Joshua Rothkopf
@joshuarothkopf.bsky.social
Film Editor, Los Angeles Times | Member, LAFCA | Vice-Chair, National Society of Film Critics | I'm watching a movie right now.
Like so many kids, I played along to Kiss riffs in my bedroom. Ace Frehley doesn’t seem gone because he can never be gone for me. #RIPitout
October 17, 2025 at 6:21 AM
Like so many kids, I played along to Kiss riffs in my bedroom. Ace Frehley doesn’t seem gone because he can never be gone for me. #RIPitout
Me, Jada, you, Tim and Dave
August 21, 2025 at 9:24 PM
Me, Jada, you, Tim and Dave
There are days on which TOBY DAMMIT is my favorite Fellini and that’s largely due to Terence Stamp, splitting the difference between LA DOLCE VITA and something much darker. One of a kind. images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5...
August 17, 2025 at 6:26 PM
There are days on which TOBY DAMMIT is my favorite Fellini and that’s largely due to Terence Stamp, splitting the difference between LA DOLCE VITA and something much darker. One of a kind. images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5...
Also, here's a fun image from an Overlook FF I attended many years ago, when it was in Portland at a certain well-known location.
April 4, 2025 at 12:03 AM
Also, here's a fun image from an Overlook FF I attended many years ago, when it was in Portland at a certain well-known location.
Proud to be joining my critic colleagues in condemning the violence against Hamdan Ballal, whose status as a filmmaker made him more of a target. That should alarm anyone concerned with the human rights of artists.
March 27, 2025 at 3:45 PM
Proud to be joining my critic colleagues in condemning the violence against Hamdan Ballal, whose status as a filmmaker made him more of a target. That should alarm anyone concerned with the human rights of artists.
One of the things I love to do is read from the non-online archives of the paper. This image and quote should be a meme. He’s 34, it’s two weeks after the release of THING and he’s looking forward to finally having final cut on his next project, FIRESTARTER.
March 22, 2025 at 6:53 PM
One of the things I love to do is read from the non-online archives of the paper. This image and quote should be a meme. He’s 34, it’s two weeks after the release of THING and he’s looking forward to finally having final cut on his next project, FIRESTARTER.
I have many thoughts about Gene Hackman, but first, here's an anecdote David Fincher told me about him, from the casting for SEVEN. Somehow it captures something very Hackman.
February 27, 2025 at 6:26 PM
I have many thoughts about Gene Hackman, but first, here's an anecdote David Fincher told me about him, from the casting for SEVEN. Somehow it captures something very Hackman.
Somehow the restored PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK is even gauzier and more malevolent. Ground zero for so much languid, erotic horror that stumbles onto unwelcome ground. Sofia fans, assemble. Also, this typewritten complaint letter from 1979 hanging in the Laemmle Royal lobby rules.
February 25, 2025 at 7:40 AM
Somehow the restored PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK is even gauzier and more malevolent. Ground zero for so much languid, erotic horror that stumbles onto unwelcome ground. Sofia fans, assemble. Also, this typewritten complaint letter from 1979 hanging in the Laemmle Royal lobby rules.
Someone in L.A. please be the hero and book a 35mm print of ERASERHEAD and show it properly at midnight for a few days — that's how it all started. People will come.
January 17, 2025 at 7:27 PM
Someone in L.A. please be the hero and book a 35mm print of ERASERHEAD and show it properly at midnight for a few days — that's how it all started. People will come.
In her deeply rooted appreciation of David Lynch, @theamynicholson.bsky.social goes into her own practice of transcendental meditation, as well as her journey on the road to loving Lynch, "a challenge I’ve come to cherish." www.latimes.com/entertainmen...
January 17, 2025 at 5:57 PM
In her deeply rooted appreciation of David Lynch, @theamynicholson.bsky.social goes into her own practice of transcendental meditation, as well as her journey on the road to loving Lynch, "a challenge I’ve come to cherish." www.latimes.com/entertainmen...
David Lynch consoling Robert Altman in 2002 is still my favorite Oscars cutaway.
January 17, 2025 at 12:49 AM
David Lynch consoling Robert Altman in 2002 is still my favorite Oscars cutaway.
David Lynch’s art life fit right in with L.A. and the movies he set here make other filmmakers look like tourists: spooky reversals of fortune, bifurcated lives, a place both ephemeral and forever. Here’s me as a baby critic on MULHOLLAND DRIVE: inthesetimes.com/article/head...
January 16, 2025 at 10:38 PM
David Lynch’s art life fit right in with L.A. and the movies he set here make other filmmakers look like tourists: spooky reversals of fortune, bifurcated lives, a place both ephemeral and forever. Here’s me as a baby critic on MULHOLLAND DRIVE: inthesetimes.com/article/head...
David Lynch was always the one for me. BLUE VELVET changed my life as a 15-year-old. It made me want to be involved in movies. Reeling from this news. The paper will have full coverage in the coming hours and days.
January 16, 2025 at 7:03 PM
David Lynch was always the one for me. BLUE VELVET changed my life as a 15-year-old. It made me want to be involved in movies. Reeling from this news. The paper will have full coverage in the coming hours and days.
So not playing. Vinyl gatefold, double album. Massively influential on me.
January 11, 2025 at 10:08 PM
So not playing. Vinyl gatefold, double album. Massively influential on me.
STRANGE DAYS in 35mm at the Academy’s 950-seat Geffen was the kind of choice I want to make all year. Big Chicago McClurg Court memories. Those are some ratty ‘90s wigs. images.mubicdn.net/images/film/...
January 3, 2025 at 6:42 AM
STRANGE DAYS in 35mm at the Academy’s 950-seat Geffen was the kind of choice I want to make all year. Big Chicago McClurg Court memories. Those are some ratty ‘90s wigs. images.mubicdn.net/images/film/...
1. THE SUBSTANCE This was the one. I want the horror movies I love to push beyond the acceptable, to provoke and get messy. Coralie Fargeat never needs to make a movie in L.A. because she’s already made the definitive takedown.
January 1, 2025 at 1:39 AM
1. THE SUBSTANCE This was the one. I want the horror movies I love to push beyond the acceptable, to provoke and get messy. Coralie Fargeat never needs to make a movie in L.A. because she’s already made the definitive takedown.
2. ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT Payal Kapadia is the arrival of the year, capturing women’s dreams and frustrations in a language that’s her own.
January 1, 2025 at 1:38 AM
2. ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT Payal Kapadia is the arrival of the year, capturing women’s dreams and frustrations in a language that’s her own.
3. DO NOT EXPECT TOO MUCH FROM THE END OF THE WORLD A dispatch from a permanently fucked late-capitalist future. It scares me how funny and familiar it is.
January 1, 2025 at 1:38 AM
3. DO NOT EXPECT TOO MUCH FROM THE END OF THE WORLD A dispatch from a permanently fucked late-capitalist future. It scares me how funny and familiar it is.
4. DUNE: PART TWO An increasingly dark Coppola-like achievement that flatters the novel and even improves on it. In a perfect world, it would win everything.
January 1, 2025 at 1:37 AM
4. DUNE: PART TWO An increasingly dark Coppola-like achievement that flatters the novel and even improves on it. In a perfect world, it would win everything.
5. A DIFFERENT MAN We’re lucky to be cast in the “roles” of our lives, good or bad. What if you had to audition — and then lost the part? Schimberg’s was the script of the year.
January 1, 2025 at 1:37 AM
5. A DIFFERENT MAN We’re lucky to be cast in the “roles” of our lives, good or bad. What if you had to audition — and then lost the part? Schimberg’s was the script of the year.
6. HARD TRUTHS Marianne Jean-Baptiste was my Furiosa, spewing an endlessly complex anger and fear that few movies would dare to acknowledge.
January 1, 2025 at 1:36 AM
6. HARD TRUTHS Marianne Jean-Baptiste was my Furiosa, spewing an endlessly complex anger and fear that few movies would dare to acknowledge.
7. CIVIL WAR I know Alex Garland is making another zombie movie with Danny Boyle, but this served nicely in the interim: America on the road to nowhere.
January 1, 2025 at 1:34 AM
7. CIVIL WAR I know Alex Garland is making another zombie movie with Danny Boyle, but this served nicely in the interim: America on the road to nowhere.
8. PROBLEMISTA When a character feels plucked from your own life — that was Tilda Swinton and my ex-art-world bosses, who I still love for their ferocity.
January 1, 2025 at 1:33 AM
8. PROBLEMISTA When a character feels plucked from your own life — that was Tilda Swinton and my ex-art-world bosses, who I still love for their ferocity.
9. NICKEL BOYS This was the one I spent the most time thinking about, grappling with a formal strategy that I wanted to understand. The effort opened me up.
January 1, 2025 at 1:32 AM
9. NICKEL BOYS This was the one I spent the most time thinking about, grappling with a formal strategy that I wanted to understand. The effort opened me up.
Before the year is out, my personal top-10 list, mainly for the sake of remembering:
10. THE END Anyone who makes it to the postapocalypse will be overwhelmed by guilt and self-delusion. You may sing a little song to distract yourself.
10. THE END Anyone who makes it to the postapocalypse will be overwhelmed by guilt and self-delusion. You may sing a little song to distract yourself.
January 1, 2025 at 1:31 AM
Before the year is out, my personal top-10 list, mainly for the sake of remembering:
10. THE END Anyone who makes it to the postapocalypse will be overwhelmed by guilt and self-delusion. You may sing a little song to distract yourself.
10. THE END Anyone who makes it to the postapocalypse will be overwhelmed by guilt and self-delusion. You may sing a little song to distract yourself.