This is Jacques Tati's grandest spectacle; a crowded epic about modernity and humanity, at war with the way technology and urbanization stunt the world, and yet in love with the people who live in it. Watch Playtime and witness a cosmic dance of stylized beinghood.

I read somewhere that technology is a useful servant, but a dangerous master. The humans in Tati's films are willing slaves: the mailman in Jour de Fete is obsessed with advancements in package handling, Hulot's…

I wish to formally apologize to the film Harold & Maude, which I carelessly called the beginning of the quirky-core movement. That moniker clearly belongs to Jacques Tati's Mon Oncle. For this offense, I bury my head in shame. I told a priest about it at confession. He said it wasn't on the list of confessable sins but that I could say a couple Hail Marys just to be safe.

Now that I'm absolved, I can go about the business of…

Go to Mount Sinai and inscribe this as the Eleventh Commandment: thou shall make all of the best stories take place in big deserts. What? It's not me saying it, it comes from on high, I swear.

There's just something inherently magical about vast desert landscapes in movies: there's all this earth, all this sky, and then nothing but untapped potential in the middle. Sergio Leone, David Lean, George Miller, and John Ford all found their gold in the sand,…

It was inevitable that one day A24 was gonna feel the sting of box-office underperformance, a real risk when you give tens of millions of dollars to niche projects that otherwise would never see the light of day - projects like Beau Is Afraid, a psychotic kaleidoscope of big ideas and little restraint. On the one hand, I'm glad there's a production company out there willing to take a gamble on insane films like this and Men and Everything Everywhere…