The Grierson & Leitch Podcast: 'Highest 2 Lowest' and 'Wonder Boys'

On this week's episode, we go long on Spike Lee's latest. We have less to say about the fairly forgettable Nobody 2, and then we travel back to 2000 to revisit Wonder Boys. Lots of good stuff in here, which you can check out down below.

The Grierson & Leitch Podcast: Covering a Lot of Movies in a Short Amount of Time

In mid-December, we always do a lightning-round episode where we review a bunch of holiday/award-season movies, spending about 10 minutes on each. This year, we tackled seven: American Fiction, All of Us Strangers, Origin, Wonka, The Boy and the Heron, Ferrari and Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget. We disagreed on three of them. Check it out down below.

'Press Play With Madeleine Brand': 'The Zone of Interest,' 'American Fiction' and 'Wonka'

Back at the Toronto Film Festival in September, Alison Willmore and I walked out of the world premiere of American Fiction, discussing its strengths and weaknesses. We continued that conversation this week on KCRW, where we reviewed that film, The Zone of Interest, Wonka and Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget. You can hear the conversation down below.

2023 Gotham Awards Nominees

It is always incredibly flattering to be asked to be part of the Gotham Awards nominating jury. I took part in the acting committee, which was responsible for selecting 10 finalists in both the Lead and Supporting categories. (The Gothams went to non-gendered categories years ago.) I want to thank my fellow jurors Monica Castillo, Robert Daniels, Shawn Edwards and Tomris Laffly for such a fun deliberation; I couldn't be happier with our picks. You can see them here, as well as the other committees' nominations.

Toronto 2023: 'American Fiction' Review

Jeffrey Wright is a great actor, of course, but how often does he get to be a leading man? That happens in American Fiction, which I reviewed for Screen International.

'Breakfast All Day': A Long Talk About 'The French Dispatch'

Christy Lemire had Katie Walsh and me on this week's episode of Breakfast All Day to dig into Wes Anderson's latest. I was the only one of us who liked it, so we had a chat about that. I really enjoyed our conversation, which dealt with (among other things) the question of whether we owe it to filmmakers to revisit their movies if they don't entirely work for us the first time.

'All Day and a Night' Review

“All Day and a Night is a film that is tough by design. It asks a lot of the audience." That's from writer-director Joe Robert Cole about his bleak character drama, which stars Ashton Sanders as an Oakland youth who might end up like his drug-addicted, abusive dad (Jeffrey Wright). A movie about racism and economic inequality, All Day and a Night asks hard questions ... I just wish it shed more light. My review is up at MEL.

Tribeca 2018: 'O.G.' Review

Jeffrey Wright is great in O.G., a prison drama that was filmed in an actual prison and stars real-life prisoners. The behind-the-scenes story proves more interesting than the one in front of the camera, though. My review is up at Screen International.