Calvin Kemph
@calvinkemph.bsky.social
Editor-in-Chief of The Twin Geeks, Seattle Film Critics Society member.
thetwingeeks.com
thetwingeeks.com
Reposted by Calvin Kemph
Reposted by Calvin Kemph
Seemed as good a time as any time to revive a 2002 @siffnews.bsky.social piece I wrote about Douglas Sirk, melodrama (as something other than a pejorative), and the critics, filmmakers, and critic/filmmakers who saw the value in his work and took inspiration from it. @seattlecritics.bsky.social
Douglas Sirk: In Praise of Melodrama
Another piece I wrote for Reel News, SIFF's now-defunct publication for members, in 2002 (it was never online, because that was a different ...
siffblog2.blogspot.com
December 6, 2025 at 5:57 PM
Seemed as good a time as any time to revive a 2002 @siffnews.bsky.social piece I wrote about Douglas Sirk, melodrama (as something other than a pejorative), and the critics, filmmakers, and critic/filmmakers who saw the value in his work and took inspiration from it. @seattlecritics.bsky.social
@seattlecritics.bsky.social noms are out! Come for Train Dreams, Sinners, One Battle After Another in BP, stay for Pacific Northwest awards, the best of PNW shorts, Eephus in ensemble, The Ugly Stepsister in International, and Bring Her Back in Best Villain. Proud of our group and picks as always.
Seattle Film Critics Society: 2025 Awards Nominations
Seattle, WA – The Seattle Film Critics Society (SFCS) has announced nominations for the 2025 SFCS Awards, honoring the year’s best in film. Ryan Coogler’s Sinners ties the all-time record…
thetwingeeks.com
December 7, 2025 at 1:55 PM
@seattlecritics.bsky.social noms are out! Come for Train Dreams, Sinners, One Battle After Another in BP, stay for Pacific Northwest awards, the best of PNW shorts, Eephus in ensemble, The Ugly Stepsister in International, and Bring Her Back in Best Villain. Proud of our group and picks as always.
Happy to accept FIFA prize for being the best at watching movies. Thank you for your attn.
December 7, 2025 at 1:20 PM
Happy to accept FIFA prize for being the best at watching movies. Thank you for your attn.
Very unserious that Netflix owns so much cinema history. Good that they’re expanding beyond their business of sending movies in envelopes by mail finally.
December 5, 2025 at 1:23 PM
Very unserious that Netflix owns so much cinema history. Good that they’re expanding beyond their business of sending movies in envelopes by mail finally.
My official Brokeback Mountain poster was finally approved by the studios and will be released this Friday at www.codacurates.com/collections/...
December 5, 2025 at 1:14 PM
Reposted by Calvin Kemph
Bong Joon Ho hit me up for the squad you legend deadline.com/2025/11/bong...
November 29, 2025 at 12:49 PM
Bong Joon Ho hit me up for the squad you legend deadline.com/2025/11/bong...
Always this. Write like you’re curious, not like you know everything already.
I saw someone recently say that Christian rock sucks because it’s all answers, and the best art is always about questions.
What Robert is saying is what my recent belly aching about lazy film criticism has been trying to express. I try to get at what the best questions that spring from a story are
What Robert is saying is what my recent belly aching about lazy film criticism has been trying to express. I try to get at what the best questions that spring from a story are
I’ve said this before, but the best pieces aren’t the ones that ignore complications with the aim of making a neat and sweeping argument (which, in my opinion, many have about this movie). The best writing embraces and wrestles with those complications.
November 24, 2025 at 8:00 PM
Always this. Write like you’re curious, not like you know everything already.
Reposted by Calvin Kemph
I also highly recommend The Making of a Color Animation (Shigeji Ogino & Noburo Ofuji, 1937). It's an educational film about animation creation that also features some beautiful color work.
November 23, 2025 at 3:58 PM
I also highly recommend The Making of a Color Animation (Shigeji Ogino & Noburo Ofuji, 1937). It's an educational film about animation creation that also features some beautiful color work.
Reposted by Calvin Kemph
Finally got around to watching this. A 1933 utopian film from Japan, A Day after a Hundred Years (Shigeji Ogino) has an amazing animation style that is simultaneously ornate, simple, and inventive. Think it'll go well with Things to Come (William Cameron Menzies, 1936) in my upcoming SF film class.
November 23, 2025 at 5:51 AM
Finally got around to watching this. A 1933 utopian film from Japan, A Day after a Hundred Years (Shigeji Ogino) has an amazing animation style that is simultaneously ornate, simple, and inventive. Think it'll go well with Things to Come (William Cameron Menzies, 1936) in my upcoming SF film class.
Reposted by Calvin Kemph
For @seattletimes.com, spoke with Lily Gladstone about lending her voice to the documentary BRING THEM HOME (which premieres Nov. 24 on PBS), recording her narration at her regular Seattle studio, and how history echoes with her upcoming film THE MEMORY POLICE 📽️
www.seattletimes.com/entertainmen...
www.seattletimes.com/entertainmen...
November 19, 2025 at 2:06 AM
For @seattletimes.com, spoke with Lily Gladstone about lending her voice to the documentary BRING THEM HOME (which premieres Nov. 24 on PBS), recording her narration at her regular Seattle studio, and how history echoes with her upcoming film THE MEMORY POLICE 📽️
www.seattletimes.com/entertainmen...
www.seattletimes.com/entertainmen...
Reposted by Calvin Kemph
Thanks to what the kids say today, some of the dialogue in High Sierra “hits different” (as the kids say today).
November 17, 2025 at 8:20 PM
Thanks to what the kids say today, some of the dialogue in High Sierra “hits different” (as the kids say today).
Reposted by Calvin Kemph
I interviewed ferociously brilliant filmmaker Mira Nair, a.k.a Zohran Mamdani’s mother, about how her voice and vision have shaped a man who sees a better way forward for all of us. SPOILER ALERT: Love matters.
www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/feat...
www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/feat...
How Mira Nair Built the World That Made Zohran Mamdani
The legendary director talks with Harper's Bazaar about becoming an artist and a parent
www.harpersbazaar.com
November 13, 2025 at 9:28 PM
I interviewed ferociously brilliant filmmaker Mira Nair, a.k.a Zohran Mamdani’s mother, about how her voice and vision have shaped a man who sees a better way forward for all of us. SPOILER ALERT: Love matters.
www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/feat...
www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/feat...
Reposted by Calvin Kemph
Capturing the beauty of TRAIN DREAMS in words was a challenge that took a few days to even draft out. There are films that surround you, breathe, whisper, & carry you someplace both familiar & lost. TRAIN DREAMS is one of those films. It’s breathtaking. #FilmSky www.peliplat.com/en/article/1...
'Train Dreams' Review: A Meditative Journey Through Love, Loss, and the Eternal Pulse of the Earth | Peliplat
There are films you watch, and then there are films that surround you. Films that breathe, whisper, and carry you someplace both familiar and lost. Clint Bentle
www.peliplat.com
November 15, 2025 at 9:55 PM
Capturing the beauty of TRAIN DREAMS in words was a challenge that took a few days to even draft out. There are films that surround you, breathe, whisper, & carry you someplace both familiar & lost. TRAIN DREAMS is one of those films. It’s breathtaking. #FilmSky www.peliplat.com/en/article/1...
Reposted by Calvin Kemph
lol
Why Isn’t Pennywise in The Running Man? It's more complicated than you might think... bit.ly/4a04Vvk
November 15, 2025 at 7:23 PM
lol
Reposted by Calvin Kemph
Screenings of @seattlecritics.bsky.social' PNW nominees continue! Shorts w/filmmakers at @nwfilmforum.bsky.social Nov 19 and features w/filmmakers at @siffnews.bsky.social Film Center Nov 21-23: Twinless, Wolf Land, To Kill a Wolf, WTO/99, Not One Drop of Blood. We launched with Train Dreams Oct 29.
November 14, 2025 at 11:50 PM
Screenings of @seattlecritics.bsky.social' PNW nominees continue! Shorts w/filmmakers at @nwfilmforum.bsky.social Nov 19 and features w/filmmakers at @siffnews.bsky.social Film Center Nov 21-23: Twinless, Wolf Land, To Kill a Wolf, WTO/99, Not One Drop of Blood. We launched with Train Dreams Oct 29.
#Bugonia is a richly textured remake of a good South Korean movie that advances Yorgos Lanthimos’ credentials as one of our best working filmmakers. @seattlecritics.bsky.social
Bugonia: Do You Want to Believe?
Yorgos Lanthimos is working at the forefront of present cinematic expression. The work of the Greek auteur will not leave you indifferent. That art provokes response is so central to its value in t…
thetwingeeks.com
November 11, 2025 at 6:42 PM
#Bugonia is a richly textured remake of a good South Korean movie that advances Yorgos Lanthimos’ credentials as one of our best working filmmakers. @seattlecritics.bsky.social
Reposted by Calvin Kemph
Reminder: If you use generative AI for *any of your writing tasks* you are a Slopper not a writer and should be ashamed of yourself. The end.
November 11, 2025 at 6:17 PM
Reminder: If you use generative AI for *any of your writing tasks* you are a Slopper not a writer and should be ashamed of yourself. The end.
Reposted by Calvin Kemph
For Arc Raiders to ride the wave of human sociability all the way to the bank, while also being so contemptuous of the thing that makes us social animals in its own workflow demonstrates a lack of artistic integrity that I find impossible to ignore.
Our review: https://bit.ly/49bVn01
Our review: https://bit.ly/49bVn01
November 10, 2025 at 4:31 PM
For Arc Raiders to ride the wave of human sociability all the way to the bank, while also being so contemptuous of the thing that makes us social animals in its own workflow demonstrates a lack of artistic integrity that I find impossible to ignore.
Our review: https://bit.ly/49bVn01
Our review: https://bit.ly/49bVn01
Reposted by Calvin Kemph
Watching Our of the Past. So much beauty, in the actors' faces & bodies as well as in the photography & staging (as in a fistfight that plays out partly in the shadows combatants cast on a wall). Very adult in its understanding of attraction and how one choice can trap you for life.
November 8, 2025 at 11:50 AM
Watching Our of the Past. So much beauty, in the actors' faces & bodies as well as in the photography & staging (as in a fistfight that plays out partly in the shadows combatants cast on a wall). Very adult in its understanding of attraction and how one choice can trap you for life.
Maybe the Mariners just need to spend more money, is the only lesson this year.
November 2, 2025 at 4:23 AM
Maybe the Mariners just need to spend more money, is the only lesson this year.
Reposted by Calvin Kemph
As someone who doesn't watch sports but does love human suffering, I'm having a great night
November 2, 2025 at 4:05 AM
As someone who doesn't watch sports but does love human suffering, I'm having a great night
Addiction is a hungry ghost, that consumes everything in its path and can never be satiated. Ballad of a Small Player explores this philosophy around addiction through sumptuous visuals and a magnetic lead performance. @seattlecritics.bsky.social
Ballad of a Small Player: Hungry Ghosts
The visual font of addiction is so often relegated to drugs and alcohol, but addiction is a spiritual malady, and its expression is equally valid in all forms of spiritual disintegration. Addiction…
thetwingeeks.com
October 31, 2025 at 6:33 PM
Addiction is a hungry ghost, that consumes everything in its path and can never be satiated. Ballad of a Small Player explores this philosophy around addiction through sumptuous visuals and a magnetic lead performance. @seattlecritics.bsky.social
Reposted by Calvin Kemph
I wrote a piece on the work of writer and director James Gunn, who is engaged in a pretty incredible ongoing enterprise that despises bigotry and authoritarianism and reaffirms patriotism for progressives. www.vulture.com/article/jame...
James Gunn’s American Project
He is few critics’ idea of a respectable auteur, but his work is more consistently progressive than any other comic-book material today.
www.vulture.com
October 31, 2025 at 2:59 PM
I wrote a piece on the work of writer and director James Gunn, who is engaged in a pretty incredible ongoing enterprise that despises bigotry and authoritarianism and reaffirms patriotism for progressives. www.vulture.com/article/jame...