The genealogy of A Star is Born, Bradley Cooper’s directorial debut, traces an indirect lineage back to the dawn of American cinema, with three remakes and nine decades separating this most recent version from its oldest […]
The Strawberry Criterion: Ready Player One
The protagonist of Ready Player One, the new Steven Spielberg movie, plays video games as an avatar named “Parzival,” who all the other characters inexplicably call “Z.” This would be like having a friend named “Daniel” […]
The Strawberry Criterion: Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri
The setting of the latest Martin McDonough film, Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri, is unlike any in the history of cinema, science fiction included. Whether set on the surface of the moon or in the […]
The Strawberry Criterion: Black Panther
All superhero movies are stupid, but each superhero movie is stupid in its own special way. In the Marvel cinematic universe, this general stupidity tends to manifest itself in the forms of obligatory cross-promotion, bland […]
BPoFD Podcast Episode #24: Oscars 2018 with William Glick
In Episode #24 of the BPoFD podcast, managing editor Carmen Petaccio again sits down with playwright and Oscars historian William Glick to discuss the 2018 Academy Awards. Highlights include predictions for all the major categories, Carmen’s Marxist critique […]
Every Black Mirror Episode, As Ranked by Ryan and Brett
What if your face was an iPhone? What if your wife left you for an emoji? What if your self-driving car ran over a hologram, and it was a hologram of you? These are the […]
The Strawberry Criterion: Phantom Thread
The acclaimed dressmaker at the center of Phantom Thread, the new film from Paul Thomas Anderson, sews cryptic notes into the seams of his creations, secret messages never to be glimpsed by any eyes but his […]
2017 Top 10 Lists with Zero Explanations
Top Ten Movies of 2017 1. mother! 2. Good Time 3. The Killing of a Sacred Deer 4. War for the Planet of the Apes 5. Dunkirk 6. Ingrid Goes West 7. Okja 8. Beatriz at Dinner 9. The Meyerowitz Stories (New & […]
The Strawberry Criterion: The Last Jedi
As there is matter and anti-matter, can there be film and anti-film? If the satisfaction of certain aesthetic and formal criteria can be said to make a film “recognizable,” what would an absolute failure to […]
baby pictures of famous dictators 