranger: François Ozon's Beautiful Take on an Ugly Crime--and an Enigmatic Criminal, When I Paint My Masterpiece: Steven Soderbergh's Sly Two-Hander The Christophers, Times of Trouble for Anne Hathaway and Michaela Cole in David Lowery's Mother Mary, Bend Me, Shape Me, Anyway You Want Me: Angelo Madsen Takes on Modern Primitive Pioneer Fakir Musafar in A Body to Live In, and revamped versions of Histoire(s) du Cinema, and You Me Them.

 

Seattle Film Society: In Focus screening and Q&A with SJ Chiro.

Video Librarian: Ain't No Back to a Merry-Go-Round.

Image from Gaumont via Wikipedia.

March 2026 Reviews

These are 

the reviews and other projects I'm working on 

this month.

In Their Own League: A quote from my review of Karyn Kusama's 2018 Destroyer. 

 

Seattle Film Blog: Jenny Agutter's Schoolgirl Gets a Sentimental Education in David Greene's I Start Counting, Surveys of French and Spanish Horror, Lost and Found Film Reviews: The Orphanage, Not Forgotten, and The Skin I Live In, and Born Innocent Pays Homage to Redd Kross, "The Most Important Band in the World."

Video Librarian: 3000 Nights.

Image of Redd Kross from Tony Molina / Variety.

February 2026 Reviews

These are 

the reviews and other projects I'm working on 

this month.

Seattle Film Blog: The Return of Los Golfos ("The Delinquents"): Carlos Saura's Searing 1959 Neorealist Debut, What's Cooler Than Cool: Michael Almereyda's Vampire Tale Nadja with Elina Löwensohn, Abbie Cornish Astonishes in Australian Filmmaker Cate Shortland’s Debut Somersault, Horror from Around the World: Canada, and a revamped version of Love Me Some Highway: Melvin Van Peebles' Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-Itchyfooted Mutha.

Image of Luis Marín and María Mayer from Mubi.  

January 2026 Reviews

These are the reviews and

other projects

I'm working 

on this month.

Parallax View: my top 10 is included.

Seattle Film Blog: Grzegorz Królikiewicz's Through and Through Flips the Script on the True Crime Narrative, Blood's Thicker Than Mud: Jim Jarmusch’s Unsentimental Father Mother Sister Brother, Nia DaCosta Brings the Chills, Spills, and Duran Duran to 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, Joy Wilkinson Puts a Feminist Spin on the Erotic Thriller in Her Directorial Debut 7 Keys, Writing a Life: Kristen Stewart’s Triumphant Directorial Debut, The Chronology of Water, and revamped versions of SIFF 2005 Quick Hits: Murderball, Boats Out of Watermelon Rinds, Dying Gaul, The Aristocrats and A Town Called Panic.

Video Librarian: Bad Reputation / Mala Reputacion 

and The Freedom of Fierro / La Libertad de Fierro.

Through and Through image from Film Hounds.

December 2025 Reviews

These are the reviews and other projects I'm working
 on this month.

AndMoreAgain: a revamped version of Samuel Benchetrit's comic noir I Always Wanted to Be a Gangster.

 

Reel News: Douglas Sirk: In Praise of Melodrama (a revised and revitalized piece about Sirk and his protégés from 2002).

Seattle Film Blog: Adam Volerich's Directorial Debut, Drink and Be Merry: A Christmas Movie for Those Who Usually Abstain (from Christmas Movies), an expanded version of Mala Noche, and Two Filmmakers Have Adapted Donald Westlake's The Ax, but One Got It More Right Than the Other: The Axe vs. No Other Choice.

 

Siskel Film Center: Quote from my Eight Deadly Shots review.   

Video Librarian: Infinity According to Florian.

Image: The Hollywood Reporter / Courtesy the Venice Film Festival.  

November 2025 Reviews

These are the reviews and other projects I'm working

on this month.

Letterboxd: The Flamingo and The Plague.

Reel News: The Latest Crop: SIFF's 2002 Emerging Masters.

Seattle Film Blog: Hope You Like Me: Nobuhiko Ôbayashi's Biker Musical Melodrama His Motorbike, Her Island, The Eurospy Genre Lives Again in Bruno Forzani and Hélène Cattet's Dazzling, Dizzying Pastiche Reflection in a Dead Diamond, and Nanfu Wang Builds a Thriller Around a Chinese Women's Rights Activist in Hooligan Sparrow, a revived and revised Daily Projections review from 2016. 

Seattle Film Critics Society: appearance on Studio 13 Live to preview our PNW award nominee screenings at SIFF in November.  

Video Librarian: Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989.

Image of Kiwako Harada in His Motorbike from Pinterest.

October 2024 Reviews

These are the reviews and other projects I'm working 

on this month. 

Letterboxd: Wassup Rockers (rescued from Amazon).

Seattle Film Blog: Hans Christian Andersen Meets the Brothers Grimm in Lucile Hadžihalilović's The Ice Tower, A Snapshot of the 63rd New York Film Festival Plus a Detour to Take in a Broadway Show, 63rd New York Film Festival Snapshot, Part 2: Ira Sachs' 1970s Reverie Peter Hujar's Day, 63rd New York Film Festival Snapshot, Part 3: Kathryn Bigelow’s Thriller A House of Dynamite, Bruce Springsteen, Nebraska, Deliver Me from Nowhere, and the Fraternal Ties That Bind, and Rose Byrne Unravels in Mary Bronstein's If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, a Horror-Comedy with Motherhood as a Neverending Nightmare.

Seattle Film Society: moderator for an In Focus screening event with director Georgia Krause at Northwest Film Forum.

Video Librarian: Dennis Alink's Out.

Clara Pacini image from Yellow Veil Pictures. 

September 2025 Reviews

These are the reviews and other 

projects I'm working on this month.

Cucalorus Film Festival 2025: narrative judging committee member.

Seattle Film Blog: On the Return of Compensation: LA Rebellion Filmmaker Zeinabu irene Davis's Masterpiece About Communication and Connection, City Pages Flashback: Rocketman Is an Extravagant Jukebox Musical with Heart, and Looking for a Brighter Day in Paul Thomas Anderson's Brilliant One Battle After Another.

Video Librarian: Jimmy in Saigon and Witness [Blu-ray].

Image: Criterion Collection cover art for Compensation.

August 2025 Reviews

These are the reviews and other projects I'm working

on this month.

Cucalorus Film Festival 2025: narrative judging committee member.

Seattle Film Blog: Capitalism Proves Crushing in Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Satirical Thriller Cloud (Though People With Guns Can Be Pesky, Too), Anchorage Daily News Flashback: Herzog: A Little Risk Keeps Life Interesting for Director, As Long as We Live, It's You and Me Baby: On Spike Lee's Music Biz Thriller Highest 2 Lowest, Honey Don't!, In Which Margaret Qualley Plays a Rotary Dial Woman in a Touch-Screen World, Generations Unite, At Least Momentarily, in Hong Sang-soo's Reflective By the Stream, You Are Trapped in the Middle, Punk: Darren Aronofsky’s Caught Stealing with Austin Butler, and a revised version of Mouchette.

To Kill a Wolf: Q&A with Kelsey Taylor and Adam Lee.

Video Librarian: Tish and The Warriors [Blu-ray].

Image of Masaki Suda (Cloud) from the IMDB. 

July 2025 Reviews

These are the reviews and other
projects I'm working on this month.

Cucalorus Film Festival 2025: narrative judging committee member.

Book and Film Globe: From Soccer Star to Podcast Powerhouse: Hulu documentary 'Call Her Alex' traces Alex Cooper's phenomenal rise.

EverOut: revival of my 2014 It Follows review for The Stranger.

Letterboxd: Billy Joel: And So It Goes.

Seattle Film Blog: Jessie Maple’s Debut Will: Addiction and Redemption on the Mean Streets of Harlem, Keeping the End in Sight in Kei Chika-ura’s Familial Procedural Great Absence, and revised versions of Luc Moullet's Brigitte et Brigitte and A Girl Is a Gun.

 

Seattle Film Society: Moderator July's In Focus event: 48 Hours with Tommy Heffernan's Gold Team at Northwest Film Forum.

Video Librarian: Ways to Traverse a Territory 

and The Return - Family Separation (a short).

Jessie Maple (Will) image from Maysles Documentary Center.

June 2025 Reviews

These are the reviews and other projects I'm working on this month.

Cucalorus Film Festival 2025: narrative judging committee member.

KUOW: Guest, alongside Chase Hutchinson, on the summer movies edition of "Meet Me Here."

Letterboxd: Art Spiegelman: Disaster Is My Muse, Q & A, and The Life of Chuck.

Seattle Film Blog: A Thriller with Purpose: Norman Jewison's Best Picture Winner In the Heat of the Night, Holly Woodlawn Takes Manhattan in Musical Comedy Scarecrow in a Garden of Cucumbers, The Cat and the Canary: Paul Leni's Winning Template for the “Old Dark House" Genre, Compensation, and revised versions of The Landlord, The Weird World of Blowfly, and Last Days Here. 

Video Librarian: Born for You, Samuel and the Light and Once Again (For the Very First Time).

In the Heat of the Night poster image from Posterazzi.

May 2025 Reviews

These are the reviews
and other projects I'm working on this month.

Crypticon 2025: panelist and moderator.

Cucalorus Film Festival 2025: narrative judging committee member.

 

Letterboxd: Louis (2010).

Seattle Film Blog: SIFF 2025 Dispatch #1: Four Mothers with James McCardle and Fionnula Flanagan, SIFF 2025 Dispatch #2: Sinéad O'Shea Offers a Vibrant Profile of Edna O'Brien in Blue Road, SIFF 2025 Dispatch #3: "Bad, Beautiful, and Bold as Sin!" in Jack Arnold's The Glass Web, SIFF 2025 Dispatch #4: Horror, Comedy, and Sisterhood Come Together in The Balconettes, SIFF 2025 Dispatch #5: Josh O'Connor Narrates a Dreamy Portrait of Jean Cocteau, SIFF 2025 Dispatch #6: An Irish Girl Grows Up Fast in Claire Frances Byrne's Ready or Not, SIFF Dispatch #7: Robinson Devor Profiles Sara Jane Moore, the Would-Be Presidential Assassin Next Door, in Suburban Fury, and SIFF 2025 Dispatch #8: Cat Town, USA Celebrates a Sanctuary for Cats in Florida.

Image of Irish author Edna O'Brien from the IMDb.

April 2025 Reviews

These are the reviews and other projects I'm working
on this month.

Cucalorus Film Festival 2025: judging committee member.

KUOW: Taping for an upcoming podcast on summer movies

Letterboxd: Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story.

 

Seattle Film Blog: Stranger Flashback: Strange Fruit Captures the Semi-Forgotten Harvest of Apple Records, Art for Everybody: Illuminating Doc Explores the Agonies and Ecstasies of Thomas Kinkade, The Dead Don't Hurt (Like the Living) in David Cronenberg's Reflective Reverie The Shrouds, and A Fistful of Horror Westerns from the 1940s to Today: Cowboys, Cannibals, Cults, and More.

Society of Professional Journalists: participant in the critics' role panel at the annual Region 10 Conference in Portland.

Video Librarian: Julie Keeps Quiet and Eat the Night.

Image of Laura La Plante from the San Francisco Silent Film Festival (I didn't actually get around to the review until June).