On Thursday, January 11th, join Upper Middlebrow for a live (independent) watch party. We'll all watch the movie starting at 4:05PM PST, and then our live video episode will begin promptly at 6:30 PST

Sandra Nettlebecks 2001 film is beautifully shot and carries its narrative in a bucket effectively, following its fiery protagonist into the thickets of surrogate parenthood. Martha is a brilliant ch

Ang Lees 1994 family drama/comedy is a sprawling epic, set in 1990s Taipei, about an aging chef, his three daughters, and the big themes of love, loneliness, loss, and togetherness. Its full of gorg

Juzo Itamis brilliant 1986 film combines elements of Greek theater, the American Western, vaudeville, silent movies, French Noir, and other eclectic elements as it explores the myriad relationships w

Peter Greenaways film feels like an opera. It even features some operatic singing, but more to the point, its pleasures are more sensual than story driven. Its not an easy film to watch, and may not

Axel Gabriels 1986 Danish film deservingly makes many peoples Foodie Top 10s, and we can see why. We LOVE this film, which not only shows some high level delicious cooking, but tells a parable of de

The UMBers sit down with Monica Eng, co-host of the podcast Chewing, to discuss our upcoming "Foodie Films" series. Monica and Jesse educate Chris about the Jibarito sandwich, and Monica impresses us

We are almost one year old! Our first episode, on Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, launched almost exactly a year ago, and we are so excited to be heading into Season Two of Upper Middle Brow. This seaso

The UMBs have ANOTHER thorough conversation about the novels sexual politics, and Mandellas low key homophobia, asking whether the protagonists biases serve some narrative purposes, or simply revea

The Forever War is widely regarded as an analogy for Americas involvement in Vietnam, and an anti-war novel, but were not so sure its firmly anti-war. Perhaps more anti-military. But that said, Hal