Once upon a time they did make movies about us, and they starred Diane Lane. In 2002, at age 36, she played Connie in Unfaithful, and in 2003, at 37, she played Frances in Under the Tuscan Sun. Movies—and characters—that, until recent rewatches, I never saw as the siblings they are: Two married women whose lives come to a head, and the different paths they take toward discovery. One is about ripping it all apart, the other about building it all back up.
If John Frankenheimer's Seconds came out today, with its horror lens firmly trained on themes of extreme plastic surgery, dread of aging, and get-happy-quick schemes, it would likely have found a ready A24 audience and a series of Oscar nods. But in 1966, audiences hated it.
This month, Chad and Elizabeth sit down with author Karina Wolf to discuss midlife crisis and Thomas Vinterberg's 2020 film, Another Round.
Why does Ray Peterson (Tom Hanks) choose to spend his vacation at home? It’s the great secret at the master bedroom closet-heart of The ’Burbs. I’d wager it’s the riddle at the heart of the American suburbs, too.
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from the archives (2013 - 2025)
More often than not, the blockbuster bomb is true of heart, true of passion, and truly, deliriously confounding. These disinherited poor relations aren’t so much Hollywood’s nightmares as they are fever dreams: wild, half-coherent visions barely remembered but always deeply felt.
To kick off our upcoming Summer Blockbusters issue, we invited longtime BW/DR contributor Frank Falisi to help us work our way through Disclosure Day, the latest summer blockbuster from the director who all but created the genre more than 40 years ago.
For most of Spielberg’s career, science fiction has been the mechanism through which he learns and teaches empathy. But in Disclosure Day, empathy itself is the speculative leap. The genre function is inverted: science fiction stops speculating about aliens and starts speculating about us. Aliens are ordinary. Human compassion is extraordinary. The sci-fi is us.
The BW/DR Archives
Florida Man
The Gatorskin Noir and Satirical Softcore of Wild Things
Beverly Hills, What a Thrill!
Troop Beverly Hills (1989)
Some Notes on Crying in the Bathroom
The Films of Billy Wilder
Smoking Harvard
How High (2001)
Simulacra and Simian
Better Man (2024)
Dear Jennifer Coolidge
Austenland (2013)
Prayer
Blue Moon (2025)





























