what did matt watch?

May 09

Weekly Round-up of Material I Wrote on a Professional-Type Basis

Reviews

Review of The Great Gatsby, which is not a disaster
Review of Ben Wheatley’s Sightseers, which is enjoyably nasty
Review of the Eli Roth’s Aftershock
Review of Sarah Polley’s Stories We Tell
Review of Venus and Serena
Review of Hava Nagila: The Movie

Interviews/Miscellany:

Wrote a piece about BAM’s “Booed at Cannes” series
Some Leo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan quotes from a presser for The Great Gatsby
Talked to Joel Edgerton while he was in his briefs
Talked to Eli Roth

Also, check out Vadim Rizov on Peeples.

May 03

So, yeah, my comically old bike: 1990ish-2013. Got it when I was 12 or so, and dug it out of mothballs in 2007, after which I used it almost every day. I can’t even guess how many (thousands of?) miles I got out of it, but I used to bike to work with it, 8+ miles each way, back in Philly. It went on the Schuylkill river trail on numerous occasions, sometimes 25 miles each way to questionable suburban eateries. It was with me on drunk rides, like that one time, when I was slightly more foolish than I am now, when I rode it from Kensington to Roosevelt Blvd in the middle of the night without realizing I was going entirely the wrong way. I never much cared that it didn’t fit me, nor that I looked vaguely unappealing riding it. Trying not to guesstimate how much money I put into it in repairs, but by the end the only thing that hadn’t been replaced was the frame itself, which I just assumed would live into eternity. It didn’t. A nice crack finally formed at the rear tire hub, making it, after all these years, unsafe to ride. Sorry that a cartoonishly snooty bike shop repair dude had to do the final diagnosis — but then I have the amusingly awkward voicemail from said snooty bike shop repair guy, who obviously had no clue how to break the news to a stranger that his bike was totally dead. Anyway, end of an era, it’s been a blast and you’ve been replaced with a bike not originally intended for a growing boy. May it, too, last longer than some pets. (Yes, I eulogized a non-living object made of gears and grease.)

Weekly Round-up of Stuff I Wrote on a Professional-type Basis

Did this kind of epic round-up of the summer’s movie offerings, with some room found for Computer Chess and ilk
Review of Iron Man 3
Review of Olivier Assayas’ awesome Something in the Air
Review of Carlos Reygadas’ Post Tenebras Lux
Review of Xan Cassavetes’ Kiss of the Damned
Review of the Jeff Buckley thing Greetings From Tim Buckley
Review of the Mumia doc
Interview with Xan Cassavetes for Kiss of the Damned
Interview with former CIA analyst Nada Bakos, who fucking helped find Zarqawi, for the HBO doc Manhunt

Apr 26

Weekly Round-Up of All the Many Things I Wrote This Week Professionally

Review of Jeff Nichols’ Mud, starring Matthew McConaughey as Mud
Review of Terence Nance’s An Oversimplification of Her Beauty
Review of Ramin Bahrani’s At Any Price
Review of Mira Nair’s film of The Reluctant Fundamentalist
Review of the film of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children
Review of Arthur Newman, which stars Colin Firth and Emily Blunt and still stinks
Review of the documentary Koch

Interviews

Tribeca Coverage

And check out my old Philadelphia Weekly comrade Sean Burns tearing apart Michael Bay’s Pain & Gain and Gary M. Kramer on No Place on Earth.

Apr 19

Weekly Round-Up of Professional-Style Writing I Wrote on a Professional-Like Basis

Interview with Rob Zombie, and a review of his new film The Lords of Salem
A piece on the new restoration of Portrait of Jason in which I talk to Milestone Films’ Amy Heller and Dennis Doros
A review of Oblivion, which isn’t terrible
A review of François Ozon’s In the House
A review of Deceptive Practice: The Mysteries and Mentors of Ricky Jay
A review of the new faux-silent Blancanieves

Apr 12

Weekly Round-Up of Shit I Wrote on a Professional Basis

A rave of Terrence Malick’s To the Wonder sorry haters
Review of the Jackie Robinson picture 42
Review of Ken Loach’s The Angels’ Share
Review of the indie apocalyptic comedy It’s a Disaster
A “Repertory Round-Up” for NYC this weekend, including Medieval films at Anthology, 1957 ‘scope eyesores at Film Forum and rare Max Ophüls and Julien Duvivier films at MoMA
A piece on Philadelphia’s XPN Music Film Festival, which touts movies about the Flaming Lips, back-up singers, the Beatles’ secretary and Aimee Mann acting

Also be sure to check out Vadim Rizov on Disconnect.

Apr 05

Weekly Round-up of Writings I Wrote on a Professional Writing Basis

On the extreme off-chance that you’re wondering why I’m not playing much with this Tumblr anymore, it’s because I have a real person’s full-time job on top of a real student’s full-time workload. The fruits of the former, from the last week, can be found below:

A review of Shane Carruth’s Upstream Color
An interview with Robert Redford about The Company You Keep
A review of The Company You Keep
An interview with director Antonio Campos and actor/writer Brady Corbet about Simon Killer
A review of Simon Killer
A review of the Evil Dead remake
An interview with Eva Mendes, for The Place Beyond the Pines

Also check Vadim Rizov on Jurassic Park 3-D.

Mar 29

Weekly Round-Up of Things I Wrote on a Professional Basis, 29 March 13

Interviewed someone named Ryan Gosling
Review of The Place Beyond the Pines
Review of The Host
Review of Mental
Review of Wrong
Review of Welcome to the Punch

Also: Philadelphia, you get Beyond the Hills, Ginger & Rosa and The Silence. You lucky dogs!

ALSO: Got Vadim Rizov to review Room 237 and G.I. Joe: Retaliation, which I keep almost writing as “G.I. Joe: Retribution.”

Mar 22

Weekly Round-Up of Stuff I Wrote in a Professional Fashion

Review of Olympus Has Fallen
Review of The Croods
Review of On the Road
Review of The Silence
Talked to Aaron Eckhart for Olympus Has Fallen
Did up New Directors/New Films, with capsules on Upstream Color, The Act of KIlling, Leones, etc.

Also farmed out work to others: Vadim Rizov on Admission and Gimme the Loot, Steve Erickson on My Brother the Devil and Gary Kramer on Starbuck

Mar 16

The Weekly Round-Up of Stuff I Wrote on a Professional Basis

A round-up of NYC repertory cinema this season
Review of The Call
Review of Upside Down
Review of Ginger & Rosa
Review of From Up On Poppy Hill
Review of My Amityville Horror
Review of Like Someone in Love (opens in Philly and Boston)
Review of No (opens in Philly)
Review of Lore (opens in Philly)
Review of West of Memphis (opens in Boston)
Review of Stoker (opens in Philly)
An interview with Michel Gondy
An interview with Tom Folsom, author of the new Dennis Hopper bio Hopper

ALSO: I got the great Vadim Rizov into the Metro. He reviewed Spring Breakers, Reality and The Incredible Burt Wonderstone.