I’m the film critic for LA Weekly, publishing also in our affiliate papers, including Village Voice. I like movies sometimes more than real life, which is why I am always talking about them. Here’s an ongoing list (with links) of my reviews, interviews, and features on the industry. If you want to hear me talk (on and on and on) about what I want to see in movies and what it means to be an ethical critic, listen to the Chicks Who Script podcast here. If you want to hear me talk about documentaries on the Pop Rocket podcast, listen here. Finalist for 2016 LA Press Club National Arts & Entertainment Awards for Best Print Critic.
Netflix’s Teen-Suicide Drama 13 Reasons Why Offers Many Reasons to Watch It
In Aftermath, Schwarzenegger Shows His Emotional Side as a Man of Action Facing True Grief
In The Discovery, Robert Redford Finds Heaven, So Everyone Starts Killing Themselves
The Blackcoat’s Daughter‘s Oz Perkins on Crafting His Standout Horror Films
A Heroic Couple Saves Hundreds of Lives in the True Story of the Zookeeper’s Wife
The Most California Movies of All Time
From Twin Peaks to Star Wars, Laura Dern Defies Hollywood’s Expectations
Alice Lowe on Making Her Inimitable Pregnancy Horror Thriller Prevenge While Pregnant Herself
Ritesh Batra’s Humane Touch Trumps the Mysteries of The Sense of an Ending
Julia Ducournau’s Audacious Raw Makes a Sisterhood of Cannibalism
Shirley MacLaine Dominates the Life-Lesson Indie The Last Word
With a Stellar Lead, Before I Fall Breaks the Life-on-a-Loop Template
La La Land Is a Propaganda Film
Can the Spectacle of IMAX Get Kids Excited About Engineering?
A Kiddo Zombie Leaves School to End the Apocalypse in The Girl With All the Gifts
The Story Behind Steve Bannon’s Hilariously Terrible Movie About the Horrors of Climate Science
American Fable Director Anne Hamilton on Capturing the Truth of Rural Life
Horror Anthology XX Offers a Too-Rare Showcase for Women Directors
Inside the Inglewood Stunt School Where the Decade’s Best Action Films Have Been Hatched
A Cure for Wellness Starts Creepy but Then Swoons — and Never Recovers
A True Story of Love, Race and Royalty Gets Crammed Into A United Kingdom
Quit Trying to Heal Samara! Rings Won’t Let a Great Screen Villain Just Be Evil
Coin Heist‘s Emily Hagins Isn’t a “Girl Director” — She’s a Filmmaker
Rest in Peace, Mary Tyler Moore, Reluctant Feminist Icon
Whatever Happened to These Female-Made Films From the ’70s and ’80s?
Lackluster Gold May Signal the Last Days of the McConaissance
Juvenile Offenders Get a Chance in Compassionate Doc They Call Us Monsters
How Movies Are Helping Us Voice Our Fears About Trump
Leonard Cohen Holds Up Through Breakdown in the Revelatory ‘Bird on a Wire’
Roger Corman Tells Us About Death Race 2050, the Only Movie That Matters in 2017
Gaslight: The Film That Gave Trump’s Favorite Brand of Mindfuckery a Name
Painful Survival Thriller The SnareEmbraces the Worst of Its Genre
Claire in Motion Plumbs and Plumbs the Mysteries of Grief
The Bad Kids Sequel Mashes Slasher Films with Veronica Mars but Somehow Isn’t Fun
John Carpenter Calls Neo-Nazi Theory About They Live “Absolutely Foolish”
What Modern Hollywood Can Learn From Britain’s Black Film Movement of the 1980s
THE AUTOPSY OF JANE DOE (R)
Anna Foerster Takes Over the Underworld Films — and Strives to Invest Set Pieces with Emotion
Railroad Tigers Offers a Dirty Dozen–Style Caper on a Different Front
From Psychedelic Revolts to Tickle Fetish Films, 2016 Was a Weird Year for Movies
Johnny Depp, David Lynch and Other Stars Made a Zombie Movie for a Really Good Reason
L.A. Weekly Film Critic April Wolfe’s Top Films of 2016
The Americans, Stranger Things and the Harm of Our Sanitized ’80s Nostalgia
How Director Ava DuVernay’s South L.A. Roots Helped Her Shatter the Film Industry’s Glass Ceiling
What the Fuck? (and Other Questions About the Golden Globe Nominations)
The Hollow Point’s Hollowness Makes It More Deadly — to Watch
Today’s Teens Face Today’s Confusion in the Romantic Comedy Slash
Denzel Washington Brings August Wilson’s Masterwork to the People
Natalie Portman Thrills in Pablo Larraín’s Impeccable Biopic Jackie
The Scariest Thing in the Terrifying The Eyes of My Mother? The Sound.
Stellar Thriller Always Shine Exposes an Industry That Turns Women Against Each Other
Evolution Is a Science-Fiction Marvel That Flips the Usual Gender Codes
Kathy Bates Bestrides Bad Santa 2 and the American Turdscape
A Native American Filmmaker Captures Her Father’s Language Before It Vanishes
Manchester by the Sea May Be Kenneth Lonergan’s Most Powerful Film Yet
Is Watching Movies on the Small Screen Affecting How Much We Like Them?
Teen Comedy The Edge of SeventeenFinds More Life in its Grown-ups Than its Teens
The Irresistible The Monster Finds a Family Facing Horror of the Old School
I Went Trick-or-Treating With a Horror Movie Master and His Minions
The Eagle Huntress’ Teen Eagle Wrangler Takes America — and Wins Big at Ring Toss
THE UNSPOKEN (NR)
Is Watching Movies On the Small Screen Affecting How Much We Like Them?
15 L.A.-Set Horror Movies to Watch This Halloween
In Zach Clark’s Moving Little Sister, a Future Nun Gets Down With GWAR
Werner Herzog Takes a Scattershot Look Into the Inferno
The Handmaiden Transcends Its Male-Gaze Sensuality
Ti West’s Crusade to Slow Movies Down Sputters in Cowboy Country
Next Week, Harry Dean Stanton Will Receive the First-Ever Harry Dean Stanton Award
5 Horror Movies That Might Scare the Crap Out of Lydia Hearst (or You) at Screamfest
The Quietly Moving Humanity of Kelly Reichardt’s Certain Women
For Years, Jane Lynch Made Iffy Projects Better. Now She’s Free to Say “No.”
Fantastic Fest: Here’s an Apology to Anne Hathaway, Because She’s So Good in Colossal
Fantastic Fest: Ana Lily Amirpour’s Bad Batch Is a Mad, Post-Apocalyptic Spree
All the Craziness We Can’t Wait For at Fantastic Fest 2016, the Great Genre-Film Freak Show
Certain Movies: L.A. Weekly‘s Critics Pick Their Favorites at the Toronto Film Festival
Toronto Film Festival: All Hail the Female Filmmakers Who Splash Us in Blood
Toronto Film Festival: I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House Is the Best of Gothic Horror
Toronto Film Festival: Director Katherine Dieckmann Is a Master of Place and Messy Humanity
Toronto Film Festival: Laura Dern and Michelle Williams Warm Certain Women‘s Chilly North
Toronto Film Festival: Here’s the Best Drama Ever About a Woman Growing a Tail
Demon’s Director Committed Suicide. Now a Wife/Producer Perseveres
London Road Offers a Thrilling Musical Tour of a Real Town’s Trauma
How Bruce Lee’s Daughter Is Sharing His Philosophies With the Digital Generation
The Light Between Oceans Could Fill a Sea With Tears
Luke Scott — and a Killer Ensemble — Make Morgan a Top-Tier Sci-Fi Thriller
Southside With You Can Be as Cheesy as It Wants to Be
SPACEMAN (NR)
Can a Couple Come Back From the Brink? Clea DuVall’s The Intervention Tests the Premise
Craig Robinson at Last Gets to Show His Range in Morris From America
When the Hosts of Call Your Girlfriend Talk About Periods, People Listen
Alice Winocour Elevates the Action Hero In the Moody Thriller Disorder
FBI Agent Michael German Taught Hollywood How to Get Counterterrorism Right
Hard-Ass Pitcher Bill “Spaceman” Lee’s Biopic Should Be Benched
Shouldn’t Sausage Party Be Funnier, Wilder — and Less Like a Jeff Dunham Special?
An Open Letter to Rose McGowan and Other Celebrities Who Write Open Letters
Want to Watch Classics on 35mm? Join the Club.
Is Patricia Rozema on Her Way to Becoming an Auteur?
Patricia Rozema’s Masterful Into the ForestFollows Life After the Power Goes Out
On the Screen, Roth’s Indignation Only Fitfully Comes to Spiteful Life
Allison Janney Talks Tallulah, Mom and Motherhood
Garry Marshall Was a Jedi Master of Morally Complicated Movies
Ab Fab at Last: Patsy and Edina Return Just When We Need Them Most
Lights Out Is Creepiest When It Stops Explaining Itself
Bryan Cranston Carries The Infiltrator, but He Should Have Shared the Load
Static Western Outlaws and Angels Invites You to Sit a Spell With Wannabe Rapists
Zero Days Director Alex Gibney Prepares for the Malware Takeover
In South L.A., a Former Black Panther Is Teaching Radical Peace
Viggo Mortensen Is a Flower-Power Survivalist in Captain Fantastic
Mike and Dave Need a Better Movie
The Best Films of 2016 (So Far) According to L.A. Weekly‘s Critics
Anne Fontaine’s The Innocents Finds Strength in Grayness
How Vivica A. Fox Defied Hollywood’s Odds
Swiss Army Man Has Wonder but Too Much Farty Dada
Todd Solondz’s Wiener-Dog Embarks on a Satiric Odyssey
HUNT FOR THE WILDERPEOPLE
Refn’s Neon Demon Is a Stylish Giallo Jolly Until It Tries to Get Real
Finally, a John Hughes–Style Teen Flick for Korean-American Kids
Bonkers New Doc Tickled Digs Into the Strangest of Cover-Ups
Paltrow and Baumbach on Their Collaborative Friendship With a Master
TMNT: Out of the Shadows and Out of Ideas
Therapy for a Vampire Nails the Look of the Horror It Lampoons
A Former Member of a SoCal Cult Explains How Film Helped Him Start Over
Yes, Comedies Look Better Than They Used to. Brandon Trost Is Why.
What to See at the L.A. Film Festival and Dances With Films
Will the Producers of Female-Driven Wall Street Movie Equity Make Bank?
Alice Goes Through the Looking GlassInto a World of Formula
A Gaslighted Mother Tries to Hold It Together in The Ones Below
HARD SELL
‘Maggie’s Plan’ Has Greta Gerwig, Ethan Hawke, Lots of Charm, and Not Quite Enough That’s New
A Sorority Spirit Seizes the Neighbors-verse
Meet the Design Pro Who Made Atlanta Look Like Los Angeles in The Nice Guys
Give Netflix’s Grace and Frankie Another Chance — It Might Make You a Better Person
An X-Rated Japanese Animation From the ’70s Got the Restoration it Deserves
Ben Wheatley and Amy Jump Achieved High-Rise‘s Look on a Shoestring. Here’s How.
Nicolas Cage and Elijah Wood Can’t Save Bad-Cop Vegas Heist Thriller The Trust
Call Your Mom Rather Than Taking Her to See Mothers and Daughters, a Film About Calling Your Mom
Memoria Immerses Us in Go-Nowhere Masculinity — but to What End?
With a Falsely Confident Hero, Rob Reiner’s Addiction Drama ‘Being Charlie’ Doesn’t Make It to Step One
With Keanu, Key and Peele Save the Cat — and Maybe Buddy Action Comedies, Too
A Netflix Doc Digs at the Truth Behind the Foxcatcher Killing
The Invitation Director Karyn Kusama Talks About the Party She Wishes She Had Left
IMAX’s A Beautiful Planet Gracefully Delivers a Scary-as-Hell Message
“Vasquez Is Universal”: Jenette Goldstein Looks Back on Her Unforgettable Aliens Marine
Susan Sarandon Charms in The Meddler, but More Rose Byrne, Please!
Tale of Tales Dares to Bite Into the Tangential Madness of Fairy Stories
Echo Park Has a Fine Romance, but Whose Echo Park Is This?
Why Hollywood Should Cast All Movies Like Horror Movies
Finally, a Superhero in Touch With His Feminine Side (VIDEO)
Emma Watson’s Colonia Is a Love Story Set in a Cult Prison
Argentine Thriller The Clan Reveals Everyday Folks Making a Game of Evil
Operatic French Concoction MargueriteIs Tough-Minded About Quirkiness
