Category: community and culture
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Nothing Smashing
Many credible critics liked The Smashing Machine, which I liked more than I expected yet couldn’t recommend. This sports biography focuses on several years (1997-2000) in the life of mixed martial arts fighter Mark Kerr as he confronts professional and personal challenges. These moments were also featured in a 2002 documentary, which seems to have…
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More From Our Monsters?
I was more intrigued by Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma by Claire Dederer (2023) at its beginning than I was by its end. This book is presented as an audience memoir by its author. In it, Dederer considers the question of art created by artists who have behaved badly. She considers a range of different artists,…
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Dead On Arrival
I repeatedly considered walking out of Dead of Winter, which I think is worse than most credible critics think. This movie, which is written by Nicholas Jacobson-Larson and Dalton Leeb and directed by Brian Kirk, is a story about a widow named Barb (Emma Thompson) who is driving in snowstorm to scatter her late husband’s…