★★ Usually a movie that gets two stars from me gets it because despite my disappointment with it, I’m unable to care enough to downgrade its score further. But there is another kind of 2-star picture – the kind that wildly swings between very strong high points and other moments that are so pathetic that […]
Yesterday was Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. In these dark times we find ourselves in, a day like that prompts a useful reminder that Lincoln should not just be celebrated for his idealistic qualities, his speeches, or his being the leader of the North. He should be celebrated, respected, and even admired for his darker deeds. No […]
The Best of the Century List can be found here. So begins a new tradition on V for Verbatim. Lists are fun. They’re what movie writing is all about; they’re instant conversation starters, useful catalogues that remind people “hey, this movie exists too.” But cinema has had something of a problem lately that goes beyond […]
A quick guide to determining your predictions for the upcoming House midterms. In nearly every midterm election, the party in power loses seats. Over the last four consecutive midterm elections (2006 – 2018), the president and his party have either lost the House or further lost the House. Before that, strange events disrupted the usual […]
Over 21 years into the 21st century, Ed Rollins is a name only remembered by political historians, beltway swamprats, and whatever I am. Actually, that’s a lie. Before I picked up this book, I had never heard of Rollins. Thanks to Bare Knuckles and Back Rooms, I will spend the rest of my politically aware […]
The Russo-Ukrainian War of 2022 is now nearly 200 days old. Happy anniversary. Well into the fighting, this war is now almost twice the length of the next closest war that mirrors it – the Winter War between the Soviet Union and Finland, where the newly-purged Red Army invaded Finland with over twice the strength, […]
“Never apologize, Mister! It’s a sign of weakness.” – Captain Nathan Brittles If I had to sum up the basic differences between films before vs. films after 1972, it’s that films before practiced the art of subtle non-subtlety, while films after it tend to practice non-subtle subtlety. The difference looks a bit like this: acting […]
Most controversial movies get that way because of the things they do. Yet so much about this movie works because of the things it doesn’t do. It seems ironic that apart from the United States, the country that arguably produced the greatest filmmakers in the twentieth century was its greatest enemy in World War II. […]
Welcome to Ten for Ten – the segment I promised late last year where yours truly would write ten essays on ten films, and the only thing they have in common is that I love the films but have never written about them before. Additional rules are as follows: no more than two films from […]
I probably should have written this list at the very beginning of the year. 2021 wasn’t a great year in cinema, nor was the year before it. In fact, the last couple of decades have not been particularly great for cinema as an art medium nor a positive force for shaping popular culture. But since […]
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