The Filmic 5: Professor Coogler Edition
Your Weekly Film Superlatives By Critic and Film Scholar Jack Hanley
I. Film Moment Making Me Happy This Week
I've adored director Ryan Coogler since my early film festival programming days where I first encountered his masterful debut, FRUITVALE STATION. And while I MAY be still be a bit vexed that Marvel swooped in after the success of CREED, I could not be more pleased to see his return to auteurship (paired again with the brilliant Michael B. Jordan) with his new "Jim-Crow Vampire" film SINNERS, currently in theaters.
Even MORE exciting was his recent promo video (in partnership with Kodak) wherein Coogler goes full film-school professor with a passionate 10 minute deep-dive into film aspect ratios and formats, filling whiteboards as earnestly as filling the hearts and minds of fellow film nerds.
The virality of the clip worldwide proves a heartwarming reminder that we cinephiles- and the genre we adore- still MATTER. Enjoy. And after watching SINNERS in IMAX, go watch THE STUDIO on Max.
II. Film Trailer Motivating Me This Week
I was instantly seduced by the trailer from Miguel Gomes for GRAND TOUR - a playful, melancholic take on the classic pursuit film genre that blends 16mm black-and-white cinematography with archival footage. Enjoy this marvelous visual feast and then catch it this weekend streaming on MUBI.
III. Gen-X Moment of Nostalgia That Made Me Smile
Chicago always seems to find a way to bring gangs back together again. Enjoy the cast of the hit 80s coming-of-age movie THE BREAKFAST CLUB in their first full-scale reunion just miles from where they filmed it all at Chicago's C2E2 2025. And don't you DARE forget about them...
IV. Film Book I'm Currently Reading
I'm currently enthralled by Wasteland: The Great War and the Origins of Modern Horror- W. Scott Poole's deconstruction of the birth of modern horror (both in film and literature) via the mud-soaked trauma of death and decay that was the Great War. Poole deftly blends equal parts academia and gothic glee into his assertions that it was the blood-soaked trenches that birthed contemporary culture's darkest nightmares and most enduring cinematic phantoms. Highly recommended.
V. Film Essay I Am Loving This Week
Absolutely loving Jim Cirronella's recent take on the critical reappraisal of GODZILLA vs BIOLLANTE, which "...marked an invigoratingly ambitious new direction for the franchise at the outset of what is known as its Heisei era—a run of films coinciding with Emperor Hirohito’s son Akihito’s time on the throne—pitting the King of the Monsters against one powerful new adversary after another."
Click here to enjoy this fascinating essay via our friends at Criterion.
Jack Hanley is a Boulder-based film scholar, podcaster, and critic. He is a programmer with the Chicago Underground Film Festival and Boulder International Film Festival. He is one-half of Blindspotting: A Film Discovery Podcast and Flicker with Jack and Scott on YouTube. Find him at Kinophilia on Medium and at HanleyOnFilm.com