Here’s a statement I haven’t made abundantly clear several times before: I utterly admire David Lynch. I admire how he is one of the most important filmmakers to ever live, how he helped define both surrealism and independent cinema, and how he has been a cinematic iconoclast who has broken boundaries for what is possible…

Diane Arbus was an extraordinarily talented artist, and her legacy as one of the most profoundly meaningful photographers to ever live continues to influence artists interested in humanity to this day. I know I have been inspired by Arbus, and many others have been as well. Her relentless provocation of form and content in her…

I am not someone averse to elaborate and advanced filmmaking, with blindingly spectacular special effects and an unbelievably high budget, used over a lengthy and exhausting period of production. Laborious, time-consuming and expensive filmmaking was what Hollywood was built on and continues to thrive on. However, as I have never made it a secret before,…

Who doesn’t love a good Cold War-era espionage thriller? I must admit that I am quite a devotee of the period, and I always have been fascinated by works of fiction that locate themselves within that period. John le Carré has, for a very long time, been one of the foremost figures in Cold War…

One of the reasons I admire Mike Leigh and consider him one of the greatest writers and directors of all time is the manner in which he presents reality through his films. Each of his films, while differing in tone and central plot, are exquisite meditations on reality and the problems with living in a specific…

Let me take you back many years to a time when I was a neophyte of a cinephile, and there were a few names I encountered that seemed definitive markers of audacity and notable reputation when it came to cinema. One such name was Spike Lee, who I consider to be one of the most…

I like to think of myself as someone with a relatively refined taste in cinema, and I often criticize films that rely on sentiment and emotion to make a statement. However, at the same time, I readily admit that I am essentially a sucker for a good emotional catharsis, granted the film that does the…

I love cinema (this is brand new information, isn’t it?), and perhaps what I find most alluring about cinema is how it is formed out of the creative need to simply tell stories. Perhaps one can accuse blockbuster tentpole films and franchises of simply seeking out the solace of the almighty dollar, which is an…

By this point, I don’t even need to explain that I adore David Lynch. Every review of his work I write ends up being just a radical praising of his career as cinema’s greatest surrealist. Yet, here we are again, and today I’m going to be reviewing arguably his most important film, Blue Velvet. The…

Perhaps the best way to describe Beatriz at Dinner is to consider it as a mumblecore dramedy as made by Darren Aronofsky and Terrence Malick. That isn’t to praise Beatriz at Dinner as anything close to what those two filmmakers have made, but there are several themes in this film that locates it alongside the…