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Author

Grant Phipps

A Madison transplant, Grant has been writing about contemporary and repertory cinema since contributing to No Ripcord and LakeFrontRow; and he now serves as Tone Madison‘s film editor. More recently, Grant has been involved with programming at Mills Folly Microcinema and one-off screenings at the Bartell Theatre. From mid-2016 thru early-2020, he also showcased his affinity for art songs and avant-progressive music on WSUM 91.7 FM. 🌱

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Grant's Latest Articles

Simple rectangular image collage of four film stills. At the top left, teenager Willa (Chase Infiniti) practices shooting an assault rifle in an open field in "One Battle After Another." At the top right, thirtysomething parent J.B. Mooney (Josh O'Connor) scopes out the Framingham Art Museum before he plans a robbery in "The Mastermind." At the bottom left, teenager Kyle (Jackson Sluiter) skates through the suburbs of Calgary in Alberta, Canada. At the bottom right, frazzled mother Linda (Rose Byrne) stops for a moment at her motel after visiting the convenience store in "If I Had Legs I'd Kick You."
One movie meditation after another: toiling through 2025
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Film
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January 21, 2026

Nine writers processed these trying times through cinema, at the theaters and at home.

A still taken from Nicholas R. Wootton's experimental short "Liking This Angle" shows a woman holding up a plaster mold of a human arm on an angled wooden structure in an art studio. A second image of water streaking down a windshield is superimposed over it.
“Liking This Angle” finds artistic inspiration in degrees of the edit
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Film
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January 19, 2026

Nicholas R. Wootton's experimental short, featuring sculptor Christina A. West, premieres at Art Lit Lab as part of Project Projection on January 21.

A composite banner of the cover art from each of the 20 selected releases is displayed on a baby-blue background.
Tone Madison’s favorite songs of 2025
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Music
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January 14, 2026

A sampling of the local music that helped us get through the year.

In a spacious and opulent house, two sisters stand at a medium shot in a sunlit room and look out to the right (through an unseen window). Both women have dark brown hair that is pulled back. They also both wear comfortable, long-sleeve clothing.
Evaluating tenderness and depth of family dynamics in “Sentimental Value”
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Film
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December 10, 2025

Grant Phipps and Lance Li argue in favor of and against the artistic framework of Joachim Trier's latest psychological family drama.

A photograph shows a medium close-up of different sizes of two t-shirt designs hanging on a clothing rack. The leftmost one is "Blade Runner" and the rightmost one is "The Thing." The "Blade Runner" tee prominently features Deckard's face (Harrison Ford) as well as text from the film in yellow and white, while "The Thing" tee includes small portraits of the cast arranged in two long rows with blue text and the iconic alien monster design rendered in black and white.
Movie tee envy
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Microtones
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December 5, 2025

Pondering a shirt collection, and stumbling upon Cosmic Cabin, which has the goods—at least niche ones for cinephiles.

A simple, vertically split image collage on a black theater stage. The left photo shows a figure in a black velvet suit curled up on the floor staring at a phone attached to a red cord directly in front of their face. On the right, a closer photo of a dancer in white face paint gesturing out with her hands mid-motion. She wears a white undergarment and a semi-transparent red gown overtop.
The semi-improvised parameters of “Inertia Follies” engender its subtly and radically transformative scenes
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Culture
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November 19, 2025

The avant-garde performance-art showcase, which involves six local artists, runs for a final weekend—November 20 through 23—at Broom Street Theater.

A rectangular graphic to promote the Black Film Festival in Madison shows several different images with thin black border outlines in each corner. These include a poster for the narrative film "Miss Juneteenth" in the upper left and archival black-and-white photos from the documentary film "Fresh Dressed" in the upper right above the festival text and logos for both Madison Public Library and Justified Anger: Courses. The lower part of the image contains images from video essays—a Black couple sitting in a living room (at the bottom left) and Kendrick Lamar's Super Bowl Halftime performance (at the bottom right)—that are included as part of the festival.
In its third year, the Black Film Festival commits to deeper regional representation
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Film
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November 11, 2025

The Nehemiah Center and Justified Anger partner with Madison Public Library to honor Black lives and culture November 12 through 15.

An angled photo at an art gallery shows a large crowd of seated people, who are all looking forward and listening to a male speaker with a microphone at the front corner of the room (who is centered in this photo). To the speaker's right is a projection screen that displays a promotional collage of stills from short films in the forthcoming program.
Local open-mic cinema
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Microtones
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October 31, 2025

Project Projection at Arts + Literature Laboratory is assembling all facets of Madison's DIY and more professional film culture alike.

A still from the film "Welcome To The Dollhouse" shows a bespectacled pre-teen girl sitting on her pink bedspread in a shared bedroom. She wears a kitschy pastel-purple animal T-shirt with turquoise-colored pants, and holds a handsaw up to the neck of her sister's Barbie doll on her lap. She stares forward with a blank, yet distressed look.
“Welcome To The Dollhouse” cuttingly conveys the social hell of pre-teen years
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Film
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October 15, 2025

Todd Solondz's enduring cringe comedy from 1995 screens on 35mm at UW Cinematheque on October 18.

At a medium shot, two people sit in a simple conference room at two elongated desks arranged in a triangular-like formation. The two people are turned towards one another, smiling jovially. Paper notes, steel water bottles, and a phone are placed on the tables in front of or to the side of the people.
Video: Did we discover an oasis during the summer movie drought?
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Film
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September 16, 2025

A second collaborative sit-down with Josiah Wampfler at OCA Media to recap a strained but not irredeemable viewing season.