Matt Cipolla
LightNews LightNews
banner
cipollamatt.bsky.social
Matt Cipolla
@cipollamatt.bsky.social
850 followers 230 following 1.1K posts
Was a film critic for seven-ish years (Bright Wall/Dark Room, The Spool, Ebert Voices, The Film Stage, so on). Now I guess I’m just critical. Tail-end millennial trash. Music, motorcycles, etc.

#MeToo

Mostly on Instagram @Cipolla.Matt

cipollam926@gmail
Posts Replies Media Videos
cipollamatt.bsky.social
Ultimate double feature.
My left hand holding the Blu-Rays for Carson Lund’s EEPHUS and Karyn Kusama’s JENNIFER’S BODY. A small coffee table with a MacBook Pro and an Xbox One controller are partially visible in the background.
November 12, 2025 at 4:17 AM
cipollamatt.bsky.social
Got a *ton* of writing done on another screenplay, then went for a motorcycle ride at around 11:45 pm. Rode past a stranger with a nice Heritage Softail, circled back around to say hi to him, and then we rode around the city for over an hour and chatted at a gas station. What a good day.
September 18, 2025 at 8:18 AM
cipollamatt.bsky.social
Fun! A screenplay of mine, MEXICAN WINE, is a Second Rounder in Austin Film Festival's Drama Feature competition. It also got a 9 on a Black List evaluation a few months back, which about 0.5 percent of all projects get, so if anyone's interested in reading it... or buying it from me... #scriptsky
A laurel with two quills symmetrically surrounding the words: SCRIPT COMPETITION SECOND ROUNDER AUSTIN FILM FESTIVAL 2025 An email from the Austin Film Festival. At the top is a graphic of a golden typewriter with the festival's logo directly to the right. The email reads: Dear Matt, Thank you for submitting your work, Mexican Wine, to the 2025 Austin Film Festival Script Competition. We are thrilled to share that your script has been named a Second Rounder in the Drama Feature category! This distinction places your work among the top 20% of this year’s entries and is a recognition of its strong storytelling and craft. This year brought one of the most competitive pools of submissions in our history, filled with dynamic voices and original stories. Your placement reflects the impact your work made on our readers.
September 11, 2025 at 5:11 AM
cipollamatt.bsky.social
72 degrees, rode up and down Lakeshore Drive past midnight, putted around the city, filled up my tank. I feel cleansed.

Also, I bought this bike with faaar past 9,000 miles on it, but yay, a nice round number!
The speedometer of my 2012 Triumph Bonneville T100 motorcycle, parked and illuminated in orange. The odometer reads 10,000 miles.
August 20, 2025 at 6:20 AM
cipollamatt.bsky.social
Glad I was able to get a quick ride in today before the sky completely opened up.
My black and grey 2012 Triumph Bonneville T100 motorcycle sitting with a black gloss Biltwell Gringo SV helmet on the seat, its visor up. Behind the bike is a small grassy area, and behind that is a harbor filled with parked boats, all their masts pointing up toward the mostly cloudy sky. The picture is taken from the left side of the bike. My black and grey 2012 Triumph Bonneville T100 motorcycle parked with a field of grass behind it and a large tree to the left side. In the far background is the distant Chicago skyline.
August 19, 2025 at 3:25 AM
cipollamatt.bsky.social
Happy (?) 22nd anniversary to this
A still from that infamous moment from Ronny Yu’s FREDDY VS. JASON (2003). Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) stands with his back to the camera opposite Kia Waterson (Kelly Rowland), who looks at him with her left arm up, pointing at him menacingly. They’re standing outside in a heavily foggy wooded area.
August 16, 2025 at 1:46 AM
cipollamatt.bsky.social
Charli XCX is a SCREAM 4 fan yaaay
August 14, 2025 at 5:45 AM
cipollamatt.bsky.social
Went for a very quick afternoon ride earlier today.

Then when midnight hit, I thought, Oh, I want to just putt around when there’s virtually no traffic. So I did, and I don’t know if there’s a better feeling.
My black and grey 2012 Triumph Bonneville T100 motorcycle sitting by a grassy knoll with three trees in the immediate background and the Chicago skyline in the distant background. The sky is completely clear with Lake Michigan below it. The picture is taken from the left side of the bike.
August 7, 2025 at 7:05 AM
cipollamatt.bsky.social
My ticket was for a free-standing chair at the very back of The Chicago Theatre. When I got there, a stranger gave me a spare ticket for a seat six rows from the stage since his brother bailed.

This show transported me back to my basement computer room growing up.
The marquee for The Chicago Theatre. The front side reads, “DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE AUGUSR 5 & 6 SOLD OUT!” The side marquee reads, “DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE PLANS 20TH ANNIVERSARY AUGUST 5 & 6 SOLD OUT!” Death Cab for Cutie performing at The Chicago Theatre. The lighting is red with blue tones and high contrast, the shadow of the audience in the foreground. The screen behind the band has digital graphics and some of the lyrics to “Someday You Will Be Loved.” My right hand holding a ticket to see Death Cab for Cutie at The Chicago Theatre on Wednesday, August 6, 2025 at 7:30 pm. The lobby carpet is in the background. An off-white merch t-shirt designed to look like the screen of an iPod Mini circa 2003/2004. It reads “Plans” at the top, then “Artists” below it. Below, the graphic reads, Death Cab for Cutie Death_Cab_For_Cutie DeathCabForCutie Death cab for cutie Deathcab For Cutie
August 7, 2025 at 4:40 AM
cipollamatt.bsky.social
Death Cab tickets became available at the last minute? Oh?!
A screenshot of a Ticketmaster confirmation email for a ticket purchase to see Death Cab for Cutie’s 20th anniversary show of PLANS at the Chicago Theatre on Wednesday, August 6, 2025. A picture of the band is in the center with the information below and a link to view the mobile ticket. The order number and seat information are redacted.
August 5, 2025 at 7:27 PM
cipollamatt.bsky.social
The toy rifle pops out an umbrella with the Italian flag on it. Because of course it does.
An old Bianchi motorcycle parked at a bike night at O’Donovan’s in Chicago. The bike is army green with separate rider and passenger saddles that are both black with silver studs, a center stand, and black upswept exhaust pipes. A fake brown rifle inside a brown scabbard is mounted on the right handlebar, the butt of the gun sticking up and out. There are dozens of other motorcycles parked in the background with several people standing and walking around the parking lot.
August 5, 2025 at 4:42 AM
cipollamatt.bsky.social
I finally bought a motorcycle! The air quality is also the second-worst in the world right now and I’ve listened to “Karma Police” about 45 times today already. Big day!
A picture of me sitting on a parked 2012 Triumph Bonneville T100 motorcycle at the end of someone’s suburban driveway. The picture is taken from the left side of the bike, which is black and silver with a thin yellow pinstripe horizontal down the center of the tank aligned with the tank badge. I have both hands on the bars and my left foot on the foot peg. I’m wearing my eyeglasses, a plain black t-shirt tucked into cuffed blue jeans, and black engineer boots. Cars and a white pick-up truck are parked on the street in the background. The same 2012 Triumph Bonneville T100 motorcycle parked in the street. The picture is taken from the right side of the bike.
July 31, 2025 at 8:00 PM
cipollamatt.bsky.social
Back in Chicago. Went to a lake house by Traverse City with family, saw everyone at once for the first time in almost three years, showed some of them EEPHUS, got sunburnt, and watched my sister get sucked back to high school as I played “Hands Down” by Dashboard Confessional on a boat. Good times.
A picture of Lake Skegemog in Williamsburg, Michigan taken from the back deck of a rental lake house. The backyard is full of short green grass and has a curved brick pathway to a small patio area by the lake, which has chairs, a table, and a closed umbrella placed in its center. A docked pontoon boat is visible and trees are on each side of the frame. The lake has small waves and an orange sunset above it, and the opposite shore is in the far distance.
July 24, 2025 at 12:07 AM
cipollamatt.bsky.social
Boat chic, summer fashion, etc.
A picture of myself on a pontoon boat in the middle of a Michigan lake. I’m wearing black-rimmed eyeglasses, a green corduroy baseball hat, and a red flannel over a black t-shirt that has an orange Biltwell logo on it. My beard goes down to my upper chest and I have a squinted, slightly flummoxed expression looking into the camera.
July 20, 2025 at 3:56 PM
cipollamatt.bsky.social
Important historical artifact right here.
A picture of an old journal of mine from when I was in the second grade. At the top, I wrote, “12/23, 03.” Below, I wrote, “I take a 1/2 pill of Lexapro,” with a child’s drawing of a half of a Lexapro tablet that just looks like a semicircle with an “L” on it drawn with black crayon. A school picture of second-grade me glued onto the back of the journal, whose cover is purple with a partially visible Gryffindor emblem below. I have short blonde hair and am wearing a black polo shirt whose inside of the open lapel is white, with a horizontal yellow stripe at chest-height that’s partially in view at the bottom of the frame. I’m smiling, looking above and to the left of the camera.
July 16, 2025 at 5:26 AM
cipollamatt.bsky.social
Plastic license came in the mail. The color picture is somehow even scarier.

This is the face of someone who listens to “Candy” by Mandy Moore on repeat to feel something.
July 11, 2025 at 9:37 PM
cipollamatt.bsky.social
EEPHUS baseball cards! They’re fun!
A collection of baseball cards for the characters of Carson Lund’s EEPHUS spread out on a dark wood coffee table in two rows. The top row has 10 cards, one gold one at the far left and the rest all blue. The bottom row of cards has 11 cards, all red. Each card has a shot of the player with their name and respective team’s logo, as well as the film’s logo in the top left corner. My right hand holding a baseball card for Troy Carnahan, which has his stats, height, weight, and birthday by his headshot, in which he has a mustache, disheveled blonde hair, and a blue baseball uniform. The text on the bottom reads, “Want to know where Carnahan’s signature move comes from? He won’t tell you. Or, rather, his answers vary between ‘from a space movie,’ ‘from my grandmother,’ or ‘from the east.’” In the background are other cards for the film splayed out and out of focus.
July 5, 2025 at 3:50 AM
cipollamatt.bsky.social
Went to the Secretary of State today. They had to take another ID picture, did it in about six milliseconds, and zoomed in weirdly. I look like an ‘80s serial killer, or sort of like this mugshot of Jim Morrison.
My left hand holding the edge of my temporary paper Illinois driver’s license. The photo of me is in black and white. I’m looking out of frame above the camera lens. My hair is slightly poofy and my beard looks disheveled, and the framing of the picture cuts off the bottom half of my beard. “ILLINOIS” is printed above it. A Wikipedia screenshot of two side-by-side black-and-white photos of Jim Morrison’s mugshot. The left photo is a profile shot of his right side; the right photo is a shot of his face. He’s holding a sign that says “SEP 20 1970” in both pictures and a sign reading “PUBLIC SAFETY DEPT. - DADE COUNTY, FLA” is at the bottom of the frame just above some cut-off arraignment numbers. The caption below both pictures reads, “Jim Morrison on the day of his conviction in Miami for profanity and indecent exposure.”
June 25, 2025 at 10:41 PM
cipollamatt.bsky.social
Okay, I did The List™ in about seven minutes
My reader’s ballot for The New York Times’ 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century in no particular order. The following movies are in two columns of five, each with their posters to the left of the titles: - Bertrand Bonello’s THE BEAST (2024) - Gregg Araki’s MYSTERIOUS SKIN (2005) - Jonathan Glazer’s THE ZONE OF INTEREST (2023) - Bi Gan’s LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT (2019) - Harmony Korine’s SPRING BREAKERS (2013) - Gus Van Sant’s ELEPHANT (2003) - David Lynch’s MULHOLLAND DRIVE (2001) - Tsai Ming-liang’s GOODBYE, DRAGON INN (2004) - Alexander Payne’s SIDEWAYS (2004) - Jonathan Glazer’s UNDER THE SKIN (2014)
June 23, 2025 at 8:48 PM
cipollamatt.bsky.social
Nothing warms my heart like 20 people swarming around a 75-year-old motorcycle and its amazing lil’ pistons on a Monday night.
June 3, 2025 at 4:16 AM
cipollamatt.bsky.social
Got to putt around on a 1981 BMW R65 today. Super smooth ride; even every speed bump was fun as hell.

This is probably the happiest my face has looked in about two years. You can’t really tell here, but trust me.
A picture of me sitting on a blue 1981 BMW R65 motorcycle with its rear tire parked up against the curb in Humboldt Park, Chicago. I’m wearing black engineer boots; cuffed blue jeans; a tucked-in, buttoned-up green flannel; a black backpack; and a gloss black Gringo SV helmet with the face shield open and my glasses on inside. My left hand is resting a little off my left thigh and my right hand is sitting on the gas tank. There are trees and green grass behind me, the sky blue and cloudless. The picture is taken from the front left side of the bike.
June 1, 2025 at 1:18 AM
cipollamatt.bsky.social
Helmet acquired. I’m more thrilled than my default expression makes it seem, trust me.

Shoutout to Tarnish in the West Loop, Biltwell, and also THE DOOM GENERATION and LOST HIGHWAY while I’m at it.
A picture of myself wearing a gloss black Biltwell Gringo SV motorcycle helmet with the face shield up. My glasses inside the helmet are slightly crooked and my beard is hanging out of the bottom of the helmet by a few inches, and I’m wearing a green flannel over a plain black t-shirt. On the wall in the background are posters for Gregg Araki’s THE DOOM GENERATION (1995) and David Lynch’s LOST HIGHWAY (1997), both partially visible behind me.
May 30, 2025 at 10:07 PM
cipollamatt.bsky.social
Spotted last night.
A 2012/2013-ish Harley-Davidson Super Glide FXD motorcycle parked with its rear tire against the curb at night. The picture is taken from the motorcycle’s left side. The bike is a dark green color that looks black with the lighting. A New Orleans-themed bar with a neon sign is out of focus in the left background, casting a purple light off the bike’s black saddle, passenger backrest, and a white building in the frame’s right background. The black pavement below the bike also has a slight purple tint to it from the neon.
May 26, 2025 at 7:49 PM
cipollamatt.bsky.social
I completed the course! Shoutout to this 2000 Honda Nighthawk 250 for being my dance partner for two days.

The Ride Chicago instructors were fantastic.

Also, funny how the two sweltering days in the midst of nothing but mild temperatures were yesterday and today. Huh.
A black 2000 Honda Nighthawk 250 motorcycle with a red zip tie on the left side of the passenger seat and the tank logo largely peeled off. A Bell helmet with a black, red, white, and grey design sits on the ground upside down in front of it. The picture is taken from the bike’s left side.
May 16, 2025 at 8:52 PM
cipollamatt.bsky.social
Day one of motorcycle classes complete!
A picture of myself in a black and red full-face black Bell motorcycle helmet. The visor is up and I have my eyeglasses on inside. My beard is sticking out of the bottom of the helmet by three or four inches, and I’m wearing a red flannel over a plain black t-shirt.
May 15, 2025 at 6:32 PM