Annie Berke Journalist Profile

Articles

Fly Me to the Moon ’s Failure to Launch

Jul 26, 2024 | yahoo.com | Annie Berke

American film and television have long imagined the mid–twentieth century as a moment of security and confidence, a time when you could order liberal political consensus with your milkshake at the local Woolworth’s. Movies and shows of the 1990s were especially preoccupied with postwar optimism, presenting their own portraits of progress dosed with nostalgia.
Annie Berke: "When the Movies Mattered"

Jun 12, 2024 | yalereview.org | Annie Berke

Annie Berke In 1999, when I was in ninth grade, I started writing movie reviews for my high school newspaper. I remember the uneasy mixture of pride and anxiety I felt when I saw, on the front page, the teaser for my first column: “Annie Berke’s Summer Movie Round-Up.” I worried someone would give me grief for the headline, but no one did, maybe because so few people read it.
Historical Actress: Kirsten Dunst’s Period Pieces

Jun 3, 2024 | mubi.com | Annie Berke

Throughout her career, Dunst has filled the space between aesthetics and politics with pure feeling. Kirsten Dunst has played a pageant contestant not once, but twice: famously, in the cult classic Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999), then, in a self-reflexive turn in Showtime’s short-lived satire of predatory capitalism, On Becoming a God in Central Florida (2019).
Challengers Is a Brutal Game of Desire

Apr 26, 2024 | newrepublic.com | Annie Berke

In Luca Guadagnino’s 2022 film, Bones and All, Maren (Taylor Russell) and Lee (Timothee Chalamet) were cannibals in love. “I don’t wanna hurt anybody,” Maren tells Travis weakly, to which he drawls in reply: “Famous last words.” This exchange serves as a pretty apt comment on Guadagnino’s body of work: His specialty is emotional devastation, violent and gorgeous, as characters choke on love and, sometimes, their own bile.
Loot season 2 review: Maya Rudolph's comedy is here for a good time

Apr 1, 2024 | avclub.com | Annie Berke

Molly Novak (Maya Rudolph) is in love—and not with her douchebag, billionaire ex (Adam Scott). As art imitates life, America’s most adored jilted wife has fallen for a regular Joe: nerdy accountant Arnold (Nat Faxon), one of the many quirky but well-meaning folks who work at her foundation. In the attempt to get him alone and finally forge that love connection, she suggests a work retreat at her palace in Dubai.
The Viral Essay Making the Case for Marrying a First Grader (When You’re in Kindergarten)

Mar 30, 2024 | pointsincase.com | Annie Berke |Olivia Rutigliano

Liam is ten months older than me, and that’s on purpose. When I was four, I knew I was in my prime. Solidly potty trained, only three teeth missing, able to draw both unicorns and school buses (the trick is: they’re the same!), I had to strike while the iron was hot. But not touch the iron. I know not to touch the iron. One of the boys in my class didn’t know that and came in with his hand all red. This made me realize that boys my age have no experience. When I met Liam, he was a bachelor.
The Sounds of Silence in

Feb 16, 2024 | brightwalldarkroom.com | Annie Berke

“Electric: this voice in the crowd,” proclaims David Hammond in a 1957 issue of the British fan magazine Picturegoer. “The biggest rival to Elvis Presley and Tommy Sands as a hill-billy [sic], guitar-playing performer… I’d say he tops Presley as an artist… The voice is rough-edged and strong, the style straight from the cornfields.
Poor Things Is a Glorious Mash-Up

Dec 12, 2023 | newrepublic.com | Annie Berke

Brutality, in all its physical and psychological dimensions, has long been Yorgos Lanthimos’s cruel mistress. In The Killing of a Sacred Deer, the characters look at each other with chilling blankness and paranoid squints, while aerial shots and visions from a distance make it seem the action is being watched by a stalker, a hunter, a vengeful divine force.
Poor Things Is a Glorious Mash-Up

Dec 12, 2023 | yahoo.com | Annie Berke

Brutality, in all its physical and psychological dimensions, has long been Yorgos Lanthimos’s cruel mistress. In The Killing of a Sacred Deer, the characters look at each other with chilling blankness and paranoid squints, while aerial shots and visions from a distance make it seem the action is being watched by a stalker, a hunter, a vengeful divine force.
FBoy Island is like douchebag Agatha Christie (and we're hooked)

Nov 14, 2023 | avclub.com | Annie Berke

“Every murderer is somebody’s old friend.”—Agatha Christie“They’re all psychos deep down.”—Benedict Polizzi, FBoy IslandCall me a cynic, or a realist, or just a begrudging fan of Lifetime’s Unreal, but there are no “right reasons” to find a partner on television. There are good reasons: to develop a brand, to become famous, and, yes, to find a partner who values those same things.