The Vegan Doughnut Shop (HTML, PDF), an original short story by Tony Macklin.
"The Vegan Doughnut Shop is one of those rare stories that features characters you want to know about, dialogue that makes you laugh and think and a recurring puzzle that keeps you guessing until the end. It's a great read." -- Al Bernstein
 | Battleship  May 21, 2012 Someone told me I'd have to suspend my disbelief when I saw Battleship. Not true. After a while you have no brain left with which to disbelieve. Battleship is a loud lobotomy. Based loosely - slackly & ... more |
 | The Pirates! Band of Misfits  May 16, 2012 Question: When is a pirate a lark? Answer: When he's composed by the Aardman Animations production company and voiced by Hugh Grant. When Grant is at his best - as he was in About a Boy (2002) - there's nobod ... more |
 | Booker's Place: A Mississippi Story  May 12, 2012 It drives me nuts when an interviewer doesn't follow up. If Charlie Rose on tv was interviewing someone who said, "I have the secret of life," Charlie would look at his notes and say, "I see you were born in the Midwest. ... more |
 | The Avengers May 5, 2012 Although it takes a while to hit its stride, once it does Marvel's The Avengers is a razzle-dazzle, rip-roaring entertainment. It introduces its various characters without much panache, then they bicker, and one begins to wonder ... more |
 | Cellmates  May 4, 2012 Cellmates is an indie film that shouldn't work. And at times it doesn't, but at other times it has an offbeat integrity that engages. The plot is threadbare, and many of the allusions seem dated and forgotten. Cel ... more |
 | Marley  April 28, 2012 Marley is a terrific documentary. It goes beyond one figure, and captures the essence of life itself. Despite its wayward, checkered history - first Marty Scorsese was to direct, then Jonathan Demme - Marley seems to ... more |
 | Unraveled April 24, 2012 Unraveled is a con job. It has the clammy hands of its crooked main figure all over it. Unraveled is a documentary, directed by entertainment attorney and filmmaker Marc H. Simon, about Marc Dreier, who bilked hedge f ... more |
 | Sleepless Night April 20, 2012 Sleepless Night (Nuit blanche) is one frenetic French dream. It's slam-bang mayhem - with an active intelligence. Smartly directed and stylishly composed by Frederic Jardin, it is both claustrophobic and in nearly-con ... more |
 | We Have a Pope April 16, 2012 Although We Have a Pope is a heady concoction, it may not have mass appeal. It is part romp, part pratfall, part hymn. It's difficult to get a grasp on the sensibility of We Have a Pope. Where is it going, and how is it g ... more |
 | Goon April 8, 2012 Goon is based on chutzpah. At the beginning of the movie, it says, "Based on a true story." That's usually the kiss of inauthenticity. The movie Goon has a connection, often frayed, with the nonfiction ... more |
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Tony Macklin is a freelance film critic. A current member of the Las Vegas Film Critics Society, he is a former film and literature professor at the University of Dayton, and the former editor of the filmcrit magazine Film Heritage. His articles and reviews have been most recently featured at Rotten Tomatoes and The Internet Movie Database, as well as in the Bright Lights Film Journal and The Fayetteville Free Weekly.
Tony's well-received book, Voices from the Set: The Film Heritage Interviews (2000), includes his 1970s interviews with Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hawks, Martin Scorsese, Alan Rudolph, Robert Altman, Sam Peckinpah, John Wayne, Edith Head, Stockard Channing, Richard Baskin, and others. It's an excellent read for anyone who loves film.
Since 1972, and in every decade since, Tony's picks for best films of all time have been included in the British Film Institute's Critics' Top 10 Poll. Published in BFI's international film magazine, Sight and Sound, the most recent Critics' Top 10 Poll was published in 2002.
Tony's votes are also included in the American Film Institute's lists of bests, including Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Comedies, 100 Greatest Movies, and more.