The Last of the Mohicans (1992) and The Insider (1999) bookend the history of the United States from Michael Mann’s perspective. Though their circumstances are worlds apart, their stories expose the history of America.
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We tell ourselves we’re individuals, beholden to no one, even as we’re shaped by our circumstances. We think of ourselves as the main character. We print the legend. Both Josey Wales and Keoma embody that sense of individualism—and, intentionally or not, their respective movies bear the weight of the contradiction at the heart of being an American.
Rewatching Jennifer Coolidge in Austenland feels like the emotional opposite of doomscrolling—a return to safe and comforting rather than a digital conveyor belt of brand-new bad news.
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery and Conclave depict faith at work in a world that’s dark and growing darker. Both films hold faith up to the light and ask: In times like these, what are the faithful to do?
Both Road House (1989) and Magic Mike (2012) are about learning how to be a person in society. It’s possible to pick some of it up in passing, but it’s much easier to learn when there’s a teacher involved.
Both Eephus and Everybody Wants Some!!! explore groups of men who are devoted to baseball, but have yet to figure out the rest of their own lives.
Babette’s Feast (1987) and First Cow (2019) anchor themselves in locations dotted with small cooking fires, smoke rising in the cold. Both movies dream of human life as more than simple subsistence; both present simple stories in which the act of preparing a good meal threatens to tear a community apart.
There is only one appropriate drink to accompany a much-deserved rewatch of Inside Llewyn Davis, especially if existing feels rough and you need something a bit stronger than a good night’s sleep.
I love a film that stars the world’s biggest kid, Bill Murray, bumbling his way fearlessly through a string of terrifying situations.
By the end of the season I’m feeling not quite blue, but maybe a little silver, and I want to nestle into remembering that there is a fine tomorrow on its way no matter how dark today is.