North By Northwest I’ve watched a lot of Hitchcock and Cary Grant movies, and maybe, just maybe, North by Northwest is the best execution of the two. It might be the best Grant or Hitchcock movie period! Look, Notorious is ridiculously overrated and Birds might just be ridiculous. The great thing about North by Northwest is that it strikes a perfect balance of mystery, suspense, humor, and romance. Thornhill is a perfect character in an almost Lebowski-style fashion: an...

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Photos by Zack Bates...

Give it up for Tim Heidecker. The man is a dynamo that won’t stop. Constantly on the move, Heidecker always has a project he is working on: from sketch comedy, to his podcast (or “show” as he likes to call it), to his standup, to legitimate acting, to his music. Not that I’m a music snob, but I never knew if Heidecker was making joke music or “real” music — you know, for the sake of writing good songs, or...

Twisters Look, I understand a popcorn movie can only do so much, but you gotta give me something to work with, OK? You gotta give me SOMETHING interesting or new to keep me invested in the plot or the characters or ANYTHING, for that matter. Instead, Twisters is just a middling piece of mediocrity that spins around and around instead of going anywhere. Remember in the 90s when everyone had Twister FEVER? Well, according to Twisters it’s still going...

The Wild RobotCollector’s Edition Boy, this is a tough one to write. Wild Robot is full of things you want from a good movie. It has an interesting plot, cool designs, it’s fun AND funny, has vibrant characters, robots (ok, maybe that one’s just for me) and it’s full of coziness. It’s also full of great performances from the cast. Lupita Nyong’o is able to bring heart to a character who’s supposed to be all brains, and...

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice I’ve always known about Beetlejuice but I never sat down and actually got to know it. That changed last year when I watched (or rewatched? I can’t remember) the first movie and truly hung out with it for a coffee. What struck me was its personality: it was fun going back to a time when Tim Burton was (arguably) more creative and where all this stuff was fresh. The first Beetlejuice is just perfectly cast and as engaging...

WHO: Kim Deal WHAT: Nobody Loves You More WHY: Who could have guessed an album with horns could actually rock? I guess we should know better, because Kim Deal is running the show here. Nobody Loves You More is a deep and fresh sounding rock album that knows how to keep things interesting. That’s reason enough to listen to it. It gets heavy, fragile, and playful over the course of 35 minutes. You just wanna hang out with it. Both...

David Bowie TOY:Box (6 X 10” box set) (ISO Records/Parlophone) A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the David Bowie TOY:Box (6 X 10” box set) After David Bowie’s death in 2016, the singer proved to still be able to make news with the series of releases that he had intended to see come out – and were actually followed through upon...

Joker: Folie a Deux Does anyone with brains actually like the first Joker movie? I remember watching it, being compelled by Juaquin Phoenix’s performance but just found the whole thing to be equal parts awkward and inelegant. It’s basically a movie about a guy, down on his luck, who snaps and takes matters into his own hands by resorting to violence. It’s a reflection on the audience on whether Joker’s acts were misguided or admirable. I don’t know if Todd...