James Ponsoldt’s Summering (2022) is one of those films that wants to be deep and whimsical, but ends up face-planting into a pile of sincerity and forgotten potential. It’s a coming-of-age story so devoid of urgency, charm, or purpose that it feels less like a movie and more like a long group text thread where … Read More ““Summering” (2022) – Stand By Meh” »
Let’s imagine for a moment that Black Mirror was adapted by a committee of marketing interns, filtered through a TED Talk, given a coat of Silicon Valley paint, and then drowned in a vat of lukewarm moral ambiguity. That unholy stew of glossy technophobia and empty philosophical musing? That’s The Circle, a movie so proudly … Read More “The Circle (2017): Surveillance, Smugness, and the Cinematic Black Hole Where Plot Goes to Die” »
“The End of the Tour” is the cinematic equivalent of being trapped at a Greyhound station at 3 a.m. with two men debating the soul of America over a bag of pretzels and a shared nicotine patch. Directed by James Ponsoldt and based on Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself by David Lipsky, … Read More ““The End of the Tour” (2015) – A 1000-Word Suicide Note Masquerading as a Movie” »
James Ponsoldt’s The Spectacular Now (2013) is a film that dares to ask: “What if The Breakfast Club had zero personality and was quietly addicted to peach schnapps?” It’s an indie coming-of-age drama that wears its heart on its thrift-store sleeve and thinks having your teenage protagonist blackout before third period is somehow deep. Critics … Read More ““The Spectacular Now” (2013) – The Spectacular Meh” »
Some movies try to treat addiction with reverence. Others with gritty realism. Smashed—James Ponsoldt’s 2012 entry into the “quirky downward spiral” genre—treats alcoholism like a bad roommate. It’s annoying, messy, sometimes dangerous, but ultimately just a plot device to help Mary Elizabeth Winstead get her indie cred badge. Clocking in at a merciful 81 minutes, … Read More “Smashed (2012) Alcoholism As Indie Quirk, Hold the Consequences” »
James Ponsoldt’s Off the Black (2006) is the kind of film that makes you wish the title was a warning about your screen turning off halfway through. It’s a low-key indie drama that desperately wants to be poignant, intimate, and quietly powerful—like a hug from your emotionally distant uncle after three scotches. Instead, it stumbles … Read More ““Off the Black” (2006) – A Movie So Subtle It Forgot to Exist” »
On the Rocks is Sofia Coppola’s idea of a midlife crisis—just don’t expect any real crisis, or, God forbid, life. What you get instead is a tepid cocktail of privilege, paranoia, and faux whimsy served lukewarm in a Tiffany-blue tumbler. It’s a movie that desperately wants to be a Manhattan screwball comedy with a heart, … Read More “On the Rocks (2020): Daddy Issues with a Martini Chaser” »
Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled (2017) is a movie where absolutely nothing happens—and then a leg gets sawed off. That’s not a spoiler. That’s mercy. Billed as a smoldering Southern Gothic drama with feminist overtones, it’s actually a cinematic yawn in a corset, so languid and muted it makes an actual coma seem like a rave. … Read More ““The Beguiled” (2017) – Civil War Barbie’s Haunted Tea Party” »
Somewhere in Hollywood, Sofia Coppola must’ve unzipped a fresh leather-bound notebook and scribbled the words: What if Paris Hilton’s closet was the protagonist? Thus, The Bling Ring was born—a film so vapid, so proudly hollow, it practically dares you to care about people who wouldn’t bother to learn your name unless it was monogrammed on … Read More “The Bling Ring: Gucci, Godlessness, and the Art of Absolutely Nothing” »
Somewhere, deep within the glittery void of Los Angeles ennui, Sofia Coppola made a movie about a man who is bored. And then she dared the audience to become more bored than him. “Somewhere” is that dare. Released in 2010, Coppola’s film opens with a Ferrari circling a desert racetrack in long, wordless loops. That’s … Read More ““Somewhere” (2010): A Movie About Nothing, For People Who Feel Everything” »
