"Do you want to meet Lady Gaga?" "Ummm..." When you vote in any kind of critics group, which I do, you're often invited to events to meet the filmmakers and actors of the movies who would like your vote. It's usually a
There will be a lot of comparisons of Luca Guadagnino's Artificial (which had its world premiere Monday night at the New York Film Festival) to David Fincher's The Social Network. This makes a lot of sense. Both movies are about tech and both movies star Andrew
Thank you, again, for being a subscriber to The Hard Pass. And especially if you are a paid subscriber because that is the only thing that keeps this newsletter chugging along. This week The Hard Pass delivered reviews of Digger (which is now, somehow, immortalized in a commercial for the
reviews
Sometimes I like to think about what it would be like telling my past self about the strange things my future self will do. In this particular case, I wouldn't need to talk to myself in high school. Or college. For this particular scenario, I'd only
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For years people have wished Tom Cruise would jettison his action hero persona that he's adopted over the last two decades or so and try to challenge himself again as an actor. Be careful what you wish for. Then again, I can't imagine yet another "
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Another week is over and it's again time to answer reader mail at The Hard Pass. And thank you once again for being a subscriber. This newsletter only exists because of you. (Okay and, I guess, to a lesser extent, me.) This is a big one and this
A couple of weeks ago I rewatched Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. I unabashedly love this movie. It is somehow both a great Star Trek movie and a Star Trek movie that non-Star Trek fans like. Over the years a lot of Trek fans have dismissed The Voyage
Last June, my girlfriend Kate and I were at a premiere party for a movie you probably don't know, but it was directed by and starred a famous person who has a lot of famous friends and they were all there. At one point, Kate pointed at a
There are two things I remember distinctly about putting this piece together. First, that it took a surprisingly long time. I remember my editor always checking in on Slack, asking, "What are you working on this week?" And for over a month straight this would always be part
A version of this post published on September 3, 2021 on Uproxx, but is no longer on the internet. With this one I did, let's say, tidy it up a little bit. In 2021, we were still very much feeling the affects of the pandemic and I edited
This was a piece that published on February 28, 2018 when I worked at Uproxx. I would just link to it, but Uproxx has removed its archives before 2022, so this piece has been lost to the internet. But, today, I am here to save it. The funny thing about
This is a newsletter you can read, written by Mike Ryan.
I have returned from Toronto with an overwhelming sense of exhaustion, as if my body is trying to tell me, "Some of the things you do may not be a good idea anymore. Or never were, really." Ah, what's the difference, it was still fun. Though,
It makes no sense, but also somehow makes perfect sense that Zach Cregger would want to make a Resident Evil movie, a video game based film franchise that has somehow been around for 24 years now. Though, notably and understandably, this new Resident Evil has nothing to do with any
Obviously with this headline I'm doing a bit of "a bit" here. A bit that, for people who don't know me, think is me being dead serious. On social media, someone replied to me, "Oh, so it's better than The Night
Earlier this week, I published a film festival preview in which I told quite a few behind the scenes stories about what it's really like covering a major film festival as press – the good and the bad. The one I didn't share in that piece, but
"You have to care a lot to not give a fuck." This is profound poetry, spoken by Liam Gallagher during Oasis: Don't Look Back in Anger, the new documentary by directors Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern that chronicles Oasis's 2025 concert reunion tour. A
This week, I will fly on an airplane from New York City to Toronto to attend the Toronto International Film Festival, which will be my 13th in Toronto. My first was in 2011, which is, somehow, 15 years ago now. It is an extremely well run film festival staffed with
"I want you to ask Mike Leigh if he'd ever make a superhero movie." These are 14 terrifying words. These are the words from my editor at Movieline, Stu VanAirsdale, right before I interview the director most known for not suffering fools of any kind. At
Han Solo is a fascinating character (yes, I know, Harrison Ford¹ would disagree), which is why I love writing about him so much. Not so much his character traits, but more his relationship to the Rebel Alliance in the Original Trilogy and why he's even there in the
It is the last Friday of August and, gosh, what a brutal week. I wrote two obituaries. One about Dolly Parton, then another at IndieWire about Peter Cullen. Right as I published the Dolly Parton piece, the news broke that Tim Curry died. Again, just a brutal week. This particular
On Wednesday, Sylvester Stallone paid tribute to his Rhinestone co-star, Dolly Parton, who died this week at the age of 80. It's been a nonstop outpouring of love for Parton since the news broke on Tuesday.¹ But Stallone's tribute about the two of them almost
The day I'm typing this, Tuesday, August 25th, is the ten-year anniversary of one of the funniest random encounters I've ever had. The gist: I was on a shuttle bus from NYC Port Authority to MetLife stadium to see a Bruce Springsteen concert when a
Back in 2010, during the final season of Lost, I did the weekly, post-episode interviews with cast members throughout that final season for Vulture. This was not an easy gig for a few reasons. First, for the first half of that season they were still filming in Hawaii. Which