Alison Willmore

is a critic and culture writer. She revamped this site because she thought that, in addition to the criticism and culture writing, it'd be fun to have a place to park stray thoughts. Then she decided to start a newsletter instead, whoops.

If You Must

Alison Willmore

Dec 20, 20112 min read

Can I call you Lisbeth?

David Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo rises to the level of its source material and no further, achieving no alchemical Silence...

Alison Willmore

Dec 2, 20112 min read

These little town blues are melting away.

Carey Mulligan sings a slow, torchy rendition of "New York, New York" in Shame, director Steve McQueen allowing the entire song to unfurl...

Alison Willmore

Feb 8, 20111 min read

Cheer up, emo kid.

This should be right in my nerdy/pretentious wheelhouse, being as it’s literary fiction with a shiny, self-conscious veneer of sci-fi,...

Alison Willmore

Feb 3, 20111 min read

Tears of a sidekick.

The thing with this scene, which comes at the end of a documentary about the White Stripes' 2007 Canadian tour, is that it seems to sum...

Alison Willmore

May 20, 20101 min read

It's time to pay the price.

I prised We Need To Talk About Kevin from a shelf otherwise filled with Dutch paperbacks at a hotel in Thailand and read it in giant,...