What's this? A "Back Row Thoughts" column that's not just a batch review? Yes, it does still occasionally happen, especially on a night like tonight. Strap in folks, it's story time! As a lifelong fan of horror movies, there is little that scares me on the screen. I'm afraid of a lot of things in … Continue reading Back Row Thoughts – My White Whale
So... I did another thing. Exactly five years ago, I launched a YouTube channel as a companion piece to this blog. The first video was a ranking of all the Pixar films that had been released at that point. It was just me sitting in front of my webcam and riffing for about 90 minutes. … Continue reading Back Row Thoughts – Discussing Disney
You may be wondering why I haven't posted anything on here in about six weeks. Did I fall off the face of the Earth, or more likely, into a deep depression? Did I run out of money entirely, making it impossible to live day-to-day, to say nothing of going to the movies? Did I finally … Continue reading Back Row Thoughts – Animation Animal-ation
What's the opposite of a perfect storm? Whatever it is, I think that's what describes the circumstances surrounding the final two films from 2025 that I have yet to review, at least in this space. Usually I try to review something pretty much as soon as I see it, within 48 hours if I can … Continue reading Back Row Thoughts – Womp Womp
We're a week away from the Oscars, and starting tomorrow, the Blitz enters the home stretch. Even though I published my first new review of the year yesterday, I still have five more films from 2025 left to cover. Two of them I'll hold until Saturday, as they kind of fit into their own separate … Continue reading Back Row Thoughts – So Much Blitzing, Part 4
An odd thought occurred to me today. We're fully two months into 2026, and I still haven't seen a "new" movie yet this year. Sure, I've taken in a bunch as part of the Blitz, but nothing for the official 2026 canon yet. And I'm still working my way through the review backlog, with nine … Continue reading Back Row Thoughts – So Much Blitzing, Part 3
As we get closer and closer to Oscar Night, there are moments when we take stock of the year that was in cinema as a whole. So much is ignored when it comes to Awards Season, so it's often difficult to remember and recognize the quality - or lack thereof - when truly assessing the … Continue reading Back Row Thoughts – So Much Blitzing, Part 2
I do my best each year to see as many movies as possible, with a particular igniting of the proverbial afterburners as we get closer to Oscar season. I know I'll never have full feature completion by the time nominations come out and the Blitz begins, but most of the time I come within a … Continue reading Back Row Thoughts – So Much Blitzing, Part 1
A lot of foreign films that compete at the Oscars deal with heavy emotional or political themes, often in the context of world-changing events. Whether they're narrative films or documentaries, there's a ton of high-concept, game-changing ideas out there, which is why the Academy likes to curate them in the specialty feature categories (International, Animated, … Continue reading Back Row Thoughts – Doing the Work
I've harped a lot on my annual quixotic ambition to clear the Animated Feature list, even though I've never been able to accomplish the goal. What I do make a normal habit of is dusting off the shortlists for International Feature and Documentary Feature. This is oftentimes a very difficult mission, as strictly speaking, the … Continue reading DownStream – For Your Consolidation, Part 2: Documentary
I Actually Paid To See This 