Watch List Digest 6/5/25
A Tom Cruise doxology, some thoughts on Pee-wee/Paul Reubens and Wes Anderson's new tinkertoy, plus reviews and recommendations.
Latest
New Reviews: "Ballerina," "Straw" 🔒
From this week's WaPo reviews: A "John Wick" spinoff and the latest Tyler Perry melodrama
I Know He Is But What Are You?
Matt Wolf's documentary peeks behind the surface of a pop-culture icon in search of the lost boy beneath. Plus, some thoughts about the new Wes Anderson design showroom - sorry, movie - the two faces of Dubrovnik and on demand recommendations.
Tom Cruise Will Never Die
And other thoughts about "Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning." Also: "I'm Still Here" and a new "Four Seasons" come to Netflix
One Good Film: "Land Ho!" (2014)
A hot spring of a movie: It fizzes a lot, and you come out feeling better than you went in.
Pan Sauce
On the art of the negative movie review and an anniversary celebration of one of the best bad reviews ever written.
New Reviews: "Fight or Flight," "Juliet & Romeo," Henry Johnson" 🔒
One hellacious B-movie action-comedy, one parboiled Shakespeare revamp for tweenie-boppers and a late-career curio from a great American playwright.
10 Good Movies on Netflix (again)
Plus: A heads-up for the latest Movie Club screening and a Watch List bargain.
New Reviews: "Another Simple Favor," "The Surfer," "Words of War" 🔒
This week's reviews from the Washington Post, including one of the year's worst movies and a bio-drama of a hero.
"Sinners" and the Curse of Amnesia
Some belated thoughts on the year's most ambitious movie and what it asks of audiences.
Best Bets for Boston's Best Film Festival
(plus: New WaPo reviews of "On Swift Horses" and "The Legend of Ochi") I’ve been running around so much this week that I forgot to tell my local readers about this year’s edition – the 22nd – of the best little film fest in town, The
Rerun: Walter Matthau's Barbaric Yawp
It's been a busy week with all sorts of irons in the fire, movie- and life-related, so I thought I'd dust off one of the very first Watch List postings from 2021 because it was fun to write and because this guy is fun to read about.
One Good Film
One Good Film: "Ricki and the Flash" (2015)🔒
The silliest role of Meryl Streep's career is also one of the warmest, thanks to the late, great Jonathan Demme.
Good Movies 📽
Why Are There No Good Movies About the American Revolution?
And a tip to a pretty good film for the upcoming Patriot's Day
New Movies
New Review: "The Wedding Banquet" 🔒
Poster Boy
On movie posters and the mixed messages they send us. Plus: the lurid pleasures of the late Robert McGinnis, pulp illustrator extraordinaire
New Movies
New Reviews: "Drop," "John & Yoko," "Sacramento," "Misericordia" 🔒
Four new theatrical releases, four reviews from the WaPo.
What to Watch
What to Watch: "Secret Mall Apartment"
Plus: A guide to the weekend's best streaming movie bets.
Remembrances ⭐️
Michael Hurley 1941-2025
The original freak-folkie and one of this country's great outsider artists has passed on to the jamboree in the sky. You don't know what we've lost.
Weekly Digest
Watch List Digest 4/5/25
Compassion seems to be the watchword of the week's posts, and I know you know we could use some.
New Movies
New Reviews: "The Friend," "Freaky Tales," "The Ballad of Wallis Island" 🔒
Good Movies 📽
What to Watch: Animal Shelters
Bless the beasts and the ... never mind, just bless the beasts. Plus: movies to remember Val Kilmer by.
One Good Film
One Good Film: "The Painter and the Thief" (2020)🔒
A profoundly moving documentary about an unlikely friendship, with a little bit of Zen throat-clearing from yours truly.
New Movies