The Weekly Gravy #288
Two Prosecutors (2025) - **** An old man, imprisoned for "anti-social behavior" during Stalin's Great Terror, is given his daily task: burn all the letters in a dirty sack. Left alone to do so, he reads a few of the letters aloud, revealing them to be desperate letters to…
The Monthly Gravette #35
Ben and Nate have won, it seems. In the roughly 50 months since I started this series, I've published 35 entries - not an abysmal track record, but I rarely kept to the monthly pace I set for myself. And this year I'm so far behind it's not funny. Something's got to…
The Weekly Gravy #287
大醉俠/Come Drink with Me (1966) - ***½ One could draw a parallel between King Hu's Come Drink with Me and A Fistful of Dollars; Drink wasn't the first wuxia film and Fistful wasn't the first Spaghetti Western, but both had a huge impact on their respective genres, at home and…
The Weekly Gravy #286
Hammett (1982) - **½ In the 80s, Francis Ford Coppola and American Zoetrope lost a lot of money. One From the Heart, The Cotton Club, and Tucker: The Man and His Dream—all directed by Coppola—were the most notorious money-losers, but Hammett, directed by Wim Wenders despite…
Pharaoh: OK, you and the Jews can leave
Moses: Baruch Hashem
Pharaoh: …APRIL FOOLS!
Moses: Oh, you scamp (sends in the lice)
The plan was for me to be raised never doing anything wrong, so that I could judge others with impunity and cast the first stone, but that didn’t quite pan out and now I’m just another hypocrite ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The Weekly Gravy #285
地球最後的夜晚/Long Day's Journey into Night (2018) - **** I'd been eager to see Bi Gan's Long Day's Journey into Night (which has no connection with the Eugene O'Neill play) ever since I heard about it and the 59-minute long take which comprises its second half. But it never played…
The Weekly Gravy #284
Hoppers (2026) - **** Mabel Tanaka (Piper Curda) means well, at least when it comes to animals. As a child, she tried to liberate the class pets at her elementary school; as an adult, she tries to save the glade she and her late grandmother loved from a highway project. The…
Awards Season 2025-26: The 15th Annual Gravy Awards
A well-earned reunion for Willa and Bob. Picture: One Battle After Another (Oscar, PGA, BAFTA, Globe, CC) Resurrection The Testament of Ann Lee The Shrouds Train Dreams (Oscar, PGA, CC) Marty Supreme (Oscar, PGA, BAFTA, Globe, CC) Bugonia (Oscar,…
The Weekly Gravy #283
Diane Warren: Relentless (2024) - *** In almost every work of art, there are two layers to consider: the subject matter, and the way in which the artist uses it. The latter is really matters - as the saying goes, it's the singer, not the song. For example, while I'm not all…
Awards Season 2025-26: The 98th Academy Awards
I had planned to live-blog these, but that didn't pan out for various reasons. No biggie. By and large, I'm quite happy with the winners. And with one major exception, I thought it was a decent show. Conan did a fine job hosting, and the "bits" mostly…
#Oscar predictions for this coming Sunday!
Awards Season 2025-26: Predicting the Winners of the 98th Academy Awards
It all comes down to this. I'm still catching up on the last few nominated films (which is why this week's Weekly Gravy won't go up until Monday), but I've seen enough and tracked enough of the major precursors - and spent…
The Weekly Gravy #282
Den Stygge Stesøsteren/The Ugly Stepsister (2025) - *** Even before I confirmed that The Ugly Stepsister was Emilie Blichfeldt's feature debut, it felt very much like a first feature. Beyond the basic premise of being Cinderella from a stepsister's POV, and having a decidedly…
Some live to fatten their wealth,
some live to protect it,
but few live to set it free.
The Weekly Gravy #281
اوزاکیوللار/Cutting Through Rocks (2025) - ***½ If Sara Shahverdi weren't real, you could easily imagine she'd been dreamt up by some screenwriter; she's basically the cool aunt of her village in Iran, defying the gender roles of her society by dressing in men's clothing…
“Those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind” doesn’t really fly in a court of law 😕
Awards Season 2025-26: 79th BAFTA Awards
Apologies for not really keeping up with my awards coverage after the Oscar nominees were announced; I didn't even cover the BAFTA nominees when they were announced. But since the ceremony was yesterday, let's go over the winners. Best Film: One Battle…
The Weekly Gravy #280
“Wuthering Heights” (2026) - *** In one sense, I went into Emerald Fennell's "Wuthering Heights" (the quotation marks are generally considered a key part of the title) quite cold: I've never read the novel and haven't seen any of the previous adaptations, although cultural…
A reminder that Tender Mercies was probably my mom’s favorite movie and that she considered #RobertDuvall (RIP) one of the greatest living actors.
ifyouwantthegravy.wordpress.com/2014/10/29/t...
The Weekly Gravy #279
Ben-Hur (1959) - ***½ "Long-winded but deservedly famous 3½ hour epic; the length into itself is almost a pretension, but the set-pieces are lively and the acting is far above adequate." That was what I wrote about Ben-Hur in my old Film Guide, at some point before March…
Be cautious of those who give the Devil too much credit, and themselves too little.
A Hiccup
On Friday my car died suddenly on my way to work; this morning I learned that the engine had actually seized, which means at best an expensive repair and at worst I need a new car. And yesterday, my computer stopped connecting to my home internet. My hands are a bit full these days, as…
My Most Overhyped and Underappreciated Films of 2025
André Holland has to decide between who he was and who he is (which includes dating Gemma Chan) in the fascinating The Actor. Another year, another set of films that either impressed me, or left me wanting, more than most viewers. This year it…
The Weekly Gravy #278
How Green Was My Valley (1941) - **** Of John Ford's four Oscar wins for Best Director, only How Green Was My Valley won Best Picture as well - and happened to beat Citizen Kane, ensuring that once Kane secured its position as an all-time classic, Valley would suffer for it.…
The Weekly Gravy #277
Before I get into the reviews, I want to note that, as I write this, I have by my count 15 films with Oscar nominations I still need to see: Arco (Animated Feature) Diane Warren: Relentless (Song) If I Had Legs I'd Kick You (Actress) Kokuho (Makeup and Hairstyling) Little…
It seems to me that in times of trial, it’s the freaks you can count on; “normal” people are concerned with restoring equilibrium, even as far as compromising themselves, but the freaks will stay true to who they’ve always been.
I prefer Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky
Awards Season 2025-26: The 98th Academy Awards Nominations
The big day is here. And as I explained in my predictions article, things felt a lot less certain this year in part due to our not having several precursors to draw on. And the Academy still managed to surprise me a couple of times! Let's…