Apr 12, 2015 | Thoughts On Cinema
Nightcrawler (2014, dir. Gilroy) was one of the best flicks of last year. I’d like to offer a soft critique of what kept it from being great. The shortcoming consists of slightly overplaying its strength — the “otherness” of Jake...
Nov 16, 2013 | Thoughts On Cinema
Sometimes you have an aesthetic in your head and you search for it out in the world (and in my case you also try to create it with your own work). Having fallen short of the ideal so far on my own steam, it can be very disappointing when I continually search for other...
Oct 25, 2011 | From The Set
Reason # 357 why I love making movies… this was what the actual set looked like: Lose your location the day before shooting, and dress up a completely empty room with garbage. An end table props up on some recycling bins to make a desk, my living room...
Jul 30, 2011 | Thoughts On Cinema
Since I don’t really watch new movies anymore (if something looks interesting I’ll get to it eventually, but I have no burning need to see it in the same year it was released), this is a list of the top 10 (or so) awesome movies “I Saw For The First...
Aug 16, 2010 | Thoughts On Cinema
Criterion outdid themselves this month with the announcement of their November titles. America Lost and Found: The BBS Story is pretty much the most exciting box set this year. For those looking to get acquainted with late 60s/early 70s American cinema, this is an...
Jul 24, 2010 | Thoughts On Cinema
The critic or audience member who searches and picks apart a movie to assign and define symbolism is analogous to the tourist who visits the Louvre and only looks at the paintings through the viewfinder of her digital camera. A. the storing up of self-congratulatory...
Jan 12, 2010 | Thoughts On Cinema
We are deeply saddened today at the passing of a giant of filmmaking. Eric Rohmer gave us everything he had, year after year, masterpiece after masterpiece. My own first feature, Pieces, is unthinkable without Rohmer. Aside from perhaps Robert Bresson, no one achieved...
Nov 10, 2009 | Thoughts On Cinema
Claude Sautet mostly made (or was most famous for making) “domestic, bourgeois” dramas. He also made a handful of crime films. Max seems to be a melding of the two, almost perfectly. Up until the forty minute mark or so, it was almost boring, almost too...