Hanley On Film

09/22/2025

In this weeks edition of the Hanley On Film's Filmic 5 we take a LONG WALK with Coop and David; note that the newest final girl might just be a very GOOD BOY with Bryan Bonner and Shay Wescott; give you 7 films to watch for out of TIFF; discuss art and evil with RIEFENSTAHL; and say goodbye to Sundance.

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Your Weekly Film Superlatives By Critic and Film Scholar Jack Hanley Back from a whirlwind of late-summer festivals and too many film panels and midnight screenings to count, HanleyOnFilm is BACK in its natural habitat. The suitcase is still half-unpacked, the festival lanyards are already relics, a...

08/19/2025

Artists- I KNOW you have genuine fears about the repercussions of A.I. in cinema regarding artistic integrity, the erosion of cultural memory, and perhaps MOST troubling: the sick commodification of artistic LEGACY- that marginalized or deceased artists (without consent) will be exhumed digitally, their styles mimicked endlessly, their creative afterlives plagiarized and hijacked for commercial gain...digesting centuries of human originality, chewing it into algorithmic "mix-tape", and spitting it back out hyper-stylized for the younger generations all under the guise of postmodern novelty.

But I KNOW that we can survive this...

Because we have survived it once before. ;)

07/30/2025

In this edition of the Filmic 5, we watch chaos reign with the NY Times Top 100 List; meet Sean Baker's 4-legged editor; let Hollywood ICON Mamie Van Doren play 20 Questions with Jack Hanley; show you the stop-motion horror short that you NEVER knew you needed; and share a moment of unbridled joy as America's most iconic film critics take the fight to Sesame Street.

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Your Weekly Film Superlatives By Critic and Film Scholar Jack Hanley We are thrilled to be back after the short summer festival circuit! Let's talk film... I. Indie Film Moment I Am Loving This Week My partner, producer, and forever collaborator Shay Wescott just sent me this snapshot from the

07/15/2025

It's cool that we're all steeped in the current "Superman cultural zeitgeist" moment, but I should point out that this is the SECOND "Gunn deconstruction" of the Man of Steel mythos—and I still proffer that his FIRST take was FAR more radical, subversive, and politically prescient than the follow-up.

BRIGHTBURN is an underrated, genre-bending masterwork that weaponized the American myth with surgical nihilism, has the audacity to remain unrepentantly unredemptive, and RIGHTLY reverts American iconography from hero-worship to horror fuel. Think ADOLESCENCE with notebook symbols... think WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN with a cape.

Get in on the critical re-evaluation BEFORE it becomes cool—and yes, Zach Eastman—I am STILL waiting shirtless on that hill, waiting to fight anyone who continues to undervalue this film. If—at the very least—to pay homage to one of the very few films that dares to state what we all secretly know: that the arrival of ANY "star-child" to earth, be they alien or god, would ALWAYS ultimately prove to be a horror film.

07/02/2025

Our 10 Best Films of 2025 (So Far...) based on US general release date.

06/23/2025

It's the 5 year anniversary of a little list curated by myself and Shay Wescott for the Superlatives Film Podcast: The 20 Most Underrated Gems Of 2020!

How many have YOU knocked off the list? And in the spirit of "checking off your filmic Blindspots", look for the newest episode of Blindspotting: A Film Discovery Podcast dropping tomorrow!

Enjoy the video essay by Shay Wescott and hopefully you can discover something WONDERFUL to watch this week!

This is "The Superlatives Selects 20 Underrated Gems of 2020" by Shay Wescott on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

06/22/2025

Your Weekly Fix For Your Cinematic Itch: The Analog Edition

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Your Weekly Film Superlatives By Critic and Film Scholar Jack Hanley I. Film I Am Loving This Week I confess I cannot stop thinking about THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME. Perhaps the perfect Father’s Day film (and my favorite cinematic Father/Daughter relationship of recent memory), I expected to enjoy it

06/18/2025

Happy Birthday, Old Friend...Think Of You Often.

Help me honor Roger's memory today by taking a single minute to hear his off-the-cuff "Secret of Life"...I promise you it is the single best piece of advice you'll ever get as a film fan! 😉

The late Roger Ebert reveals the secret of life and relationships to Jack Hanley at the Central and East European Film Festival at the University of Colorado...

06/06/2025

Blindspotting: A Film Discovery Podcast is proud to kick off Pride Month with a spotlight on the late, great cinematic poet-prophet of Transcaucasia: Sergei Parajanov and his astonishing masterwork, The Color of Pomegranates.

Discover this cinematic provocateur who dared to explore his radical art outside margins of every system monitored by the watchful eye of the Soviet censors—queer, ethnically hybrid, religiously unorthodox, and openly defiant of Soviet realism, ideology, and masculinity.

Experience The Color of Pomegranates this weekend (streaming now on Criterion Channel) so YOU can join us in the conversation when our episode drops next week!

06/01/2025

My Review of MOUNTAINHEAD

A group of billionaire friends get together against the backdrop of a rolling international crisis.

05/21/2025

Thanks for the love to the Boulder cinema community, Shoutout Colorado!

We had the good fortune of connecting with Jack Hanley...

03/10/2025

My great friend and the RIGHTFUL next in line at Turner Classic Movies: TCM, Zach Eastman recently invited us on his AMAZING podcast to discuss the Reel Weird Horror Collective AND our love of classic horror films!

PLEASE give a listen as Zach, Shay Wescott, Bryan Bonner, and I break down our TOP 10 HORROR FILMS (pre-1968).