Author Archives: Joe Nolan
It’s Not You, It’s Charlie Kaufman
Ghosts Are Us: Charlie Kaufman’s new film is difficult and unique, but is it any good? Charlie Kaufman’s having a busy summer: his debut novel, Antkind was released in July and his latest directorial effort comes to Netflix this Friday. Kaufman adapted I’m Thinking of Ending Things from lain Reid’s novel of the same name. [...]
Nightcrawlers
This is a review of a documentary feature called Nightcrawlers. The movie makes its world premiere at the Defy Film Festival in Nashville, TN this weekend. This review originally appeared in print in The Contributor. In the opening scene of Nightcrawlers, a young man sits cross-legged on a bathroom floor. He glances at the camera [...]
Watching Over Brautigan
By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29768619 In September of this year we’ll recognize 35 years since poet Richard Brautigan shot himself in the head, committing suicide at the age of 49 in 1984. I was thinking about Brautigan today because a link to the excellent Adam Curtis documentary All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace [...]
Once Upon a Time in Charliewood
I just bought two tickets to see Quentin Tarantino’s new film Once Upon A Time in Hollywood. It’s playing in 35mm at our local arthouse and I’m very excited for this one. I’ve grown to really like Django — especially Leonardo DiCaprio’s performance — but The Hateful 8 is probably my least favorite of Tarantino’s [...]
American Acid
By Amrei-Marie – selbst fotografiert von Amrei-Marie, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6273518 T.C. Boyle’s new novel, Outside Looking In, revisits the 1960s and 1970s scenes where the author first experimented with psychedelic drugs. The book sews the experiments and careers of pioneering psychonauts like Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert into a fictional tapestry that reads like [...]
MIDSOMMAR BUMMER
The film Hereditary was scary successful last year. Writer/director Ari Aster’s feature debut delivered an incendiary performance by Toni Collette and a tightening noose of a story that gradually strangled viewers in supernatural sights, occult symbols, real life tragedies and heavy themes about the generational traumas that can ripple though family lines. Hereditary is a [...]
The Lavender Scare
Before Pride Month is over, I wanted to share a movie review I wrote for a Nashville publication a few weeks back. This new PBS doc examines a lesser-known civil rights struggle from the 1950s that found homosexual federal employees forced out of positions with the government for fear that their sexuality made them vulnerable [...]
Sympathy for the Devil
I left early this morning for a coffeehouse counter top where I like to write in the mornings. Dose on McGavock in Riverside Village in East Nashville has good coffee and a pretty elaborate cafe menu. If I’m hungry for something more than black coffee I usually just get a plain bagel with butter and [...]
Tolkien Speaks
Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=91603 I just got back from a preview from the new Tolkien film which tells the story of the life of J.R.R. Tolkien, the creator of Middle Earth and author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. I’ll be reviewing the movie in next week’s Nashville Scene so no spoilers. Instead [...]
The Who’s TOMMY at 50
Photo by Jim Summaria – Contact us/Photo submission, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5574716 This year we’re celebrating the 50th anniversary of The Who’s pioneering rock opera, Tommy. The Who were a re-working of an earlier band, the Detours. With their classic lineup in place and a new name, The Who — Pete Townsend, John Entwistle, Keith [...]
