Superman (2025) is punk goshdarn rock
I'm not gonna say "immigrant" a lot here, but this is totally a movie about how immigrants are the lifeblood of the United States no matter what social media tells you. That's the text.
Read MoreThe United States Will Have an Official Library of Stupid: Thoughts About the Upcoming Presidential Library
When George W Bush graduated from president school to become an artist, a lot of us in the library community joked that his official library would be full of all the Crayola doodles of Chaney and dicks. For the current administration, there's less jokes because of all the horrifying and stupid and horrifyingly stupid things the man does on a near constant basis. Thinking about that presidential library, what it will house and where it will be and what it will be a monument to, gives me a sick feeling.
Read MoreBallerina (2025) danced into my heart oh no that's a knife
Sliding down to my seat a little late for the film, I forced a mother to move away from her husband to sit by her children. She was in my seat. I was not just breaking up parental date nights at a violent action movie for the fun of it just because. This time.
Read MoreTo the Class of 2025: Fuck all Y'all
The following is a transcript of a valedictorian speech given to the Banned Library School of Mad Library Science graduates of 2025 by Jessie Marlborough on May 30, 2025.
Hi everybody, including the dean, The Director, faculty, staff, and my fellow students. Thanks for coming to my graduation.
Read MoreTo the Class of 2025: Don't Forget Your Radiation Suit
A transcript of a commencement speech given to the Banned Library School of Mad Library Science graduates of 2025 given by The Director on May 30, 2025.
Read MoreThunderbolts* (2025)
Successful Marvel properties (comics, movies, toilet paper, etc) center on the characters. The plot, humor, action, all of it in the best they offer is driven by the characters and their motivations. Since Endgame, Marvel has struggled to pull together compelling characters that propel good plots. Thunderbolts gets the studio back on track, yet much of the meta-story shows they have not learned that much.
Read MoreNight of the Hunter (1955)
The old Universal horror movies like Wolfman and Creature from the Black Lagoon get more love as trendsetting genre films rather than as quality pictures, but Night of the Hunter homages their stark black and white images with a more horrible creature than they ever could have conceived. A beautiful film that did not get its due back in the day, Night of the Hunter is fucking awesome.
Read MoreBlack Snake Moan (2007)
I saw this movie in the theater when it was released and remembered two things: the chain and the nudity. The rest kinda floated away on a cloud of booze and hundreds of other movies released that year, and it was not a good year for movies. What I did not remember was the musical about trauma and healing that Black Snake Moan becomes.
Read MoreSouthern Comfort (1981)
Having seen that life close up for half my life as well as living in the bayou of Louisiana for a time, Southern Comfort is an accurate depiction of the effectiveness of the National Guard.
Read MoreReflecting Skin (1990)
Spending time with people tends to bring out all those little eccentricities, but in the case of Reflecting Skin it brings out all the dark, weird shit swirling beneath.
Read MoreMud (2012)
Romance is best left to those that go in with an open heart and an open mind. Close either one and you have a relationship, but one with no passion or no devotion. No trust in the thing you share with another. I'm rambling, but Mud's characters hold love as an absolute that can be dwindled until they realize it is something that can be grown.
Read MoreSinners (2025)
A deep southern gothic musical vampire movie, Sinners is about how failure and success are thrust up on you by the simple choices you make, even one as simple as letting go or holding on to a guitar. Get a handkerchief to wipe away the sweat of the hot summer sun and turn on some blues while we talk about this titanic film.
Read MoreBlack Bag (2025)
How much do you trust your partner? Are you a spy? Do those two questions make you uncomfortable? Love and trust form the chewy center of Black Bag's hard candy shell of pop music and spy intrigue.
Read MoreIn Bruges (2008)
With a gun, it's as easy as pushing a button and seeing a man fall. What that does to someone is a whole other ball of blood, though.
Read MoreThe Wonder (2022)
The Wonder sets out right front in telling the audience that they are watching fiction, a trickery, yet does that make it real?
Read MoreThe Commitments (1991)
The main issue of The Commitments is not the drive or talent of the band being formed, but the fact that they are almost a dozen people. Jimmy (Robert Arkins) formed the group to play damn good soul music and for the most part the people do that.
Read MoreByzantium (2012)
Neil Jordan's Byzantium updates his earlier work on Interview with a Vampire, telling the story of a vampire mother and daughter finding a place in the world.
Read MoreSecret of Kells (2009)
Secret of Kells exemplifies that life changing feeling of art and culture. Brendan, a young monk, lives in a small monastery his uncle, the abbot, is fortifying against the oncoming Viking hoard.
Read MoreMagdalene Sisters (2002)
For over two hundred years, the Magdalene laundries in Ireland operated by taking in young women deemed to have loose morals. The women were slave labor in the laundries, often run by the Catholic church but with state sanction, only released by death or the signatures of two adult men.
Read MoreThe Quiet Girl (2022)
"You don't have to say anything. There's many a person missed the chance to not say anything, and lost much by it."
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