Bruce Cockburn

Songlights: Bruce Cockburn; My Morning Jacket; Tamino and Mitski; Halsey; Goat; Elbow; and more.

Songs that lit my week: Sunday, March 23–29, 2025.

Documentaries

No Other Land: these filmmakers are risking their lives so you will watch their movie

This Oscar-winning documentary should be seen and discussed by every American, as we are supplying the resources for cruelty and erasing whole communities.

Mark Pritchard

Songlights: Tune-Yards; Suzanne Vega; Lucius; Bon Iver; Mark Pritchard & Thom Yorke; U2; Sinéad O'Connor

Songs that lit my week: Sunday, March 16–22, 2025.

Favorite Recordings

Favorite Recordings of 2024: Part Six — The Top Ten

I'm grateful for those who support this journal, and I'm grateful for the artists who made these ten records in 2024. Here, I sing the praises of the music that gave me strength and got me through.

Oscars

Overstreet's Favorite Films of 2024 — The Top Twelve

Gradually, I'm posting my list tonight. Because it sounded like fun. Who knows if anyone will be monitoring this while the Oscar show unfolds...

Favorite Recordings

Favorite Recordings of 2024: Part Five — #20–#11

Favorite Recordings

Favorite Recordings of 2024: Part Four — #30–#21 (and bonus recommendations!)

Film Reviews

Live from New York, it's... a ticking-clock thriller and a tribute to improvisational creatvity!

Jason Reitman's controlled-chaos fantasy about the launch of SNL offers a good time with rowdy comedians at a turning point in TV history.

Favorite Recordings

Favorite Recordings of 2024: Part Three — #36–#31

David Lynch

See you on the continuum, David Lynch.

The Brutalist

First impressions of The Brutalist

Brady Corbet's extravagant epic, which follows a Holocaust survivor who flees to the U.S only to find himself "tolerated" and exploited by a perversely abusive patron, is ambitious and frustrating.

Surprise Packages

By My Lights: a January 25 surprise package

These are days for playing "Gimme Some Truth." Also: The Criterion Closet, The Tuskegee Airmen, Mel Gibson, Nickel Boys, Hard Truths, and an invitation to write with me.

Favorite Recordings

Favorite Recordings of 2024: Part Two — Honorable Mentions (veterans and legends; big-deal divas who don't really need more attention, and divas who deserve to be very big deals)

Give Me Some Light

On January 20, 2025, I celebrate the inspired Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the great President Jimmy Carter

Anna Byrde

Favorite Recordings of 2024: Part One — Honorable Mentions (Instrumental, New Discoveries)

Poetry

By My Lights: a super-sized surprise package for the 2nd week of January

Typos. Seitz on Anderson. World Party. Favorite writers share lists of favorites. Strong voices on Conclave, Homestead. Good poems. My latest moviegoing. A personal update. And freewriting.

Film Reviews

Carol Kane and Jason Schwartzman bond Between the Temples

Just as he did in Rushmore, Jason Schwartzman plays a young man with an irrational longing for one of his teachers, a woman much older than him. Great awkwardness ensues.

Film Reviews

Nine reasons to see Didi

Sean Wang's Sundance Award-winning coming-of-age film is a joy and one of the year's most promising directorial debuts. Here are some of the reasons I enjoyed it so much.

Film Reviews

Lee Isaac Chung gets carried away with Twisters

The personal touch of Minari director Lee Isaac Chung is evident in this surprising sequel to a 1996 summer blockbuster, which turns some blockbuster cliches sideways.

Jon Batiste

By My Lights: a surprise package for the first week of 2025

A new year: new ambitions, new sights and sounds, new prayers... and new writing!

Film Reviews

Kings of infinite space: Inmates of Sing Sing stage a prison break through art

The latest entry in the "Art Can Change Your Life" genre has particular strengths—it's a true story, it avoids narrative contrivance, and, most of the time, it shows admirable restraint.

Film Reviews

Wicked Little Letters serves up wisdom with a clustercuss of conflict

Now streaming on Netflix, Wicked Little Letters should not be overlooked. It's much more than a swear-word showdown between Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley.

Film Reviews

Dazzled and disappointed by Furiosa, "the darkest of angels"

While it's a thrill to be back in George Miller's awe-inspiring cinematic universe, Furiosa's story feels too narrowly focused on revenge.

Film Reviews

A Quiet Place: Day One is a decent exercise in an exhausting, exhausted genre

Nyong’o shines in an otherwise unremarkable prequel about an alien invasion, a cat, and the search for transcendent pizza.

Film Reviews

Hail any cab but Daddio's

Why I probably won't revisit Daddio, a movie about a Manhattan cab driver and his fare.