Scout Tafoya, Author at The Spool | The Spool

Scout Tafoya, Author at The Spool

Scout Tafoya is a filmmaker, critic and video essayist from Doylestown, PA. He is the creator of the long running series The Unloved at RogerEbert.com, and is a regular contributor to The Los Angeles Review of Books, Consequence of Sound, and Nylon Magazine.

The Holdovers is a welcome return to form

After stumbling with Downsizing, Alexander Payne bounces back with a gentle & witty comedy-drama.

Lawmen: Bass Reeves tackles the thin line between Black and blue in the Old West

David Oyelowo paints a compelling picture of the first Black lawman in the latest leg of Taylor Sheridan’s ever-expanding Western TV empire. NOW STREAMING: Powered..

She Came to Me goes to bizarre lengths to get a laugh

Rebecca Miller writes and directs a perplexing but never boring comedy about a composer with a devastating case of writer's block.

Unraveling pop-culture one thread at a time

The Spool is an irreverent, informative source for film and television coverage, focused on diverse, thoughtful opinions that seek out a greater understanding of the media we love.

British heist thriller The Gold shines brightly

Paramount+'s 24-karat true-crime caper works thanks to a brilliant cast of scheming fencers and heaps of class consciousness.

The Morning Show returns for more self-important nonsense

The third season of Apple TV's daytime news series makes for some excellent hate-watching, & not much else.

Landscape with Invisible Hand has lots of ideas, little follow-through

A unique take on alien invasion gets too distracted to say much about any of its preoccupations.

The Deepest Breath proves disappointingly shallow

Despite striking underwater footage and compelling subjects, Laura McCann's documentary prioritizes a shock reveal over storytelling, to its detriment.

Happer’s Comet is a strange & very watchable journey

It's a challenge to explain what exactly Tyler Taormina's movie is about, but it's deeply fascinating.

For Tom Cruise, Mission: Impossible is as much about moviemaking as it is about spectacle

From De Palma's series launcher on, Cruise has used the tales of Ethan Hunt to ponder the nature of cinema as performance, perception, and manipuation.

Afire mercilessly skewers the suffering artist

Christian Petzold writes & directs a dark comedy about a writer who's forced to let life get in the way of his creative process.

The Innocent offers zany pleasures

Louis Garrel's heist comedy is a treat—for its metacontext as much as its craft.

In Asteroid City, Wes Anderson reflects on his own actors and style

Anderson's latest is maybe his most reflective and curious film yet, a reflection of the ways he keeps old Hollywood forms of storytelling and acting alive.

The Cow Who Sang a Song Into the Future is a lovely, confident first feature

Francisca Alegria directs a fascinating magical realist drama about a ghost who returns to offer guidance to her struggling family.

The Best Man makes poor work of some good actors

This nondescript direct-to-VOD thriller feels like little else but a mortgage payment for sorely underappreciated actors like Dolph Lundgren and Luke Wilson.

With R.M.N., Cristian Mungiu braves the cold comforts of xenophobia

The Czech New Wave darling returns with a patient, haunting tale of a man grappling with the confluences of racism and socioeconomic anxiety.

Jethica is hardly a cohesive genre exercise

Pete Ohs' high-concept supernatural comedy tries on a lot of hats, but none of them fit very well.

Edgar Allen Poe solves crimes in the near-Expressionist misfire The Pale Blue Eye

Christian Bale and Harry Melling star in Scott Cooper’s latest portrait of nostalgic modernism, a film as enticing as it is frustratingly incomplete. NOW STREAMING:..

The English is an unfocused but mesmerizing take on the Western

Emily Blunt and Chaske Spencer carve a beguiling doomed romance against the backdrop of Hugo Blick's intellectualized take on revenge in the Old West.

Inside the enigmatic filmography of Hugo Fregonese

We look back at the Argentine director's body of work, just in time for a similar retrospective running at MoMA.

Truth in nonfiction: The documentaries of Sundance 2022

A look back at the highs (and lows) of this year's Sundance documentary offerings.

“Tesla”‘s flights of fancy match the subject of its illumination

In his latest anti-biopic, Michael Almereyda drenches the life of the famed inventor in layers of enticing artifice.

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