Alissa Wilkinson @alissamarie Twitter profile

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

3 months

This is in a sense old news (book is written, it's in edits), but now it's official:

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

2 months

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if everyone fully realized Josh O’Connor learned Italian for La Chimera, a movie in which he acts … fully in Italian

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

5 months

Denis Villeneuve does something so visually wild with DUNE: PART TWO that I've been thinking about it for days

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

8 months

all the personal news fit to print

NYTimes Communications

@NYTimesPR

8 months

We’re thrilled to announce @alissamarie is joining Culture as a critic covering movies.

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

1 year

BARBIE is a rich text for Biblical studies folks. No I am not kidding

In the beginning, there was Barbie

Turns out Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie is a Biblical metaphor after all.

www.vox.com

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

1 year

Here are some of my main assumptions as a critic. They’re not always *right*, but I find they’re a good place to begin. (1) You’re not smarter than the movie. (2) The fact you identified what the movie is doing does not mean it’s bad. (3) Take the movie first on its own terms.

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

8 months

I promise I won’t do this again unless I land on the front page or something, but I haven’t been in print since like 2008 (RIP print Paste) and this feels really nice

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

8 months

I watched all of THE CURSE (the new Nathan Fielder / Benny Safdie / Emma Stone show on Showtime this week) and it’s brilliant, studded with dark references and asides that build out several layers of interpretation. Wrote about it without spoilers!

The Curse is a fully bizarre and brilliant maze of a show

What to know about the new collaboration between Nathan Fielder, Benny Safdie, and Emma Stone.

www.vox.com

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

7 months

The very worst, laziest form of “criticism” is “everyone says they like this, but I do not, and thus they are lying”

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

1 month

I have strong opinions about the factors behind the struggle of movie theaters (I have written about them all, many times), and there isn’t just one. But it’s mostly the business tanking itself for no reason other than short-term profit chasing, and it bums me out.

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

10 months

This should interest literally everyone working in every field, especially all the novelists who just discovered their work was used without pay to train AI #wga

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

8 days

bad criticism: "this is bad" good criticism: "this is bad *because*"

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

10 months

cmon it’s literally adapted from the book of Genesis

DiscussingFilm

@DiscussingFilm

10 months

Warner Bros is officially campaigning ‘BARBIE’ for Best Original Screenplay rather than Adapted Screenplay. (Source: )

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

1 year

this is bananas

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

9 months

Thinking about the end of KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON in tandem with SILENCE and THE IRISHMAN is very revealing:

What the end of Killers of the Flower Moon means

The final scenes of Martin Scorsese’s recent films are part of a larger project.

www.vox.com

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

9 months

it’s deeply annoying and also 1000000% a product of exec notes geared toward streaming

Natalia Winkelman

@nataliawinke

9 months

has anyone written about how every single contemporary documentary starts with essentially a long trailer for the documentary

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

6 months

Among the many movies you probably skipped last year, I kinda think everyone should see ARE YOU THERE, GOD? IT’S ME, MARGARET

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

8 months

Today's my last day at @voxdotcom , which I joined back in its toddlerhood, six weeks before the 2016 election. What a time to join!

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

3 months

The impulse to not release this EXTREMELY DELIGHTFUL MOVIE in the normal theatrical fashion — after Anything But You made 10x its budget — is literal bananas math

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

6 months

it (a) is an original screenplay but (b) isn’t according to the Academy’s bizarre rules, which say that any screenplay based on existing IP (including sequels to actual original screenplays) are “adapted.” And no, this does not make sense.

Variety

@Variety

6 months

EXCLUSIVE: Greta Gerwig's blockbuster comedy “Barbie” has been deemed an adapted screenplay by the Writers Branch executive committee of the AMPAS, despite campaigning for original screenplay.

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

6 months

What I am interested in is making it so Malick, Scorsese, and Verhoeven all have their Jesus movies come out at the same time, for Personal Reasons

Variety

@Variety

6 months

Martin Scorsese’s New Jesus Film Is 80 Minutes Long and Aims to ‘Take Away the Negative’ Associations With ‘Organized Religion’

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

11 months

this is my super bowl, my oscars, my barbieheimer, my literal greatest dream movie

New York Film Festival

@TheNYFF

11 months

@glenpowell MENUS-PLAISIRS LES TROISGROS (Frederick Wiseman) | U.S. Premiere The United States’s unrivaled maestro of observational nonfiction, Frederick Wiseman, brings his camera into a three-star Michelin restaurant in rural central France. #NYFF61

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

5 months

expensive movies that LOOK GOOD! bring 'em back! more of those!

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

1 year

#Oppenheimer gives Christopher Nolan more reasons to meld physics, and metaphysics, and ancient myths and texts, and also an inquiry into power. Fantastique.

Oppenheimer is an audacious inquiry into power, in all its forms

Christopher Nolan’s masterful epic continues his long-running obsessions.

www.vox.com

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

1 year

According to SAG-AFTRA national executive director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the AMPTP's proposal on AI included allowing background actors to be scanned, paid for one day's work, and then be used however they want in perpetuity for the rest of the universe forever

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

1 year

Working on OPPENHEIMER and reminded of this genuinely bizarre thing Nolan knitted into TENET that really got way less chatter than it deserved (though for understandable reason):

The ancient palindrome that explains Christopher Nolan’s Tenet

A puzzle dug up all over Europe holds the key to Tenet — and turns it into more than a movie.

www.vox.com

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

5 months

honestly may be the greatest movie ever made, or at least real close

Adam Morgan

@adamm0rgan

5 months

Somehow I went 38 years without watching Terrence Malick's DAYS OF HEAVEN (1978) and now I'll be thinking about it for the rest of my life.

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

11 months

it is done (for now)

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

4 months

I am once again wondering why A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ hasn’t been adapted for the screen??

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

5 months

I read DUNE a couple summers ago before the first movie came out, and I hated the whole experience till the last 150 pages when suddenly it got very interesting (Herbert's prose notwithstanding), and a lot of what's in those pages is in DUNE 2, and I loved watching it.

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

1 year

I’m not sure one student ever knew what this was

Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

1 year

cleaning out my office

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

5 months

Nothing like going to the cinema on a Friday night to see a movie that’s been out since July and is streaming and on physical media and finding yourself sitting with 80 other people who are absolutely glued to the screen

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

2 months

so far my conclusion from the movies I have seen at this Cannes is this: The People of Earth Are Not Okay

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

1 year

I feel a substantial number of my followers will want to know that the Ethan Hawke Flannery O'Connor movie is premiering at TIFF

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

2 months

je suis made it, so to speak

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

1 year

It's official: SAG-AFTRA is on strike starting midnight tonight, after 98% authorization vote from the membership and unanimous strike order from leadership.

Hollywood’s historic double strike, explained

The actors’ union now joins the WGA on the picket line. What does that mean for viewers?

www.vox.com

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

9 months

I still think the late Terence Davies’ Emily Dickinson movie, A QUIET PASSION, is one of the most devastating and extraordinary films about devotion, faith and the loss of it, and art that I’ve ever seen. Cynthia Nixon’s never been better.

In A Quiet Passion, Emily Dickinson is a saint for the uncertain

The poet’s life comes alive in the film, which harbors a double entendre in its title.

www.vox.com

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

5 months

MADAME WEB is indeed quite bad and, perhaps not coincidentally, the most fun I’ve had watching a movie of this variety since VENOM

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

4 months

It is genuinely fun to see Sandra Huller finally get recognized. Two of her earlier films -- REQUIEM and especially TONI ERDMANN -- are among my favorites of all time.

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

2 months

My one qualm with ANORA was blown to bits by the final scene so: very very good.

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

1 month

REN FAIRE premieres Sunday night on HBO at 9pm (first ep of 3) and my fervent wish is people will watch this to have their minds busted open about what docs can be

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

2 months

FURIOSA didn’t leave me with the same high as FURY ROAD, but it’s also darker and more full of, uh, well, you know. Anyhow! You should see it, and I wish someone would scan George Miller’s brain so I can see what is actually happening in there

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

1 year

(4) A bad movie usually fails on its own terms. (5) The means of production matter but are rarely the main thing that matters. (6) If you are confused, don’t assume it’s the movie’s fault. (7) Text on screen always matters. (8) Ditto any unexpected formal choice.

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

2 months

The most interesting thing to me about THE SUBSTANCE is the notion that, if you were a gorgeous public figure as a younger woman, then you’ll be haunted by your younger disembodied doppelgänger your whole life, which clearly makes aging way more fraught + has labor implications

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

2 months

It’s honestly crazy how good the most recent trilogy of Apes movies were. I’ve been beating this drum for years and years but it’s still pretty wild

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

4 months

the goofiest thing about this is that the votes have already been cast, it’s not like attending the Oscars is going to do anything besides alert people that there’s a handsome hilarious dog in ANATOMY OF A FALL

Film Updates

@FilmUpdates

4 months

Multiple companies with nominated films complained to the Academy that allowing Messi from ‘ANATOMY OF A FALL’ to attend the Oscar nominees luncheon gave the film an advantage during the voting window. He will not be attending this year’s #Oscars . ()

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

8 months

One of my final pieces for Vox (😢) is about PAIN HUSTLERS, ALL THE BEAUTY AND THE BLOODSHED, and Hollywood's struggle to figure out what the story of America's opioid crisis really is.

Hollywood is missing the big picture on the opioid crisis

From Pain Hustlers to Dopesick to The Fall of the House of Usher, filmmakers are fascinated by the epidemic. But what are they saying?

www.vox.com

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

4 months

1pm today! AMA!

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

1 year

I have been trying to find a good way to articulate this but this is just it

Adam Fleming Petty

@flamingpetty

1 year

It’s funny, evangelicalism in the 90s wanted nothing more than to sway the culture at large. And now it has! And it sucks.

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

1 year

People have been asking / lurking, so yes: I am among the many King’s colleagues who learned on Monday that our contracts are being ended early, though the college is not closing. (No fall classes.)

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

1 year

Aha, I wrote this and just realized it published:

The nuclear bomb’s enduring, evolving place in pop culture

The bomb has haunted pop culture since the Cold War. But it’s different now.

www.vox.com

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

9 months

great, blistering historical thread about what happens after #KillersoftheFlowerMoon

Greg Palast

@Greg_Palast

9 months

These guardians wrote themselves into Osage wills and insurance policies, then systematically murdered their wards and took their oil rights. That’s where Killers of the Flower Moon ends, in the 1920s.

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

8 months

I’ve always been intrigued by the lessons solitude and loneliness and contemplation teach, and I wrote about them and PRISCILLA for my last piece at Vox.

Priscilla and Sofia Coppola’s lonely girls

Solitude and wisdom at the movies.

www.vox.com

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

9 months

Had a lot of conversations about that KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON ending. In writing about it, I found it was inextricable from those mind-blowing conclusions of SILENCE and THE IRISHMAN:

What the end of Killers of the Flower Moon means

The final scenes of Martin Scorsese’s recent films are part of a larger project.

www.vox.com

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

1 year

(9) With nonfiction in particular, the subject comes second to the film’s relationship to the audience. (10) Start from your gut, but that means you’ve got to argue for it.

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

1 month

Getting 12 New Yorkers to agree on anything really is a feat. ask us about bagels some time

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

7 months

(In other news, I have completed week 5 of New Job, and it has honestly been an easier transition than I ever would have imagined.)

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

1 month

I don’t want to be a dunker here but I would like to suggest a little watching of comedians

Variety

@Variety

1 month

'The Bear' Tackles Serious Themes About Alcoholism, Anxiety and Suicide -- And It's a Comedy?

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

6 months

pretty sure the best movie I saw for the first time in 2023 was SAFE

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

1 year

cleaning out my office

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

2 months

Everyone in New York City is running a half marathon today — there are big races in Central Park and in Brooklyn. So that includes me, very very slowly, still working this now much older body through years-old injuries

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

1 year

(11) Write well or it doesn’t matter what you say.

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

1 year

SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher is passionately explaining why the leadership voted to order the strike: "We are being victimized by a very greedy entity . . . What are you doing? Why are you doing this? . . . It was insulting!"

SAG-AFTRA Press Conference

Subscribe: http://bit.ly/subSAGAFTRA | Make sure to enable ALL push notifications!Watch our NEWEST videos: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-vEfc49ZyaCFx0...

www.youtube.com

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

2 months

MEGALOPOLIS has the distinction of being the only movie I have seen at Cannes, or indeed any major festival, with a full-on CCM number in the middle

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

2 months

This, from @nathanheller ’s piece on attention a few New Yorkers ago, is very precisely the definition of art that I used to teach my students. I like the way it’s framed here.

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

8 months

the moment you truly begin a new job is when you lose access to one Slack and gain access to another

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

7 months

Followed close behind by “everyone loves this and I, alone, am brave enough to speak the truth they are hiding from you”

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

5 months

relatable

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

8 months

My debut at @nytimes is THE BOY AND THE HERON, Hayao Miyazaki's new, confounding, fascinating film.

‘The Boy and the Heron’ Review: Hayao Miyazaki Has a Question for You

The anime filmmaker returns at 82 with the enigmatic tale of a boy growing up amid war and fear, much as the director did.

www.nytimes.com

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

10 months

This was a bear for me to wrestle down to the page, but THE MISSION (out 10/13) and SAVIOR COMPLEX (out today) deserve to be seriously wrestled with, no matter where your beliefs land regarding “missions work.”

Two young missionaries made headlines. Two new docs look at why.

Savior Complex, The Mission, and the culture behind toxic missionary work.

www.vox.com

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

1 year

Well! Turns out Greta wasn’t kidding about Barbie and Ken and ... Genesis?

In the beginning, there was Barbie

Turns out Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie is a Biblical metaphor after all.

www.vox.com

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

1 year

If there’s one thing that I know, it’s that the Chinese government historically adores films about how the world works best when we have the freedom to be individuals

VANITY FAIR

@VanityFair

1 year

Senator Ted Cruz calls #Barbie “Chinese communist propaganda,” and says the film will brainwash the young girls who go see it.

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

1 year

y’all better watch The Wind That Shakes the Barley, I swear

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

6 months

Last year my feeling on the Best Pic nominees was essentially “they’re all fine, I won’t be mad.” This year it’s more “I won’t be mad but some of these are stone cold masterpieces for the ages”

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

5 months

Glorious day: @JustinCChang is headed to the New Yorker and I literally could not be happier about this

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

1 year

I have long wondered what the real season for Disney’s insistence on “live-action” remakes was and though I can’t confirm my darkest suspicions, starting to feel like this week may have propped them up significantly

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

3 months

I am 0% kidding when I say this is how I launched my writing career

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

4 months

Subway conductor called it “Houston” like the city in Texas. Twice. we used to be a real city

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

2 months

I really liked OH CANADA, and there’s a lot packed into it about documentaries so I am excited to write about it when it comes out

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

11 months

I’ve seen a few pieces on this topic lately but @ManiLazic ’s nails it:

Who needs film critics when studios can be sure influencers will praise their films?

A shift from knowledgable writers to those simply in search of free tickets devalues cinema – and audience experience

www.theguardian.com

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

5 months

Apparently #Tenet is back in theaters, so let me remind you that I sort of cracked the (more or less literal) code on it and it’s so much weirder than I expected:

The ancient palindrome that explains Christopher Nolan’s Tenet

A puzzle dug up all over Europe holds the key to Tenet — and turns it into more than a movie.

www.vox.com

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

1 month

and the real miracle is none of them will be on set at the same time

DiscussingFilm

@DiscussingFilm

1 month

The next ‘AVENGERS’ movie may feature more than 60 characters returning to the MCU. It is already set to be one of Marvel’s biggest productions ever. (Source: Deadline)

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

8 months

I rewatched MARIE ANTOINETTE today and it just feels so 2006 that people hated it. The wealth we were living in

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

2 months

Have now seen CHALLENGERS twice for work reasons, and the laugh lines landed in the same spot in both the press screening and the public screening. This so rarely happens

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

5 months

one has to wonder what incentives one’s former employees have to not spill every bean available if they have no severance or even clips left

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

3 months

probably this will get me cancelled by someone but I would love to read DFW’s review of Challengers

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

6 months

It is an interesting choice to pre-decide that Greta and Margot are going to lose their Oscars, but this is why I am not an awards prognosticator

Hillary Clinton

@HillaryClinton

6 months

Greta & Margot, While it can sting to win the box office but not take home the gold, your millions of fans love you. You’re both so much more than Kenough. #HillaryBarbie

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

1 year

Don’t forget, the best show on TV is back for its third and final season and it does some really wild stuff:

How To With John Wilson is still unlike anything else on TV

The wonderfully weird HBO series returns for its final season.

www.vox.com

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

3 months

I just got done writing an extracurricular thing about how transgressive Scorsese’s religious films have been, which makes today’s news beautifully funny

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

2 months

I’ve been at the Times for six months now and so far the funniest shift has been realizing an article must be in that day’s print edition because I get a flood of erudite early-morning email about it

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

11 months

draft 1: done. never write a book, it’s never been done and nobody can do it

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

8 months

After ~35 years of Oxford comma usage, about to see if a middle aged dog can learn new tricks

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

2 months

don’t write your books in Google Docs dear heavens

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

1 month

may you live in interesting times

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

6 months

😳🥹

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

10 months

I have seen a ton of movies in the past few weeks (it’s the good season and the fests are coming!) but the one I can already tell I will be thinking about forever is Wim Wenders’ latest, PERFECT DAYS

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

8 months

my recommendation would be to avoid having to move two weeks after you start a new job. that’s just me

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

7 months

I’ve recommended it to so many people lately that I will do it here: if you like going to the movies and are in NYC or the Bay, you should know @ScreenSlate , the most useful site on the Internet (and also subscribe so they can keep going):

Screen Slate

Cinematic Excellence Est. 2011

www.screenslate.com

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

2 months

Once again announcing, on this hallowed EVIL DOES NOT EXIST release weekend, that you must see Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s WHEEL OF FORTUNE AND FANTASY (which you can rent for $3), which I liked even more than the same year’s DRIVE MY CAR

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Alissa Wilkinson

@alissamarie

3 months

I thought “oh, Connections was so funny and simple today” and came on here to discover I am weird

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