My Heart’s Memory Turns To You: Derek Jarman’s Blue
More last testament than love letter, Derek Jarman’s 1993 experimental film Blue was as unique and challenging then as it continues to be today. More radio play than movie, it’s 79 minutes of an entirely blue saturated screen, over which two interwoven stories braid together to weave a story of Jarman’s recollected, daydreamed, restless experiences of living with AIDS in 1990s London, and the adventures of blue itself as a color and a character. Punctuated throughout are the ghostly names of Jarman’s former friends and lovers already lost to the disease.
My One & Only Love: Leaving Las Vegas
Every time I go to Las Vegas, usually for work to spend time in a light-locked, soulless conference room listening to the obvious masquerading as professional advice, I think the same thing. That there’s a deep, longing melancholy to the place. A sadness behind the bright neon lights of the strip, the omnipresent din of the casinos, and the faces of those who’ve come to Sin City seemingly to let loose and get away from it all. Far from the oasis in the desert in promises, the city aches with loss. An unfulfilled hope of gambled pleasure, and drawn like moths to the flame by the flashing billboards, and where darkness never truly descends, we wander around in the half-light neon glow of the desperate attempts to separate us from our time and money.
Thor... Love and Bad Writing Decisions
Every now and then, there comes a certain kind of movie. A movie that makes you laugh, that makes you cry, and that makes you shake with excitement, enjoyment, and fear. Most of us love that movie, when it comes along. Unfortunately for my audience, this is not the movie I will be reviewing.
Trying to Empathize With The Whale
The dissipating buzz surrounding The Whale (2022) was inevitable considering that its only major attraction post its film festival run were the names attached, namely those of the director, Darren Aronofsky, and star, Brendan Fraser. Although their star power can be felt in this film, it is not nearly enough to make The Whale seem like anything more than it is: a typical Oscar-baity, A24, indie “think-piece.”
Zbigniew Rybczyński's Orchestra
Today everyone lives in a high-definition world of 4k streaming, 1080p resolution graphics, and the seemingly endless technological horizon of greater and greater picture clarity. Zbigniew Rybczyński’s 1990 hour-long art film, The Orchestra is not this.
Avatar 2: A Reminder of the Power of Cinema
Karan Sampath reviews James Cameron’s newest tale in the world of Pandora, Avatar: The Way of Water.
Bros and the Absurdity of Modern Dating
There is something so utterly ridiculous and yet so completely sweet about Billy Eichner’s Bros. Only Eichner could write a movie about a podcast host, working as one of the museum curators at a new LGBTQ+ museum, falling in love with an estate attorney/aspiring chocolatier. Bobby Lieber (Eichner) must navigate not only the complex world of modern dating but also the nuances and changing discourse around gay culture. And it all works just about perfectly.
Fitzcarraldo’s Burden
German film director Werner Herzog often reminisces of the lost art of being able to trust our eyes. How everything we see in modern movies is informed by digital manipulation, sophisticated editing, and the sheer total commercial management of putting something on the screen. He laments the early days of cinema, where what was projected was so believable that, so the stories go, audiences would flee terrified from their seats at the prospect of a train coming towards the camera. Somewhere along the way, we lost this terror.
Irma Vep: The Glory of a Reboot
Irma Vep is the film lover’s dream – to get to watch a fictional production with all the troubles and beauty of the filmmaking process put on full display.
More War Than Peace: Sergei Bondarchuk’s 4 War & Peace Films (1966-67)
When older generations say that they don’t make movies like they used to, they’re talking about Sergei Bondarchuk’s War and Peace films, released between 1966 and 1967. An absolutely breathtaking series of four individual movies spread out over seven hours, they recount Tolstoy’s epic tale of Russian aristocratic and military perspective during the Napoleonic invasion of the early nineteenth century in elaborate, authentic and highly orchestrated detail.
Lyle Lyle The … Sexualized Crocodile?
From the first release of promotional materials, it was already unclear what the target audience would be for Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile. Based on the beloved children’s book, the film seemed to want to bring in too many people at once: adults with an affinity for big name actors like Javier Bardem, musical theater folks with an affinity for Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, kids with an affinity for CGI-ed crocodiles, and … the one person out there who thought the crocodile should be voiced by Shawn Mendes?
Doctor Strange: In The Multiverse of Lameness?
I watched Multiverse of Madness, also called MoM by some fans, with great excitement, only to be let down in many interesting ways. But, nevertheless, the film drastically shifted the trajectory of the MCU and is vital regardless of its divided reception.
The Missing Pieces of Lynch's Pink Room
Attempting to adequately interpret David Lynch’s Twin Peaks is a fool’s errand, but since its release in 1990 it hasn’t stopped thousands of well-intentioned sleuths from trying. The attempts to connect the numerous disparate threads of story and character with broader themes of anything from societal collapse, the interpretation of dreams, alternate realities and autobiography itself have far eclipsed the original two seasons.
Say Yes to Nope
This visually striking film isn’t as scary as the trailers make it out to be, but instead it is a story about family bond, the history and importance of the black community in filmmaking, and of course, alien invasion.
