Podcastery, y'all: The Incinerator - Jennifer Jason Leigh.

 

I appeared on the Incinerator podcast to examine the films of Jennifer Jason Leigh, and it was an intense and complicated experience. Sam Inglis was a worthy competitor/collaborator, and The Engineer was a Machiavellian genius. Host/MC/chaos imp Billy Ray Brewton did exactly what you would expect, and the whole thing was a delightful experience that nonetheless had me fighting off acid reflux fits. I adore Jennifer Jason Leigh, and I have no doubt I will be engaging with this appearance for awhile.

At the movies: Possessor

 So, Brandon Cronenberg has a new film out and it does the family name proud. It's exceptional. Deeply violent and upsetting in a most provocative and visceral way.

What I've been doing as of late.

Things which I have been up to over the past few months.



Oh yeah, and Lady Bird. I reviewed that.

Goblin, y'all! Goblin! With awesome YouTube mixtape attached.

A review of The Killing of a Sacred Deer, which is awesome, and people who dis it as having anything to do with Michael Haneke are mistaken.

For the sixteenth consecutive year, I attended the New York Film Festival.

A piece on the transcendent guitarist Mdou Moctar.

Adam Gold and I compiled our personal fave Depeche Mode tracks.

Aww shit! I was on a podcast talking about Depeche Mode.

A review of the Safdie Brothers' Good Time.

A review of the new It, wherein I was actually physically assaulted by a drunk person during the press screening.

At the movies: The Hateful Eight.

I have no idea how the public is going to react to this movie.

At the movies: The Hitcher.

Two shows only. This weekend. As part of The Belcourt's Road Movies of The 70s & 80s series. A new print, fresh from the UK. The original, and still champion- The Hitcher.

At the movies: Greenberg.

Greenberg is the titular subject of Noah Baumbach’s new film, played by Ben Stiller in a way that aims to reaffirm how great he can be as an actor when he wants to be. But Greenberg is also a state of mind; a quasi-narcissistic, neurotic life paralyzed by not only the process of aging but by the way that language, expectations, and alienation have cut us all off from one another.

Stiller’s Greenberg, specifically, is a carpenter who once was an almost-rock star, recently released from a mental institution. He’s come to L.A. to keep an eye on his hotel developer brother’s palatial house while their family takes a several week excursion to Vietnam. He’s not completely on his own, though. He has his brother’s assistant, Florence (the magnificent Greta Gerwig), to rely on, and from this springs an awkward and deeply resonant kind of relationship.

Baumbach builds on the foundations he’s been trafficking in since 1995’s Kicking and Screaming, following the masterful one-two punch of The Squid and The Whale and Margot at the Wedding, and with the input of his wife Jennifer Jason Leigh, who produced and helped develop the story, he’s been able to distill something amazing onscreen.

Nothing I’ve seen all year rings truer than an altered Greenberg talking to a bunch of twentysomethings about the meanness that drives their interactions; “The Chauffeur” in the background, party favors all about, and one man facing the void of modern courtesy.

It will haunt you, even as Stiller gives his best performance in ages and Gerwig shines like a supernova in her first big film. You take joy where you can, but that’s not what drives you. It’s the regret, and the confusion, and yes, the hope.