My joyful celebration of the incredible work of Orson Welles continues, and the next part of this retrospective is one of Welles’ more exuberant works, the magnificent adaptation of William Shakespeare’s seminal tragedy, Othello. Welles, a notoriously brilliant scholar of The Bard, is perhaps the person who could be trusted most with his work, as…

Sometimes the most memorable films are the most simple. No one understands this better than Andrew Bujalski, who has quietly risen from obscurity to become one of the more fascinating young filmmakers in contemporary independent cinema. Some of his films have been so abstract and intimate, they border on being almost non-existent, such as the…

I want to be Orson Welles when I grow up, honestly. I don’t think there has ever been a more fascinating cinematic figure than Welles, who never fails to surprise me with his exceptional skills, both as a performer and as a filmmaker, being someone whose career helped set the foundations for modern cinema. A…

I initially felt awful for not enjoying this film, mainly because there were so many elements in it I normally love. It is a lighthearted French romantic comedy featuring one of the greatest actresses of her generation, directed by one of the most formidable filmmakers France has seen in recent decades. There was so much…

I remember seeing a film on television when I was much younger. It was early on in my days a film lover, and thus I had a very rudimentary knowledge. Yet, there were two names I did recognize – yet I didn’t recognize the actors in the film. The film was Educating Rita, and those…

Here is an indication that we are living in a renaissance of queer cinema: filmmakers are able to make films with a pair of same-sex leads and not have the focus be on their sexuality, but rather on other parts of the story that do not relate to the sexual identity of these characters. Andrew…

Cinema, like all art, has many intentions and has the power to convey any story or theme imaginable. One such theme prevalent in many films is that of current political affairs, with contemporary issues often pervading the cinematic landscape. While many of these films are very effective, writing about them can be a challenge, because…

I think we can all agree that the main purpose behind cinema is to be entertaining, to be momentary periods where the audience can simply escape their day-to-day problems and just experience stories detached enough from reality to make us momentarily forget our outside woes, and leave our ordinary selves outside the cinema for just…

Last weekend, I watched and reviewed Spike Lee’s 21st-century crime masterpiece, 25th Hour, a film that connected the post-tragedy New York City to the rehabilitation of a prisoner as he ponders his life over the course of his final twenty-four hours of freedom. Purely by chance, I watched a film that may be entirely different…