The Grierson & Leitch Podcast: Previewing Fall Festival Season and 'Paris, Texas'

Greetings from Venice. Before I left for the festival, Will and I recorded an episode looking at the movies we're most intrigued by that will be premiering here, Telluride or Toronto. Lots of good stuff there. Then, we go back to 1984's Paris, Texas, which I now really need to see on the big screen. Check out our conversation down below. 

'Dune: Part Two' Review

I'm not sure I love Part Two as much as I loved Part One. But the new Dune is sure something. My review is up at Screen International.

My LAFCA Awards Presentation for Blair McClendon, Editor of 'Aftersun'

On Saturday at the Biltmore Hotel, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association held its 48th annual awards banquet. (Our full list of winners is here.) I was honored to present our Best Film Editing prize to Blair McClendon for Aftersun, my pick for 2022's best film. Here's what I said from the stage:

Memories are a way we interpret the world, constantly sifting through faded mental snapshots of what once was in order to reconcile who we’ve become. But our brains are a flawed storage facility housing those stray images and foggy impressions that constitute our entire existence. Memory is all we have, and it’s rarely enough.

Movies are memories, and few have been as piercing as writer-director Charlotte Wells’ Aftersun. And, tonight, we honor her frequent collaborator who helped shape this beautiful meditation, editor Blair McClendon. The movie is about a young girl, named Sophie, who’s on vacation with her father. But the film is constructed to be Sophie’s recollection years later as an adult. She is trying to solve the mystery of who her dad was, although Aftersun doesn’t contain typical, static flashbacks — rather, they seem to be floating, morphing inside Sophie’s head, a rough approximation of past events filtered through emotion and distance. McClendon’s technique may be hard to articulate, but it’s very easy to grasp — we are watching on screen what it means to try to remember.

We experience this vacation in fragments. Crucial scenes are intermixed with seemingly random interludes that are representative of the strange things our brain holds onto. Weaving together Sophie’s past and present, carefully molding sequences so that they feel ephemeral but also incredibly resonant, McClendon achieves with his dreamlike editing something I’ve never seen before: a movie that is, itself, as fragile and elliptical as a memory.

When our mind returns to Aftersun, this extraordinary film comes back to us in emotionally charged snippets — a shot of a brilliant blue sky, an image of a rug, the sad smile of a father doing his best. Every moment tells its own story — every moment becomes its own treasure. Memory is imperfect, but Aftersun is flawless.

Please join me in congratulating our Best Film Editing winner, Blair McClendon.

Photo by Matt Harbicht. Still tickled that Claire Denis was able to attend so we could give her our Career Achievement prize in person. And pleased that Barry Jenkins made the time to be our special surprise guest in her honor.

The Best Horror Films Ever Made

Rolling Stone asked a group of critics to pen the write-ups for its list of the 101 best horror movies of all time. Very honored to be part of the group. You can see my contributions (and everyone else's) here.

The Grierson & Leitch Podcast: 'Stars at Noon' and 'Decision to Leave'

This week, we talked about Halloween Ends, but who cares about that? The real interesting conversations are around the two art-house films directed by Claire Denis and Park Chan-wook. You can hear the whole episode down below.

The Grierson & Leitch Podcast: Thor, 'Both Sides of the Blade' and 'The Sea Beast'

Lots of disagreement this week: We differ on the latest from both Marvel and Claire Denis. But we're aligned on Netflix's latest animated film. Hear the whole episode down below.

Tindersticks - "Put Your Love in Me"

I'm bummed Claire Denis' movie here wasn't better, but I'm just gonna groove to some Tindersticks to get my mind off that fact.

What Kind of Batman Is Robert Pattinson?

There have been so many Batmen over the years. But I think Pattinson's a pretty good one. How did he get from Twilight to here? I talk about that over at MEL.

Best of 2019: The Top 10 Movies of the Year

How did I spend the 2010s? The question bounced around inside my head this fall after someone on Twitter asked, "there’s only ONE MONTH left in the decade. what have you accomplished?" -- inspiring a viral meme that encouraged users to brag about their personal and professional achievements. (The Twitter user who asked the question, by the way, is currently suspended. Looks like he/she had a more action-packed decade than I did.)

As I thought about how I'd answer that question, I realized ... I didn't have a good response. In fact, the whole premise of the question filled me with anxiety. I got married last decade, and because my wife and I don't have children, I can't list cool things that my kids did. My writing career has thrived, for which I'm eternally grateful, and we now own a place, something I didn't think possible in the ultra-competitive, insanely expensive world of Los Angeles real estate. But somehow, those highlights still felt woefully insignificant in the face of justifying one's existence over the last 10 years. I did things, lots and lots of things, but what had I really done? How had I grown? How had I changed? How had I improved? Was I just marking time on this planet? Or did I make some sort of difference? How did I contribute to the good of society?

These are the sorts of thoughts that can keep you up at night, which is not something I welcome into my life. (Trust me, you don't want to know what's eating away at my brain at two in the morning.) But, seriously, what had I accomplished?

I think the question hits at something I'm constantly struggling with. Accomplishments are not something I really measure my life by. To be sure, I'm always working toward achieving things, but once I get there, I just discard them and move on to the next goal. The accomplishment isn't savored nearly enough because I instantly focus on something new. I measure my life by what's up ahead, not what I've already done. The notion of "Live in the moment" is a wonderful concept that I simply cannot comprehend. How can I live in the moment when there's so much more to do? I value busyness over contentment. (Just the idea of "contentment" actively scares me.)

As we reach the end of a year, and a decade, maybe the thing I accomplished was accumulating a vague understanding that I don't take enough pride in what I've achieved -- and that I'm constantly chasing happiness instead of enjoying the happiness in my life currently. Maybe I should look into that. I feel like I'm not alone in this problem: One of the things I've been struck by while listening to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend is that just about every celebrity he talks to is awful at enjoying things. It's built into their programming to be perpetually slightly unsatisfied. This is how successful people operate, I tell myself. They're always pushing themselves. I'm proud of the part of me that acts that way instinctively. But what fun is it to work hard if you can't sit back every once in a while and allow space to be, you know, proud of yourself? What good is success if you spend every day telling yourself that it isn't enough? I don't believe in New Year's resolutions, but maybe I could do better in that regard in 2020, and the 2020s.

* * * * *

Perhaps you skipped past all that to get to my ranking of the best films of 2019. If so, congratulations, you've now reached my list. Here it is...

1. Uncut Gems
2. Parasite
3. Little Women
4. The Irishman
5. Marriage Story
6. The Lighthouse
7. The Souvenir
8. An Elephant Sitting Still
9. Joker
10. High Life

It was a screwy year in that my feelings about several movies shifted over time. Second screenings of movies revealed some to be better (and some to be less-amazing) than I had initially estimated. Where I ultimately landed was ... well, very much with the consensus. The movies most critics loved charted very high for me, too. Still, there were the annual outliers, specifically Joker, a film whose detractors I am tired of arguing with.

Sometimes, the movies that just miss a critic's Top 10 are more interesting than the ones that make the cut. So, from 11-15, I have Her Smell, Synonyms (pictured above), Ad Astra, Non-Fiction and The Hottest August. Each of them helped make my 2019 richer. (Also, if Leaving Neverland had been eligible for my list, it would have placed pretty high up. Surely one of the year's most memorable screenings was that film's premiere at Sundance. What a grueling, deeply moving experience.)

If a certain personal favorite of yours isn't mentioned above, there's still a good chance I wrote (or talked) about it somewhere. Type the film's title into the search engine at the top left and it should take you straight to my thoughts. I apologize in advance for liking the film less than you did. Nobody's perfect.

* * * * *

So, how did I spend my 2019? I went to the usual festivals: Sundance, True/False, Cannes and Toronto. And I added a new one, Venice, which was a thrill. (It is very possible I was no happier this entire year than flying down the Lido on a bike. It's an exhilarating way to navigate a festival.)

I wrote a lot, of course. Screen International, as always, kept me wonderfully busy with reviews. (Plus, I got to speak to Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe, separately, about The Lighthouse.) MEL continued to give me tons of latitude to dig into lots of different topics. I honored Election's 20th anniversary with one of my favorite pieces this year. (Grateful to Alexander Payne for answering some questions via email.) I really enjoyed wrestling with Fatal Attraction's legacy on the eve of Glenn Close's presumed Oscar triumph. (Spoiler Alert: She did not win.) I went long on Deliverance's infamous rape scene and its echoes in our culture, arguing that we have yet to truly confront what that movie unleashed. (We're still making "squeal like a pig" jokes, afraid to acknowledge the fact that men can be sexually assaulted.) I had a playful tussle with Werner Herzog. We have a lot of fun over at MEL.

Rolling Stone allowed me to lament Universal's decision to pull The Hunt. (Remember that controversy?) My favorite piece for them, though, was my essay imagining what it would mean if Green Book won Best Picture. (That could never happen, we told ourselves ... but what if?) I was grateful to Paste that I got to write about Martin Scorsese's other 2019 movie, Rolling Thunder Revue. (And I did my usual massive True/False recap for them as well.)

Guess who got to interview Alan Alda for the Los Angeles Times? That would be me. (What an honor.) Separately, I got to spend some time with Knives Out's Ana de Armas, who couldn't have been sweeter or sharper.

What else? I wrote a year-end essay for Filmmaker, which is available only to subscribers. (Seriously, look at the cover to my issue.) SyFy has been a delightful home for me and Will to write about movies on a weekly basis. Will and I do a lot of cool lists for Vulture, but our highlight moment was interviewing Don Hertzfeldt, whose It's Such a Beautiful Day made both of our lists of the best films of the decade. (Speaking of which, have you heard that episode of the Grierson & Leitch podcast? It's a good one. Actually, I'm awfully proud of every episode we do.) I spent some time with 6 Underground's Ben Hardy for The Face. (We went to In-N-Out Burger.) I revisited "Nookie" for Revolver. (Sorry, Significant Other still slays.) For Los Angeleno, I surveyed my fair city's wide-ranging midnight-movie scene. I was on the jury for the Gotham Awards. And at the very end of the year, I did an exhaustive history of the Millennium Falcon for Popular Mechanics. Good lord, I was busy.

Thanks for reading. I wish you all a happy 2020. I am actively dreading the presidential election. "Trump's going to win again," someone close to me said recently with bitter resignation. We'll see.

2019's Best Genre Films

For SyFy, I ranked this year's best genre movies -- which means fantasy, horror, sci-fi films, etc. I covered a wide gamut, everything from Avengers: Endgame to Shadow, from Us to Little Joe. Hope you enjoy.

Corona - "The Rhythm of the Night"

Someone finally saw Beau Travail. Totally worth waiting for 35mm on the big screen.

The Grierson & Leitch Podcast: See 'High Life' and 'Amazing Grace'

On this week's episode, we agree on the underwhelming Shazam! I'm a little higher on the new Pet Sematary than Will is, but then I solo on two great indies, High Life and Amazing Grace. Hear the whole thing below.

Best of 2018: The Top 10 Movies of the Year

On June 18, I was angry and depressed. This is not an uncommon state since Trump became president, but I felt it acutely that day as more information was becoming available regarding the administration's "children in cages" immigration policy. Looking back at my social media posts from the period, it's clear I'd been in a funk for days, but I was especially frustrated by how meaningless my sadness and rage were. I was furious about the country's direction, but I was also powerless. What was the point of getting so worked-up if, ultimately, I couldn't do anything about it? I'm not someone who's comfortable being angry; I don't like how it leaves me feeling out of control. As best I can, I usually try to push past those emotions in order to focus on a constructive way of handling the problem. But Trump is a toxin, and my usual workarounds were insufficient.

So that night I was sitting at home alone, utterly at loose ends, when I decided to just blurt something out on Twitter.

Being angry all the time is exhausting and corrosive. Not being angry feels morally irresponsible.

— Tim Grierson (@TimGrierson) June 19, 2018

Within 30 minutes, I could tell that something was happening. The tweet was being retweeted like crazy, helped by the fact that Stephen Kinsella, an associate professor of psychology, gave it a signal boost by cleverly noting, "Siri, describe 2018 in one tweet please." Pretty soon, Kinsella and I were being inundated by commenters, who were offering suggestions about the best way to handle my dilemma.

Anybody who has a tweet go viral will soon experience the worst of Twitter, but I was pleasantly surprised by how generally positive and thoughtful the responses were. For the most part, people were letting me know that they felt the same way that I did -- and they weren't sure what to do, either. (That said, the comments I probably most appreciated were from people of color, who politely chided me for just now being aware that lots of folks have to learn to live with impotent anger.)

I write many things throughout the year: movie reviews, profile pieces, essays, lists. It is very likely that nothing I wrote in 2018 was as widely read as that tweet, which took me about 30 seconds to compose. That's an odd realization. On the one hand, I'm touched that anything I put out into the world could strike a chord with total strangers. But it's also a bit bittersweet to witness something of yours become so embraced by the culture that it stops being "yours." I've seen people online reference that tweet like it was a common expression -- it's now just something on the internet that's used as a shorthand to describe a specific mood. (I've never been to Portugal, but my words have. It's also the subject of a chapter in a forthcoming book.) And with each new global turmoil -- Brazil's election of Jair Bolsonaro, the ongoing Brexit debacle -- the tweet would find a fresh wave of visibility. My words were depressingly timely, over and over again.

Because that viral tweet has been part of my life for six months now, I've spent a lot of this year trying to figure out exactly why it resonated and what, if anything, I've learned from the experience. I'm not sure I have any good answers. All I know is I'm pleased to have heard from so many responders who essentially said, "Thank you for expressing how I've been feeling." I'm glad to have been able to help others in some small way. Futility isn't as crippling when you know there are others out there like you.

What I'm less proud about is that I haven't solved the conundrum I articulated. And by that, I mean I didn't do a lot to affect change in the world. I voted, to be sure, but compared to my incredible wife (and many of her friends), who went out and canvassed for Katie Hill, successfully flipping California's 25th district blue, I was too consumed with work to be as politically active as I should have been. I'm ashamed of that and need to do better in the future. I put out a feeling in the world, but I didn't act on it. I'm still not sure what to do with my anger.

* * * * *

Since my principal job is to write about movies, not bemoan the state of the world -- although it's funny how often those two interests intersect -- let me now offer my picks for the best films of 2018...

1. Burning
2. You Were Never Really Here
3. Annihilation
4. Widows
5. Cold War
6. Life and Nothing More
7. Roma
8. Mission: Impossible - Fallout
9. Makala
10. Let the Sunshine In

Looking at my picks, what stands out most strongly is that five of my Top 10 films are foreign-language, the highest total since 2015. And I've included links to Life and Nothing More and Makala's respective home pages since they're the two movies I imagine are the least well-known on my list. They're both remarkable, saved from distribution oblivion thanks to awards. (Makala won the Grand Prize at Cannes Critics' Week in 2017. Life and Nothing More took home the John Cassavetes Award at the Independent Spirit Awards.)

My Nos. 11-15 were almost as beloved, with each film, at one point or another, seemingly a lock for my Top 10. Alas, there just wasn't room for (in order of preference) Private Life, Hereditary, If Beale Street Could Talk, Lean on Pete and Amazing Grace. (And if The Tale had gotten a theatrical release instead of airing on HBO, it probably would have landed on my Top 10.) Why didn't your favorite movie make the list? Because I am a bad person.

* * * * *

Professionally, 2018 was a year where I did my best to be grateful for all the terrific places where I get to write. I'm extremely lucky.

Take Screen International. Once again this year, I covered Sundance, Cannes and Toronto for the publication, including getting to write about Burning after its premiere. Also at Cannes, I wore a tux to see Lars von Trier's The House That Jack Built; amusingly, my review ended up being Screen's most-read of 2018. (People can't get enough of Matt Dillon serial-killer flicks, apparently.) I adore the entire team over there, especially my wonderful editor Finn Halligan, and it's an honor to be their Senior U.S. Critic.

Over at Paste, I got to write one of my favorite annual pieces, which is a deep-dive overview of True/False. This year's festival was especially strong, and I tried to do it justice, which required more than 6,200 words.

MEL continued to see its profile rise in 2018, which makes me incredibly happy. The staff and its freelancers are writing smart things on a daily basis, and I was thrilled to cross off some bucket-list interview subjects. I got to have a long conversation with Steve James. I interviewed Frederick Wiseman from Paris while he sat on a park bench and looked back on his career. Andrew W.K. was remarkably open about his struggles with mental health. Morgan Neville and I chatted about Won't You Be My Neighbor?, and the amount of traffic that piece generated suggested just how much viewers hungered for a film like that. And I talked to a bunch of sportswriters about the legacy of Jerome Holtzman and the save stat. I am eternally grateful to my editor and friend Josh Schollmeyer for giving me the latitude to write about so many different things over at MEL. (Being given the opportunity to write about Cannes entirely from the perspective of what it's like to watch nothing but subtitled movies for a week was a real blessing.) Looking forward to seeing what transpires for MEL in 2019.

And David Fear remains such a pleasure to work with over at Rolling Stone. I started the year spending time with Sebastián Lelio and Daniela Vega to discuss A Fantastic Woman, which ended up winning Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars. (I was so glad I asked Lelio about that Alan Parsons Project song.) From there, I praised Annihilation and our era of trippy sci-fi films, and then proceeded to hang out with Lynne Ramsay and Joaquin Phoenix (during an earthquake) to talk You Were Never Really Here. (I'll always treasure the moment Phoenix introduced me to Ramsay by saying, "He didn't like our movie." You damn liar, Joaquin.) Other highlights: speaking with F. Murray Abraham after the passing of Milos Forman; dissecting the themes and allusions in Janelle Monae's Dirty Computer film; losing my mind over the Academy's brief flirtation with Best Popular Movie; interviewing Tilda Swinton and Olivia Colman (not at the same time); and revisiting Dogville.

My old pal Will Leitch and I spent another year hosting our weekly film podcast. Our collaboration didn't end there: We very much enjoy doing Debate Club over at SyFy when we're not contributing epic lists for Vulture. (We have a couple coming out in 2019 that are especially major and will definitely not elicit any argument online.) And don't forget: We even have a shirt.

I was tickled to contribute to the Los Angeles Times in 2018, examining the strange case of Bohemian Rhapsody, The Other Side of the Wind and The Nutcracker and the Four Realms: three movies with muddled directorial authorship. (If we had waited a little longer, I could have included Amazing Grace in there as well.) And over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, I spent some time with John Cho to talk about fatherhood and Searching.

In terms of unexpected treats, AM New York asked me to write about the significance of Paul Simon's farewell tour, which gave me an excuse to interview smart music writers about the man's legacy. Oh, and there was the time John Carpenter sorta did an interview with me for Revolver. (He was more interested in the Brett Kavanaugh hearings.) And I did some Q&As I was pleased with, including speaking to the Boy Erased team and Morgan Neville for his other documentary, They'll Love Me When I'm Dead.

And that's enough. I hope you all have a great 2019. Thank you for reading what I write. And may someone look at you the way Kristen Stewart looked at Cate Blanchett at Cannes this year.

We're a couple weeks away from knowing what will win the Palme d'Or, but right now this seems like a lock for best picture. #Cannes2018 pic.twitter.com/h6wNy4gYmb

— Tim Grierson (@TimGrierson) May 8, 2018

Cannes 2013: 'Bastards' Review

One of the most divisive films at this year's Cannes is Bastards, the latest from director Claire Denis. Well, put me firmly in the "pro" category: I loved its snarling darkness. I sing the film's praises over at Paste.