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We know Tom Cruise can run -- but he can also dance. Look no further than his iconic pants-less dance in Risky Business . And now Cruise is starring in  Alejandro G. Iñárritu 's upcoming comedy-drama Digger . The teaser trailer just dropped and Cruise (who plays Digger Rockwell) is mostly seen from behind or in silhouette...dancing! But in silhouette, it looks like Cruise is in heavy makeup or prosthetics, with a balding combover wig. I could be wrong.  Nevertheless, in the teaser, while Digger dances with his shovel, I couldn't help but think of another Cruise performance in heavy makeup and hair wig -- as Les Grossman in Ben Stiller 's Tropic Thunder . Grossman loved to dance too. And you know I can't let a germ of an idea go by without editing it into a mashup...

"You know what my problem is with every fanatic fundamentalist, from the Catholics, to the Orthodox, to the KKK? The one thing you all have in common is, and you're too ignorant to see it, is that you're too inept to get by in the world, so your only recourse is to try and curtail the enjoyment of others." Those are some of the first words we hear at the start of Justin Kurzel 's The Order , the best film of 2024. They are spoken by Alan Berg (played by Marc Maron ), a Jewish talk radio host was murdered by members of a white supremacist group (known as The Order) in 1984.  It's an arresting piece of voiceover, paired with a haunting God's eye view of a dark winding road in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. In a lot of ways, that winding road imagery was the perfect epilogue to 2024: there was unease, uncertainty and an overall devastation felt from the fascist figures taking power in the U.S. government.  I first saw The Order at AFI Fes...

Better late than never. Special Citation Award : Beau Is Afraid Directed by  Ari Aster 20. Elemental Directed by Peter Sohn 19 . Napoleon Directed by Ridley Scott 18. Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret. Directed by Kelly Fremon Craig 17. Priscilla Directed by Sofia Coppola 16. Knock at the Cabin Directed by M. Night Shyamalan 15. The Holdovers Directed by Alexander Payne 14. Oppenheimer Directed by Christopher Nolan 13. The Iron Claw Directed by Sean Durkin 12. Monster Directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda 11. E arth Mama Directed by Savanah Leaf 10. Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie Directed by Davis Guggenheim 9. Society of the Snow Directed by J.A. Bayona 8. Killers of the Flower Moon Directed by Martin Scorsese 7. Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One Directed by Christopher McQuarrie 6. A Thousand and One Directed by A.V. Rockwell 5. Ferrari Directed by Michael Mann 4. Anatomy of a Fall Directed by Justine Triet 3. Past Lives Directed by Celine Song 2. The Zone of Interest...

Edward Berger 's All Quiet on the Western Front had a surprisingly successful night at the Oscars earlier this year, winning 4 Academy Awards, including Best Cinematography. My latest mashup reimagines a different -- if not more "wondrous" -- threat than the French Saint-Chamond Assault Tanks that were seen in the film.

  My latest mashup trailer re-imagines Greta Gerwig 's Barbie in the fashion -- pun intended -- of Olivia Wilde 's Don't Worry Darling, in that Barbie starts to suspect the outside world isn't what she thinks it is. In my vision, Barbie realizes that, outside of the Victory Project (a.k.a. Barbieland)...she's just a toy.

Now that the Oscars are over, here go my picks for the Best Films of 2022. Todd Field 's Tár towers over all others at number one. This is Cate Blanchett 's There Will Be Blood,  an American epic -- but set largely overseas -- brimming with filmmaking bravado on Field's side and ferocious tragicomedy for its antihero Lydia Tár. By the time we get to its final shot, we've reached the cinematic mashup of Jordan Belfort asking an eager audience to "Sell me this pen" and Daniel Planview, drained, saying "I'm finished!" Tár Vortex Aftersun Bones and All To Leslie Decision to Leave Broker The Batman EO Cyrano Happening Athena Ali & Ava Thirteen Lives Dos Estaciones Memoria Armageddon Time Nope Women Talking Top Gun: Maverick Other films that I thought were enjoyable (even if only for some stretches of their running time): Smile, Emily the Criminal, Barbarian, Avatar: The Way of Water, Everything Everywhere All At Once, Hustle, All Quiet on the Wes...

Will movie theaters ever back to what they once were? The ongoing (and seemingly never-ending) pandemic tore a hole into the fabric of theatrical exhibition. I streamed more movies this year than any other. A lot of people did. The one constant is this: Whether you watch them on the big screen or on your phone, good films rise to the top. Here go my picks for the best films of 2021. (And some other notes too.) Biggest Disappointments: The Matrix Resurrections Candyman (2021) Don't Look Up Special Citation : Kanye with Special Guest Drake: Free Larry Hoover Benefit Concert Seanne Farmer (director) // Niklas Bildstein Zaar (creative director) Kanye West Free Larry Hoover Concert GIF from Kanye West GIFs Best Needle Drop: "Light House" by Future Islands in Titane Best Supporting Actress : Olga Merediz, In The Heights Best Supporting Actor : Simon Helberg, Annette Best Actress : Alana Haim, Licorice Pizza Best Actor : Alessandro Nivola, The Many Saints of Newark Before w...

  If we were living in the the movie Minority Report , Paul Thomas Anderson 's latest film Licorice Pizza would get arrested for "Precrime." At least in the court of (some) public opinion . Anderson's film -- which I think is pretty great -- has come under criticism for the age gap between its two lead characters (15-year-old Gary and mid-20-something Alana), who go back and forth between friendship and playing flirtatious footsie. At no point in Licorice Pizza do they do anything sexual. Their feelings are sincere and the physical attraction is sometimes there, but it's all never acted on. Does that make the movie immoral? I don't think so. Could Gary and Alana some day end up together? I could see that. And Gary would (presumably) be of age by that point.  This age gap controversy had me thinking about a similar scenario...in George Lucas ' Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace . In the Star Wars films, we know that Queen Padmé Amidala will eventu...

  Not since Brad Pitt 's performance as Billy Beane in Moneyball have I been this emotionally invested in what a character was always eating or drinking onscreen.  In HBO's Mare of Easttown , Kate Winslet plays Pennsylvania detective Mare Sheehan. (Winslet is brilliant in the role.) Like Billy Beane, Mare's approach and understanding of her immediate environment or dilemma is translated through what she's consuming; it's as if the food or drinks become company players in her stage drama. And it's not just food either; Mare vapes and smokes too. Anything she consumes becomes important in the moment. My ears are listening to the dialogue and my brain is processing the plot, but my eyes and salivary glands are licking up the drops of condensate beading down her bottles of Rolling Rock.  The foods become so integral to the Mare experience, to the unfurling of her character, that at one point she's even attacked by a full gallon of milk (it's thrown through...

  The teaser trailer for The Sopranos prequel film The Many Saints of Newark dropped today and #FilmTwitter has been pointing out how Saints is also being marketed as another Joker -esque origin story (C ruella did the same thing earlier this year).  So I started the editing the two teaser trailers together and there definitely is some tonal overlap. Must be the hairdo. 

Two big movie releases are available for streaming this weekend: Tom & Jerry on HBO Max and the Tom Holland -starrer Cherry over at Apple TV+. I couldn't decide which want to watch so I spent my evening editing their trailers together.  This is TOM & CHERRY:

The trailer for the new Disney live-action film Cruella dropped last week. While similarities between Cruella and  Joke r have already been highlighted , I thought about another twisted cinematic possibility: what if poor Cruella's traumatic roots could be blamed on Ryan Phillippe ? Picture the plot of the 1999 teen drama Cruel Intentions  but instead of Phillippe's character seducing an unsuspecting Reese Witherspoon  it turned out to be a young  Cruella de Vil ( Emma Stone )...who would eventually turn the tables on everyone and light this bitch up! Check out my mashup trailer,  Cruella Intentions !

For my previous list, I wrote that 2019 had been a "trying year." If I'd only known what 2020 had in store for everyone. The Coronavirus pandemic has changed the world in so many ways. Including how we watch cinema. Films we would normally seek out on the big screen were first experienced on our living room TV screens. Does that change the value of the content? I don't think so. More so than ever, I found myself devouring cinema at a higher rate. I needed movies to keep me from sinking spiritually. And I'm grateful that they were accessible, albeit on my phone, tablet or TV.  The "cinema" lives on. Honorable mentions :  Corpus Christi , The Trip To Greece ,  Capone, Never Rarely Sometimes Always, Let Him Go, Mucho Mucho Amor: The Legend of Walter Mercado, His House, A White, White Day, Young Ahmed, The Way Back, The Trial of the Chicago 7, The Invisible Man, Greyhound, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make B...

  When the news broke that Barry Jenkins was going to direct the sequel to The Lion King (2019) for Disney, I have to admit I was a bit blindsided. Jenkins, whose Moonlight won the Best Picture Oscar, was far from the studio hires I would expect from Disney. But then I started to look on the bright side for Barry: our guy is going to GET. PAID. And now that some weeks have passed, I'm starting to wonder what a Barry Jenkins-Disney-photo-realistic film would actually *feel* like. Jenkins, a filmmaker of such tenderness, is sure to inject his DNA into this studio tentpole film...but how?  I created this mashup trailer as a sort of vision board for The Lion King 2 .  Here is If Pride Rock Could Talk .

Robert Pattinson  certainly has pivoted his acting career in the most prolific and profound way. Who would've thought the guy from Twilight  would work with the likes of Cronenberg, Denis and Gray in just a handful of years? I thought Pattinson deserved an Oscar nomination for his high-octane performance in the Safdie Brothers' masterpiece Good Time . In fact, Good Time  was the first film reference that popped into my head while watching the new trailer for Matt Reeves ' The Batman (which Pattinson also stars in). There's a shot of his Bruce Wayne looking pensively near the edges of the screen at one point. That shot reminded me of Pattinson's character Connie in Good Time . Then my imagination took over and I wondered about a cinematic universe where maybe Connie was the estranged twin brother of Batman. And maybe Batman needed help. And maybe Connie was the only person who could go the extra mile. So I made GOOD TIME BATMAN. 

2019 was a trying year. The movies have always reflected that state of the world, the state of ourselves. It's no wonder that some of the year's finest films ( A Hidden Life , Waves , One Child Nation ) deal with trauma through acts of forgiveness. This isn't a rah-rah moment for the world. We are hurting. But through these gestures of introspection and attempting to understand what could manifest such negativity in our lives, we become a new kind of strength. The cinema, once again, invigorates us. 35.  Atlantics  Directed by  Mati Diop   34.  The Two Popes  Directed by  Fernando Meirelles 33.  The Souvenir  Directed by  Joanna Hogg 32.  The Report  Directed by  Scott Z. Burns 31.  Pain and Glory  Directed by  Pedro Almodóvar 30.  High Flying Bird  Directed by  Steven Soderbergh 29.  American Factory  Directed by  Steven Bognar  and  Julia Reichert ...

Martin Scorsese 's new film The Irishman , which makes its streaming debut today on Netflix , is another landmark achievement from one of the world's greatest filmmakers. The film is also a reckoning for Mr. Scorsese. The fact that The Irishman opens up with a long tracking shot (photographed by Rodrigo Prieto ) is a deliberate nod to Scorsese's -- arguably -- most famous sequence: the long tracking shot into the Copacabana from Goodfellas (photographed by the late Michael Ballhaus ). Nearly 30 years after that shot first dazzled audiences, Scorsese looks to be making an amendment to his visual thesis. Gone is the glory and glamour from the Goodfellas days. In The Irishman , melancholy oozes from the edges of the frame. Right out of the gate, we're introduced to the end of the road: a senior home where mob hitman Frank Sheeran ( Robert De Niro ) sits alone, awaiting his meaningless death. When this shot is juxtaposed against the Goodfellas shot showing Henry H...

Something I tend to do at some point in the evening, whether or not drinks are involved, is to make anyone who is visiting my apartment sit down and watch something I love or find compelling or just want to share because I think it's the most special thing. It could be a whole movie or a short film or a music video. Maybe it's an SNL digital short. Sometimes it could be a video essay I just cut and want some feedback on. The through line is always the same: it's the moving image that I always go back to, wanting to relish in experiencing it with other people. In the months since first watching Quentin Tarantino 's Once Upon A Time...In Hollywood , his slow-burning cinematic love letter to Tinseltown in 1968, it's become fact that this movie serves the same purpose for Mr. Tarantino. It's not just a glorious "hangout movie" -- it's a glorious "hangout movie about watching movies -- and TV and commercials and even just listening to the radio...

It's been quite the day for trailers. Ad Astra . It Chapter Two . Top Gun: Maverick . But I don't think anyone was REALLY ready for the promised "digital fur technology" of Tom Hooper 's Cats . The trailer is pure nightmare fuel. While watching it, the first thing that struck me was how dark and dreadful the film looked. Like physically and literally. I started thinking about how the film would probably be enjoyable while on some drugs. Then I started fixating on a shot of Idris Elba on top of a multi-colored lit building and the poster for Gaspar Noe 's Enter The Void  suddenly popped in my head. And after that, there was no turning back...

It's no secret that I greatly admire James Gray 's The Lost City of Z . So his upcoming operatic space drama Ad Astra has been of great interest to me. While the first trailer certainly was intriguing, the second trailer (which 20th Century Fox released today) works like gangbusters. Tonally, it fits more in the Gray cinematic canon -- i.e. it's introspective, it has stirring orchestral music and focuses on another father-son dynamic. Think about it. Joaquin Phoenix felt an obligation to do the right thing for his cop father Robert Duvall in We Own The Night . Phoenix also felt an obligation to keep his father's dry cleaning business alive -- and therefore making his social and romantic life impotent -- in Two Lovers . In The Lost City of Z , a final father-son exploration back into South America proves tragic. And now Ad Astra stars Brad Pitt as an astronaut who goes looking for his estranged astronaut father ( Tommy Lee Jones ) in deep space. For me, this ...