Alissa Wilkinson

Dreaming of Bunnies

I’ve long been intrigued by the possibility of links between poetry and film. There aren’t many – there are films about poets and films that feel like poetry, but besides Billy Collins’ Action Poetry, I don’t know of a lot that actually draw their primary material from a poem. (Do you? I’d like to hear […]

Alissa Wilkinson

Brunch and Foolishness

Writer Alissa Wilkinson reflects on the brunching habits she learned from living in New York City, and the sacredness of eating together.

Alissa Wilkinson

Mapping the Movies

Mapping the Movies: 50 Films for 50 States – my home state, of course, is Taxi Driver.

Alissa Wilkinson

In Defense of the Slow and Boring

Over at the NYTimes, A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargis defend the slow and boring. MOVIES may be the only art form whose core audience is widely believed to be actively hostile to ambition, difficulty or anything that seems to demand too much work on their part. In other words, there is, at every level of […]

Alissa Wilkinson

Alice in Under(whelming)land

Maybe Tim Burton and I just don’t get along. I have a deep, deep love of the darkly comic, which might explain why my favorite childhood books included Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (and its Great Glass Elevator sequel), Sideways Stories from Wayside School, the Mary Poppins series, and, yes, Alice In Wonderland (along with […]

Alissa Wilkinson

RIP, At the Movies

The news broke yesterday that At the Movies will end production this summer: The demise of “At the Movies” was a blow to the legions of armchair reviewers it spawned in its many incarnations, some of whom went on to professional careers in criticism. “It’s impossible to overestimate the impact of what Gene and Roger […]

Alissa Wilkinson

New Directors, New Films

If you’re in or around New York, make your way to Lincoln Center (Walter Reade Theater, more precisely) for New Directors/New Films. The Filmlinc blog has a nifty guide to this weekend’s must-see films.

Alissa Wilkinson

Do Movie Critics Matter?

Over at First Things today, an essay adapted from a speech by Armond White, chairman of the New York Film Critics’ Circle, titled “Do Movie Critics Matter?” – in which White is not fond of the Internet, blogs, Rotten Tomatoes, and lots of other things.

Alissa Wilkinson

Paste's 50 Best Living Directors

As a regular critic for Paste, I was lucky enough to contribute to the list of the 50 best living directors that appeared in the March issue. (Martin Scorcese is #1; I contributed #23, David Cronenberg, and #12, Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne.) There are some obvious omissions (I personally lamented the lack of Michel Gondry […]