One of the keenest pleasures found in moviegoing is that of competence porn. A great comedy can flood your brain with endorphins, a solid horror movie can unnerve you days after you saw it, and the right drama can restore your faith in the essential decency of humanity. Even the much-maligned superhero genre can, when executed properly, provide viewers with something mythic. That’s all well and good, but I really dig films about smart people doing a particular job with intelligence and competence. Consider Apollo 13, a film I absolutely adore. On the one hand, I understand perhaps 25 percent... Read More

Good movies possess fearsome power. They can inspire you or piss you off, provide you with the motivation to get up and do something. Even in our age of disposable media, what else has that kind of influence? Consider this. Brokeback Mountain punched through decades of homophobia and, with an aching love story, helped to “normalize” the LGBT experience. Coming at a time of renewed racial tensions, Selma dropped viewers into the midst of the civil rights movement and reminded us that we’re truly doomed to repeat history unless we have the moral strength to overcome it. The... Read More