Gabriel Ricard

Thank you to the dearly departed Kurt Vonnegut for the “So it goes” part. It seemed appropriate to use for a list of the best movies of 2016. Last year, I didn’t seem to have my usual ability to escape, empathize, and/or absorb the 20 or 30…

Memory as a concept is fucked. I think we can all agree on that. For example, I remember most of the food I took home from my 8th grade prom. I remember the last song I listened to, before my 4th performance in To Kill a Mockingbird in…

Make the Case lists choices chronologically, rather than in any order of quality. Picks reflect film acting roles only. If the actor in question also directed the movie, that’s purely a coincidence, and it plays no part in the film’s…

A lot of people think Frank Miller is a crazy, ignorant asshole. The case is definitely there. You can also make a case for the steady, endlessly uncomfortable decline in Miller’s work. The first Sin City film was visually fun as hell. As…

Make the Case lists choices chronologically, rather than in any order of quality. Picks reflect film acting roles only. If the actor in question also directed the movie, that’s purely a coincidence, and it plays no part in the film’s…

Did you catch The Transporter: Refueled, The Last Witch Hunter, or Need for Speed when any of those films were in U.S. theaters? It’s okay. Most of us didn’t. Need for Speed opened to disinterested reviews from American critics and…

Is Nicolas Cage, Oscar-winner, reformed castle collector, ambitious Elvis fan, also a brilliant actor? I think you can make a pretty strong case for that. As recently as the film Joe, based on the novel by Larry Brown, Cage is proving that…

“Do you ever resent being typecast to a certain extent?” I asked Lance Henriksen this question during a face-to-face interview in 2006. It was a dumb question, but Henriksen, who has a reputation for graciousness and professionalism,…

Remember that shitty, confusing teaser trailer for the recent Ghostbusters reboot? I’m sure you do. Was it really the worst movie trailer released in YouTube history? Apparently, if the ratings are to be believed. We can all agree it’s…

It’s easy to be cynical about 2016 at the movies. We moved through the summer like drunken, headless ballerinas. The fall lineup is middling, at best, although I’m not completely giving up. In fact, I’m willing to even go so far as to say…

The list is chronological, and not intended to be in order of which is best. List considers acting roles only. If the actor also directed the film, then that will be kept in mind. Thanks to Mark Ruffalo, I’m actually excited about a Thor…

The list is chronological, and not intended to be in order of which is best. Only acting roles are considered. If the actor also directed the film, then that will be kept in mind. I’ve realized that when it comes curating any list of the…

To be honest, I’m a little surprised that Winona Ryder continues to operate in relative obscurity these days. While the 90s were not entirely kind to her, particularly towards the end of the decade, she has since proven herself in a number…

It's been an oddly sedate year for cinema thus far. With all the excitement thrown up in the wake of Star Wars: The Force Awakens and a blistering Oscar season, we were due for a downturn, and although we've had a solid run of blockbuster…

The nice thing about working as a freelancer is that you are not lacking in venues to make a potential buck. From writing articles for established publications that can pay a few hundred (or more) a pop, to writing dozens of low-paying…

To be honest, I don’t think Vincent Price has ever actually scared me. Yet there is something about the multifaceted, unforgettable approach he brought to villainy that will probably stay with me for the rest of my life. The great actors…

Will Smith and Suicide Squad is still one of those things I just can’t reconcile in my head. I guess after seeing Smith lead and succeed in every type of Hollywood picture imaginable, it’s odd to see him in the kind of ensemble blockbusters…

“What are you doing April 8th through the 11th?” a friend asked me. This would have been Sunday at Katsucon, which was held this year from the 12th to the 14th of February in National Harbor, MD. Katsucon had drawn over seventeen thousand…

Let’s make one thing perfectly clear: John Goodman is one of the best actors of the past thirty years. Somewhere on the list of things that should shame the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is the fact that not once has this…

For an award that no one supposedly cares about, there are an awful lot of people who want to see Leonardo DiCaprio win an Oscar. It’s a shame Peter O’Toole or Richard Burton didn’t have social media to bring attention to their respective…