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Taylor Baker
Tomatometer-approved critic
Taylor Baker lives and works in Seattle, Washington. He co-founded Drink in the Movies in 2018 with Michael Clawson. Drink in the Movies is a film podcast and website featuring reviews, interviews with industry professionals, and festival coverage. When he's not rewatching Logan Lucky he can often be seen drinking coffee, playing with his cat, and on most weekday evenings with his back on the mat learning BJJ.
Movies reviews only
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Targets (1968) |
Targets still feels experimental and fresh today, the strictures in place on Bogdanovich with the lean budget and limited shooting days with Boris Karloff resulted in a film that if it were released today would feel exciting and new - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted Nov 19, 2023
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Sick of Myself (2022) |
Among the most engaging films with highly disagreeable characters throughout its runtime, Borgli uses Signe to illustrate narcissism in a compelling way that brings the other s----y side characters to life in ways that Östlund's films can only dream of - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted Nov 19, 2023
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Pain Hustlers (2023) |
Yates leans too heavily on cutesy timing, flimsy seriousness, and cliche. There are no fingerprints of an artist to be found, just a chunk of content to be lost in the algorithm, which isn’t such a bad thing when the film is absolute piffle. - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted Nov 19, 2023
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Anselm (2023) |
The film–screened best in theaters in 3D–is best described as both an art installation and a documentary. It details the septuagenarian artist Anselm Kiefer’s life and work, progressing through historic and contemporary footage of his old studios and - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted Nov 19, 2023
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The Killer (2023) |
The Killer is a film about a man who is bad at his job, how long you find that premise intriguing will correlate directly to how much you enjoy it. - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted Nov 19, 2023
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Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) |
Killers of the Flower Moon is a strong historical retelling of an abominable series of killings. But it suffers for straddling the line between an American biopic and a Scorsese gangster film. - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted Nov 19, 2023
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A Cooler Climate (2022) |
The film has a general sense of serenity that emerges from the decades-old footage Ivory shot as a young man that he narrates over with tales of his youth, his desires, and his fancies. - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted Nov 19, 2023
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A Haunting in Venice (2023) |
Branagh’s confidence in direction is strong as ever with a narrative half-predicated on thoughtful sound design that equally hinges on his performance, the use of depth in frame draws the eye to clues and behavior while setting the mood - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted Nov 19, 2023
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All to Play For (2023) |
All to Play For is an engaging moral play that examines the place of the state in the family home, and whether leaving your own country is sometimes the only way you can keep your family. - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted Nov 19, 2023
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Oppenheimer (2023) |
With pitch-perfect contributions by Nolan’s previous collaborators on the craft team and some newcomers, every inch of every image feels meticulous. - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted Nov 19, 2023
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Aporia (2023) |
Aporia is unnotable, it has little to say, and less to do. Its characters are unremarkable as are its consequences, which is a real pity for what is quite a nifty premise - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted Nov 19, 2023
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Meg 2: The Trench (2023) |
A stilted and accidental farce, Meg 2: The Trench has laughable dialogue driving a film centered on some of the worst big-budget computer-generated graphics this year. - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted Nov 19, 2023
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Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning, Part One (2023) |
Cruise skating by the skin of his teeth, and narrowly escaping would-be captors and death dealers alike, feels more like a Chaplin boxing match than any boringly grounded contemporary superhero feat. - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted Jul 17, 2023
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Big George Foreman: The Miraculous Story of the Once and Future Heavyweight Champion of the World (2023) |
Painfully staid and emotionally manipulative, the film is little more than a macho Hallmark film with a religious bent so trite and amateurish that it seems almost unreal. - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted Jun 03, 2023
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Légua (2023) |
Légua doesn’t realize something new or all that meaningful about cinema, but it does pare down its subject and form to a specificity that borders on the transcendental. - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted Jun 03, 2023
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26.2 to Life (2022) |
26.2 to Life retreads the same ground we’ve seen in other sports and prison documentaries, though it is a functional bit of PR material for the 1000 Mile Club program. - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted Jun 03, 2023
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The Boogeyman (2023) |
With a strong directorial voice, committed use of lighting, and a darting pace The Boogeyman stands above both its contemporaries and spring horror film expectations. - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted Jun 03, 2023
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The Night of the 12th (2022) |
In The Night of the 12th the film adaptation of the novel 18.3 – Une année à la PJ by Pauline Guéna director Dominik Moll swaps the intrigue that normally permeates detective tales for an authentic portrayal of the day-to-day events and - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted May 21, 2023
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The Grab (2022) |
While the film doesn’t quite square the round hole, it touches on a myriad of worthwhile topics, if only it spent more time going over specific data. - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted May 20, 2023
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Past Lives (2023) |
the rawness that the lead actors wear in their performances elevate the film and confirm Song as one of the most exciting screenwriting dramatists since Florian Zeller burst on the scene with 2020’s The Father. - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted May 20, 2023
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A Good Person (2023) |
It’s a deeper issue than the stakes of the film not manifesting, there’s something about the clear-eyed presentation of its bleary-eyed characters that seems to signal a quality of inauthenticity. - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted May 20, 2023
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Stephen Curry: Underrated (2023) |
Stephen Curry: Underrated isn’t quite the polished sports documentary you’d hope for, but neither is it the wholly empty bit of PR content that so many sports documentaries have become. - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted May 20, 2023
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Master Gardener (2022) |
While there is a lot here that is explicit it is the implicitness of what is depicted that charges the film with an electricity that few filmmakers can evoke. What Schrader wrote is an atonement for more than just the leading man in his film. - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted May 17, 2023
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How to Blow Up a Pipeline (2022) |
A skeptical viewer might be unnerved by just how similar the arguments of fundamental Christians are to the diatribes about the looming environmental apocalypse in the film, and thus the violence they claim those beliefs entitle them to. - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted Apr 21, 2023
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Beau Is Afraid (2023) |
Beau is Afraid is a delicately crafted journey through both a physical and psychological labyrinth, whether audiences choose to make the journey with Beau or not remains to be seen. - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted Apr 21, 2023
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Air (2023) |
But mostly Air is an easy-going, feel-good, crowd-pleaser that’ll have any sports, sneaker, or movie fan mostly content by the end. - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted Apr 07, 2023
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Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023) |
Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is by no means bad, but neither is it memorable in any substantial way. If nothing else as a proof of concept it is exciting, to know that we may be in store for further visits to the world that so many - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted Mar 30, 2023
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The Five Devils (2022) |
Léa Mysius’s The Five Devils is a noteworthy sophomore film, not just in its accomplished delivery of craft but its effortlessness at capturing the story of a young girl time-traveling while a family and small community seem to splinter apart. - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted Mar 30, 2023
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Creed III (2023) |
With a rushed timeline and no real character growth, “Creed III” does nothing to differentiate itself as an entry in the broader series of both Rocky and Creed’s stories or in the boxing film subgenre. - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted Mar 03, 2023
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The Eight Mountains (2022) |
“The Eight Mountains is a slow-churning naturalist tale about a city boy and mountain boy defining intimacy, friendship, and an unconditional bond. - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted Mar 03, 2023
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Magic Mike's Last Dance (2023) |
A classically informed reference laden musical set in a theater with a battalion of dancers is certainly not how most of us predicted the Magic Mike series of films to end, and that’s precisely what makes Soderbergh so enigmatic and engaging. - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted Mar 03, 2023
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L'immensità (2022) |
L’immensità doesn’t do anything exceptionally well as a film itself, it’s through Cruz’s performance of Clara and the smaller choices and nuances of her performance that adds to what is an otherwise straightforward film. - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted Jan 25, 2023
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When It Melts (2023) |
Few films can straddle the intimacy of characterization so unflinchingly, and even fewer directors can do so. Let alone in a debut. When It Melts is a self assured and self contained body blow that unfolds slowly - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted Jan 25, 2023
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Plane (2023) |
The very few times Plane leans into being an action film–like the sledgehammer sequence–it is extremely fun, the reason it’s agonizing to watch is the awful dialogue, paper-thin characters, and intelligence-insulting cutaways - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted Jan 13, 2023
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The Pale Blue Eye (2022) |
With a commanding performance by Bale, exquisite exterior cinematography wrought from natural lighting by Masanobu Takayanagi, and a committed turn by Melling as Poe, it’s unfortunate that The Pale Blue Eye is a meandering disappointment. - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted Dec 30, 2022
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Tori and Lokita (2022) |
Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne are known for their humanistic narratives and unflinching portraits of life under an unspecific but apparent line of wealth and happiness. In Tori and Lokita they once again show rather than tell - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted Dec 30, 2022
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Babylon (2022) |
It’s an attentive interpretation of the history of the period, refined and emboldened by the deeply personal human reasons that people are drawn both to the cinema and to the environs of cinema-making. - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted Dec 25, 2022
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Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths (2022) |
Often at these levels of extrapolation and narcissism films fall apart, so it’s a testament to Iñárritu and his team that “BARDO” never feels less than well made, even if it is insufferable most of the time. - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted Dec 16, 2022
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White Noise (2022) |
White Noise is a genre-shifting idiosyncratic riff on something that’s hung over all our heads and now like the characters in the movie we have to either live with it, die, or try to forget about it. - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted Dec 16, 2022
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Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (2022) |
With the help of writer Patrick McHale, Guillermo del Toro has gently spun the beloved classic tale of a wooden boy and his quest for humanity to revolve around themes and ideas that del Toro has long been obsessed with. - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted Dec 16, 2022
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Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) |
The Way of Water is an all-ages theme park ride with no height restriction. A film that’s simultaneously pushed and redefined high frame rate and 3D filmmaking. - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted Dec 16, 2022
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The Survivor (2021) |
[The Survivor is] a clunky heartfelt period piece that makes up for its wonkiness with a constant thread of forward momentum, respect for the past, and an underlying sense of gratitude. - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted Nov 18, 2022
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Italian Studies (2021) |
An impulsive saturnine film that follows Vanessa Kirby as she billows around New York City for an unclear amount of time in an amnesiac fugue state. The non-linear timeline of the film accentuates the - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted Nov 18, 2022
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JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass (2021) |
Pieces of evidence like this ... and covered up eyewitness testimony leave one frustrated, but thankful to Stone for assembling an easily digestible, high quality, dummy-proof piece of journalism that ultimately provides more questions than answers. - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted Nov 18, 2022
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Songs My Brothers Taught Me (2015) |
Songs My Brothers Taught Me is visually composed primarily of many of the so called Zhao flourishes or stylings, with particularly harrowing moments defining character experience but not the narrative thrust. - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted Nov 18, 2022
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Eternals (2021) |
The narrative is simultaneously too large and too small. With personal relationships defining the narrative of a cosmos spanning opera ... As far as MCU goes though this isn't a terrible direction for them to explore. - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted Nov 18, 2022
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Memoria (2021) |
Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Memoria is both romantic and hallucinatory, sumptuously presented and emotionally engaging piece of magical realism that explores and expands the limitations of human experience. - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted Nov 18, 2022
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DASHCAM (2021) |
Dashcam revels in its formal presentation which both Savage and Hardy seem to not only understand but have a talent for delivering through. Conjoining genre trope, handheld cinematography, and unyielding pacing into a fun and - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted Nov 18, 2022
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Armageddon Time (2022) |
Though it is focused on abuse, violence, and unfair treatment it rarely depicts or contains anything substantial and comprehensive, only when the film wanders in and out of conversations about the Holocaust with - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted Nov 18, 2022
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The Son (2022) |
Florian Zeller’s The Son is a hollow representation of tropes and conventions that have been around longer than the printing press. Overreliant on the incorrect assumption that - Drink in the Movies
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| Posted Nov 18, 2022
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