126: May 2025

This month has brought such a wealth of books and TV and movies and growth (mentally and in my backyard) that looking back on it makes me feel like I need to catch my breath. I've been writing a lot—some below, the rest coming soon—but I've also been reading and watching and listening, thirsty for new things the way the rose bushes in my backyard are thirsty. On a whim I decided to join in on Fran Magazine's McMurtry May, in which Fran and her readers go through Lonesome Dove in its entirety. (Check out the posts for each week, as well as the discussion threads; there's a lot to dig into!) The book's astonishing; McMurtry has a knack for sketching out distinct characters swiftly, and for switching perspectives between them in the middle of a scene, and sometimes even in the middle of a paragraph. It's about hard men in a hard country, though McMurtry surprised me with his capacity for writing complex and sympathetic women, too. I love a story that cares more about character than plot, and here, every plot development serves to add a new facet to the characters going through it. Nor is McMurtry sentimental about his characters. They make mistakes that lead to no lessons, and they make choices that lead to sadness and ruin and sometimes, if they're very lucky, the possibility of new life.

What I wrote:

For Seeing & Believing, I reviewed Thunderbolts, Deaf President Now!, and Mission: Impossible– The Final Reckoning.

For the Chicago Critics Film Festival, I wrote up Charlie Shackleton's Zodiac Killer Project.

I also started a new column about double features at Bright Wall/Dark Room! The inaugural edition paired Kelly Reichardt's First Cow with Gabriel Axel's Babette's Feast: two movies about food and community in austere, remote, beautiful locations. I loved writing this piece; I hope you enjoy reading it.