Brendan Hodges
@brendanhodges.bsky.social
staff @NextBestPicture, further bylines @BWDR @Ebertvoices @inversedotcom @Polygon @Vaguevisages, guest @BBC. I'm prone to ramble about aspect ratios at parties.
Writing: https://brendanhodges.contently.com/
Inquiries: brendan.hodges815@gmail.com
Writing: https://brendanhodges.contently.com/
Inquiries: brendan.hodges815@gmail.com
MARTY SUPREME aka THE TORTURED PING PONG SOCIETY is incredible, a screwball sports thriller about the horrible exuberance of youth and the cascading consequences of betting it all on greatness. Chalamet’s best performance. Even at two and a half hours, exhilarating.
November 20, 2025 at 7:52 PM
MARTY SUPREME aka THE TORTURED PING PONG SOCIETY is incredible, a screwball sports thriller about the horrible exuberance of youth and the cascading consequences of betting it all on greatness. Chalamet’s best performance. Even at two and a half hours, exhilarating.
I'm still reeling from IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT, Panahi's queasy thriller about how authoritarianism dehumanizes not only through horrible living conditions, but by pushing the persecuted to be the worst versions of themselves in pursuit of something like justice.
November 19, 2025 at 2:17 AM
I'm still reeling from IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT, Panahi's queasy thriller about how authoritarianism dehumanizes not only through horrible living conditions, but by pushing the persecuted to be the worst versions of themselves in pursuit of something like justice.
THE RUNNING MAN is a sloppy bore. Action is cut to pieces, the plot is all lazy contrivance and if you Pepsi Challenged the movie nobody would know it was directed by Edgar Wright. It slips by with a low hum of entertainment value. I didn't expect much, but it was worse than that
November 11, 2025 at 6:41 PM
THE RUNNING MAN is a sloppy bore. Action is cut to pieces, the plot is all lazy contrivance and if you Pepsi Challenged the movie nobody would know it was directed by Edgar Wright. It slips by with a low hum of entertainment value. I didn't expect much, but it was worse than that
really loved DEATH BY LIGHTNING. it's a thrilling study of our American Project, where a Wambsgansian Raskolnikov pathologizes his failings into a mission to murder a president, whose ascendance captures the folly and power of politics. but most crucially: it has all of the boys.
November 9, 2025 at 11:27 PM
really loved DEATH BY LIGHTNING. it's a thrilling study of our American Project, where a Wambsgansian Raskolnikov pathologizes his failings into a mission to murder a president, whose ascendance captures the folly and power of politics. but most crucially: it has all of the boys.
PLURIBUS is amazing. It feels like the classic speculative sci-fi of the 1960s, with Gilligan using his genre setup to provocatively explore nothing less than the nature of consciousness and what makes us human. Every scene is a discovery. And yes, Rhea Seehorn is extraordinary.
November 7, 2025 at 7:54 PM
PLURIBUS is amazing. It feels like the classic speculative sci-fi of the 1960s, with Gilligan using his genre setup to provocatively explore nothing less than the nature of consciousness and what makes us human. Every scene is a discovery. And yes, Rhea Seehorn is extraordinary.
the CHAINSAW MAN movie is terrific, a heart-fluttering, shark-riding, tragicute romance-action movie that subverts anime/manga romance tropes while delivering exhilarating multi-art-styled action. poor Denji. basically the platonic ideal of what I want one of these to be.
November 5, 2025 at 7:38 PM
the CHAINSAW MAN movie is terrific, a heart-fluttering, shark-riding, tragicute romance-action movie that subverts anime/manga romance tropes while delivering exhilarating multi-art-styled action. poor Denji. basically the platonic ideal of what I want one of these to be.
had fun with BUGONIA, a wily dialectic between a maybe-alien's “let’s have a dialogue” corporate speak vs a conspiracist's magical thinking. IE, another movie about the fall of communication across class and ideology. doesn't add up to a ton, but Plemons and Stone fucking rock it
November 1, 2025 at 11:12 PM
had fun with BUGONIA, a wily dialectic between a maybe-alien's “let’s have a dialogue” corporate speak vs a conspiracist's magical thinking. IE, another movie about the fall of communication across class and ideology. doesn't add up to a ton, but Plemons and Stone fucking rock it
I adored RESURRECTION, Bi Gan's möbius stripped cinedreamworld where he celebrates, mourns and reclaims the fading forms of film history with his signature style that expands and compresses time in dazzling ways. We dream to hold on to what's been lost. One of the best this year.
October 28, 2025 at 12:07 AM
I adored RESURRECTION, Bi Gan's möbius stripped cinedreamworld where he celebrates, mourns and reclaims the fading forms of film history with his signature style that expands and compresses time in dazzling ways. We dream to hold on to what's been lost. One of the best this year.
woke up to the happiest news I’ve read in a while: after almost ten years without a 15/70 IMAX screen in Chicago (and driving hours away to Indianapolis for it) we’re finally getting one back in the suburbs. losing my mind right now lol
from: variety.com/2025/film/ne...
from: variety.com/2025/film/ne...
October 27, 2025 at 5:19 PM
woke up to the happiest news I’ve read in a while: after almost ten years without a 15/70 IMAX screen in Chicago (and driving hours away to Indianapolis for it) we’re finally getting one back in the suburbs. losing my mind right now lol
from: variety.com/2025/film/ne...
from: variety.com/2025/film/ne...
WAKE UP DEAD MAN is terrific, with Rian Johnson spinning a devious, gothic-infused churchbound murder musing on how to live with our sins. Easily the best puzzle-box mystery of the three. Craig is a delight, but Josh O'Connor is once again sensational. A great time!
October 20, 2025 at 10:04 PM
WAKE UP DEAD MAN is terrific, with Rian Johnson spinning a devious, gothic-infused churchbound murder musing on how to live with our sins. Easily the best puzzle-box mystery of the three. Craig is a delight, but Josh O'Connor is once again sensational. A great time!
THE SECRET AGENT is incredible, a stirring, playful and affecting hauntological thriller on how we try to hold onto memory — our own, our cultures, our art, and how that search shapes them all. In this film of forgotten things, Wagner Maura is the heart. One of the best this year
October 17, 2025 at 9:36 PM
THE SECRET AGENT is incredible, a stirring, playful and affecting hauntological thriller on how we try to hold onto memory — our own, our cultures, our art, and how that search shapes them all. In this film of forgotten things, Wagner Maura is the heart. One of the best this year
ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER is an exhilarating gauntlet of American psychosexual paranoia and fight, where PTA pivots from years of Bad Dads into musing on a father's place to raise the next generation after his own already failed. A triumph, and an all-timer California movie.
September 25, 2025 at 10:43 PM
ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER is an exhilarating gauntlet of American psychosexual paranoia and fight, where PTA pivots from years of Bad Dads into musing on a father's place to raise the next generation after his own already failed. A triumph, and an all-timer California movie.
now seems like a good time to say I just flew to Boston where I’ll be seeing ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER in Vista Vision and dual laser 1.43. getting to the point where the hype feels dangerous.
September 18, 2025 at 3:06 PM
now seems like a good time to say I just flew to Boston where I’ll be seeing ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER in Vista Vision and dual laser 1.43. getting to the point where the hype feels dangerous.
really enjoying the mad science of ALIEN: EARTH, where corporate overlords use technology to control us (especially children), as Timothy Olyphant does xeno-mischief. It’s also one of the best and most “cinematic” looking shows recently, with actual lenses, grain and halation:
August 27, 2025 at 10:43 PM
really enjoying the mad science of ALIEN: EARTH, where corporate overlords use technology to control us (especially children), as Timothy Olyphant does xeno-mischief. It’s also one of the best and most “cinematic” looking shows recently, with actual lenses, grain and halation:
Depending who you ask WEAPONS is about the weaponization of children, school shootings, the old preying on the young, trauma, or nothing at all.
I wrote about that spin-the-dial discourse and why so many feel it doesn't amount to much:
nextbestpicture.com/weapons-the-...
I wrote about that spin-the-dial discourse and why so many feel it doesn't amount to much:
nextbestpicture.com/weapons-the-...
August 14, 2025 at 10:57 PM
Depending who you ask WEAPONS is about the weaponization of children, school shootings, the old preying on the young, trauma, or nothing at all.
I wrote about that spin-the-dial discourse and why so many feel it doesn't amount to much:
nextbestpicture.com/weapons-the-...
I wrote about that spin-the-dial discourse and why so many feel it doesn't amount to much:
nextbestpicture.com/weapons-the-...
some friends attend annual spiritual retreats to reconnect with our uncertain cosmos. I just see 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY on 70mm at the @musicboxtheatre.bsky.social once a year.
August 11, 2025 at 11:22 PM
some friends attend annual spiritual retreats to reconnect with our uncertain cosmos. I just see 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY on 70mm at the @musicboxtheatre.bsky.social once a year.
You feel the tension between a more interesting FANTASTIC FOUR –– one about The Thing being a Sad Guy roaming the streets and flirting with a nice lady, and moral and domestic problems are taken seriously –– and a poppy MCU entry. I had fun, but I wish it was allowed to be more.
July 25, 2025 at 5:24 PM
You feel the tension between a more interesting FANTASTIC FOUR –– one about The Thing being a Sad Guy roaming the streets and flirting with a nice lady, and moral and domestic problems are taken seriously –– and a poppy MCU entry. I had fun, but I wish it was allowed to be more.
I liked FANTASTIC FOUR most when brainy heroes solved problems with family discussion and stretchy-arm chalkboard equations instead of Big Smash, and the cosmic stuff is terrific. The rest is rushed and labored, but it's the rare MCU to treat its characters like real human beings
July 25, 2025 at 5:19 PM
I liked FANTASTIC FOUR most when brainy heroes solved problems with family discussion and stretchy-arm chalkboard equations instead of Big Smash, and the cosmic stuff is terrific. The rest is rushed and labored, but it's the rare MCU to treat its characters like real human beings
uh oh I liked EDDINGTON, aka NO COUNTRY FOR WOKE MEN, where Aster dreamcatches every partisan paranoia into a suburban absurdist nightmaria with mask jokes. this isn’t both-sidesing so much as restaging the insanity of the 2020s to riotous extreme. some surprisingly solid action!
July 18, 2025 at 4:37 PM
uh oh I liked EDDINGTON, aka NO COUNTRY FOR WOKE MEN, where Aster dreamcatches every partisan paranoia into a suburban absurdist nightmaria with mask jokes. this isn’t both-sidesing so much as restaging the insanity of the 2020s to riotous extreme. some surprisingly solid action!
Yeah, THE ODYSSEY is going to be massive. A year out tickets crashed the AMC and the Indiana State Museum websites. I got tickets for Friday, but this was by far the most challenging experience scoring seats here in the ten years I've been going. a billion dollars incoming
July 17, 2025 at 4:50 AM
Yeah, THE ODYSSEY is going to be massive. A year out tickets crashed the AMC and the Indiana State Museum websites. I got tickets for Friday, but this was by far the most challenging experience scoring seats here in the ten years I've been going. a billion dollars incoming
realizing INCEPTION is 15 years old
July 17, 2025 at 3:24 AM
realizing INCEPTION is 15 years old
I mostly enjoyed SUPERMAN, a wild, splash-paneled modernization that confronts the core of who he is and his burden of goodness. Until Gunn turns it into a messy Guardians-lite romp that handwaves those ideas for routine speeches about hope. Ugly as sin. Corenswet *is* Superman.
July 8, 2025 at 9:32 PM
I mostly enjoyed SUPERMAN, a wild, splash-paneled modernization that confronts the core of who he is and his burden of goodness. Until Gunn turns it into a messy Guardians-lite romp that handwaves those ideas for routine speeches about hope. Ugly as sin. Corenswet *is* Superman.
Garland’s movies have a HEART OF DARKNESS structure, where his protagonists seek out Kurtzian figures who made extreme choices to survive. 28 YEARS LATER bucks the trend, ending with the most soulful — though no less challenging — third act of his career:
nextbestpicture.com/lessons-from...
nextbestpicture.com/lessons-from...
July 1, 2025 at 10:01 PM
Garland’s movies have a HEART OF DARKNESS structure, where his protagonists seek out Kurtzian figures who made extreme choices to survive. 28 YEARS LATER bucks the trend, ending with the most soulful — though no less challenging — third act of his career:
nextbestpicture.com/lessons-from...
nextbestpicture.com/lessons-from...
it’s so beautiful
June 28, 2025 at 6:07 AM
it’s so beautiful