Why 'Tron: Ares' Is a Boring Mess Plus: RIP, Diane Keaton.

Across the Movie Aisle lives! Just like Ares, from TRON: ARES! Hopefully the show with Peter and Alyssa isn't as big a mess as that movie. We also say goodbye to Diane Keaton, who was just great. movieaisle.substack.com/p/why-tron-a...

Diane Keaton, 1946–2025 The leading lady of the 1970s.

"The two greatest crime dramas of all time and two of the greatest romantic comedies of all time, in a single decade, all of which have Keaton at their center. Not a bad legacy, particularly when forty-five more years were to follow."

ICYMI @sonnybunch.bsky.social www.thebulwark.com/p/diane-keat...

Bulwark Pope Opposes Abomination of AI www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news...

Diane Keaton, 1946–2025 The leading lady of the 1970s.

Beautiful assessment and tribute from @sonnybunch.bsky.social

www.thebulwark.com/p/diane-keat...

Diane Keaton, 1946–2025 The leading lady of the 1970s.

Diane Keaton made The Godfather, one of the greatest films ever made, work. And she did so much more over more than five decades. @sonnybunch.bsky.social: www.thebulwark.com/p/diane-keat...

Diane Keaton, 1946–2025 The leading lady of the 1970s.

Diane Keaton is the great actress of the 1970s. And also, y’know, the 45 years that followed. RIP. www.thebulwark.com/p/diane-keat...

As Orwell predicted!

Tron’s Evolving Vision of the Technological Present Plus: ‘Network,’ Assigned!

The TRON movies aren't very good. But they *are* kind of interesting as a window into how we understand computers and the Internet. www.thebulwark.com/p/trons-evol...

How Orwell Helps Us Remember Truth Raoul Peck on his new essay film, 'Orwell: 2+2=5'

George Orwell is, sadly, eternally relevant. I talked to Raoul Peck (I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO) about the death of objective truth, Peck's upbringing in Haiti, and more for our chat about his new documentary, ORWELL: 2+2=5. www.thebulwark.com/p/how-orwell...

‘Tron: Ares’ Review A video game without rules is just boring chaos.

TRON: ARES has a couple of neat sequences and works best when it's just an action-packed music video set to Nine Inch Nails. But the movie is just fundamentally misconceived: the draw of these movies is The Grid and being inside a game. Bringing the game to the real world is boring!

Dwayne Johnson's 'Smashing Machine' Plus: Some podcast news!

On Across the Movie Aisle this week, Alyssa, Peter, and I discussed the dying production scene in Los Angeles and reviewed THE SMASHING MACHINE. Fun episode, everyone loves Serious Rock. www.thebulwark.com/p/dwayne-joh...

Well both of those guys were already legit stars at that point in their careers (or at least had had big roles in big movies); I was trying to highlight a few folks who hadn’t made the jump or spent most of their careers as a “oh yeah, that guy” afterwards.

Randolph Scott, Virtuous Loner of the West Lonesomeness, nobility, and anti-machismo: the ‘Ranown’ westerns are an underappreciated treasure of American cinema.

Budd Boetticher was by nature a swashbuckler. In his youth, he fought bulls in Mexico. He spent years as a matador before his horrified mother, a society lady back in Evansville, Indiana, arranged a job in Hollywood instead. His westerns hold up: www.thebulwark.com/p/randolph-s...

Randolph Scott, Virtuous Loner of the West Lonesomeness, nobility, and anti-machismo: the ‘Ranown’ westerns are an underappreciated treasure of American cinema.

"Hemingwayesque in their brevity and violent candor, the films are humanistic tragicomedies, with a tenderness and a poetry in their language and assumptions about life."

Hannah Long on the best westerns you never heard of:

Haha when I was watching the movie this time I was like “okay this character makes NO SENSE, why is he in this?” And it’s really a vestigial plot point; originally the altered flight logs were supposed to bring Jessup down for real. He needed to deliver that info.

YouTube video by The Bulwark A Few Good Men: Why Today’s Leaders Sound Like Col. Jessup

Talked A FEW GOOD MEN on the Movie Club this week with @jvl.bsky.social and @sarahlongwell25.bsky.social, which remains one of the all-time "Oh yeah, he's in this" movies. Cruise/Nicholson/Moore, yes, but also Kevin Pollack, JT Walsh, Noah Wyle, Josh Malina, Cuba Gooding Jr, etc. Off the charts!

YouTube video by The Bulwark “All the President’s Men” vs. Trump’s Daily Insanity

This was such an absolute treat

@sonnybunch.bsky.social let me sit in on @thebulwark.com "Movie Club" to discuss one of my all-time favorite films, All the President's Men

www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQC7...

Saudi Arabia’s Useful Idiots Plus: ‘The Smashing Machine,’ Reviewed

I honestly don't care THAT much if comedians want to perform in Saudi Arabia, but I do take issue with them being useful idiots for medieval barbarism in an active way. www.thebulwark.com/p/saudi-arab...

How an MTV Prank Helps Explain the Internet Yourgo Artsitas on his documentary short, 'TR(ol)L.'

Remember TRL? The MTV show where you voted for boy bands? What if I told you that Yourgo Artsitas's documentary on the time the show got hijacked to include a New Kids on the Block video will forever change how you look at the late-90s music scene? www.thebulwark.com/p/how-an-mtv...

‘The Smashing Machine’ Review Some amazing sequences and strong acting, but an uncompellingly messy subject.

"Not to wear my philistine badge too proudly, but my problem with 'The Smashing Machine' may be that it needed to be a bit more formulaic. Formulas are good; formulas work; that’s why they’re formulas."

@sonnybunch.bsky.social reviews: www.thebulwark.com/p/the-smashi...

‘The Smashing Machine’ Review Some amazing sequences and strong acting, but an uncompellingly messy subject.

A thing I don’t know that I’ve ever written before: I wish THE SMASHING MACHINE were slightly *more* formulaic rather than less? www.thebulwark.com/p/the-smashi...

YouTube video by The Bulwark Kimmel Suspension Triggered MAJOR Disney+ Exodus (w/ Julia Alexander)

I broke down the Kimmel cancellation data with Julia Alexander from Puck. Turns out there was a huge spike (around 6x the normal churn rate) that couldn't really be attributed to anything else. Needless to say, that likely played some part in Kimmel's hasty return. www.youtube.com/watch?v=PB-L...

YouTube video by The Bulwark “All the President’s Men” vs. Trump’s Daily Insanity

Had a fun time talking ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN with @jvl.bsky.social and @citizencohn.bsky.social on the movie club. It's streaming on the Criterion Channel and it really is insanely riveting for a movie that's often just dudes talking on phones. Movie stars, baby! www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQC7...

A distribution like that is virtually always the result of a negative review-bombing campaign that originates on social media, typically motivated by politics. You don’t have to demonstrate you’ve actually seen the movie to leave a rating. Verified audience number at 85% on RT.

tbf that sort of distribution curve smacks of review bombing

I'm kind of mixed on ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER, but one thing I absolutely believe is that Teyana Taylor should be in the awards season mix. The first 40 minutes are relentless in large part because of her vibrancy. www.thebulwark.com/p/one-battle...

I was one-degree of separation from Yudkowsky so I got to bust out my "Actually, EX MACHINA is about an AI-Box Experiment and not a Turing Test," and Soares was like "yes, obviously."

Yes.

How Movies Can Better Prep Us for the AI Threat Nate Soares on his new book, 'If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies.'

I don't mean to be alarmist, but: AI is going to kill us all. (Accidentally. Maybe.) Anyway, I talked to Nate Soares aboout his and Eliezer Yudkowsky's new book, "If Anyone Builds it, Everyone Dies" and how storytellers could better prepare us for this. www.thebulwark.com/p/how-movies...

Yes