My Interview With Kyle MacLachlan

What a treat to chat (twice) with Kyle MacLachlan. Very happy with this latest MEL Conversation.

Nikola Tesla Had Some Crazy Ideas

In honor of Tesla, which opens Friday, I wrote a piece about Nikola Tesla and some of his stranger inventions and innovations. (Yes, he thought he communicated with Martians.) It's over at Popular Mechanics, but you need to sign up for an account first.

Sundance 2020: Ranking the Best and Worst of the Festival

I am happy to report that Sundance 2020 was a success on all three crucial fronts: I saw a lot of films, I saw mostly good films, and I wasn't so exhausted/sick that I felt like I was dragging. And I was pretty pleased with what I had to say about those movies. Below is a ranked order of everything I consumed, whether in Park City or before. Links lead to my Screen International reviews...

27. Surge
26. Uncle Frank
25. Ironbark
24. Downhill
23. Miss Americana
22. Wendy 
21. The Climb
20. Dream Horse
19. Tesla
18. The Last Shift
17. Zola
16. Happy Happy Joy Joy - The Ren & Stimpy Story
15. Ema
14. The 40-Year-Old Version
13. The Assistant
12. The Perfect Candidate
11. His House
10. On the Record
9. Summertime
8. Crip Camp 
7. The Glorias
6. Minari
5. Dick Johnson Is Dead 
4. The Nest
3. Kajillionaire
2. Never Rarely Sometimes Always
1. The Father

What do I wish I had seen? The Killing of Two Lovers, Boys State, Time and Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets (pictured). There will be time for those down the road.

Let me also point you in the direction of the work I did at the festival for MEL. I explained why Zola is the perfect movie for our social-media age. I examined On the Record and the state of the #MeToo documentary. I offered some praise for Will Ferrell's Downhill performance. I discussed the uncomfortable feelings that got stirred up from watching the Ren & Stimpy documentary. And I wrote about Sundance's preponderance of films about dementia.

My favorite film of this year's Sundance? To my surprise, it was The Father, which features knockout performances from Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman. It's very much a Sony Pictures Classics movie -- classy, etc. -- but I found it emotionally overwhelming.

I suspect I'll always remember this Sundance as the year when I found out Kobe Bryant had died as I was leaving the Eccles after seeing The Glorias. I had to put my feelings aside about his passing to focus on the review. I'm home now, and I still don't think it's fully hit me. It's just too surreal.

Sundance 2020: 'Tesla' Review

Ethan Hawke reunites with his Hamlet director Michael Almereyda for this far-from-straightforward biopic about Nikola Tesla. I really enjoyed Almereyda's recent films Experimenter and Marjorie Prime; this one isn't as good, but it's still kinda fascinating. My Screen International review is here.