A.A. Dowd

@aadowd.bsky.social

7460 Followers 346 Following

Writer/editor. Past lives: The A.V. Club, Chron, Time Out Chicago. He/him/his. https://letterboxd.com/AADowd/ https://authory.com/AADowd

My ranking of Nolan's movies: 1. Oppenheimer 2. Memento 3. The Prestige 4. The Dark Knight 5. Dunkirk 6. The Odyssey 7. Interstellar 8. The Dark Knight Rises 9. Insomnia 10. Inception 11. Batman Begins 12. Tenet 13. Following
1. Agriculture, The Spiritual Sound 2. Blackbraid, Blackbraid III 3. Dimscûa, Dust Eater 4. Imperial Triumphant, Goldstar 5. Deafheaven, Lonely People With Power 6. Cave Sermon, Fragile Wings 7. Messa, The Spin 8. Sex Germs, Whiplash 9. Oromet, The Sinking Isle 10. Veilburner, Longing For Triumph, Reeking of Tragedy
A schedule showing that Torche played a show at this festival today at 3:45
The unforgettable power of Audition hinges partially on the element of surprise. So let’s tread lightly through the twists and turns of this sweet, gentle romantic comedy about a lonely widower (Ryo Ishibashi) who gets a new shot at love. Superhumanly prolific Japanese director Takashi Miike has made dozens of movies in the years since, but has he ever locked into a scenario as whimsically inspired as staging auditions for a fake TV show in order to find the woman of your dreams? It’s with the delicacy of countryman Kore-eda Hirokazu and the crowd-pleasing instincts of a Hollywood hitmaker that Miike engineers the meet-cute between his leading man and the demure, slightly mysterious ingénue (Eihi Shiina) who pricks his healing heart like a skilled acupuncturist. Their courtship is so swoon-worthy that it’s easy to overlook that it’s built on a scheme. Don’t lots of rom-coms step out on a limb of high-wire deception, with characters who put the wrong foot forward? Incidentally, if you’re new to Audition, skip the trailer above: It goes deeper deeper deeper into the film’s unpredictable plot than it should.
Rip to ur grandma but I'm different
An "I Voted" sticker, indicating that I did in fact vote in the Illinois Dem primary today.
Julia Garner in The Americans
The best films of 2025: 1. Marty Supreme 2. Eephus 3. It Was Just An Accident 4. No Other Choice 5. If I Had Legs, I'd Kick You 6. One Battle After Another 7. Splitsville 8. Sirat 9. Predators 10. The Long Walk
All that said, you have to wonder if the pointedly unsubtle Parasite might actually be a little too subtle for 2025. In a key scene, the Kims sit around, drinking the Park family’s liquor, enjoying the mirage of a life within the household they serve. “She’s rich, but still nice,” Mr. Kim says of his employer, to which his wife replies, with a snort: “She’s rich, therefore she’s nice.” Right now, though, the mask of niceness the obscenely monied often wear has slipped. As these words are written, and maybe as you read them, the world’s richest man is waging war on the middle and lower class in broad daylight — unlawfully destroying public services, hurting American workers to line his own pockets, slashing cancer research for kids. Him and his kind are monsters too broad for the broadest of satires, the kind Bong would be embarrassed to put in a movie. They’re parasites in the truest sense.
Godzilla and King Kong race out of Hollow Earth in a still from the 2024 movie Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.
A man in a hazmat suit bangs fruitlessly on glass as a T-Rex-like monstrosity looms behind him in a very red still image from Jurassic World: Rebirth
Superintendent Chalmers is incredulous.