We often take for granted how difficult it was to live through the 1980s, particularly when you worked within the arts. The HIV/AIDS crisis robbed the world of so many valuable, idiosyncratic voices, people who were as creative as they were admirable, falling victim to a disease that not only ate away at their bodies…
Tag: writing
Everything Is Free (2019)
The unspoken rule of contemporary filmmaking is that if you want your story told, you have to take the leap by telling it yourself, which has become the hallmark of many great films that tackle the issue of representation, especially in an era where we are giving voices to those who need it the most,…
Coward (2026)
The past is certainly a difficult place for anyone to live, which has spurred so many artists to attempt to explore the layered histories of a particular time and place, drawing correlations between the lives of the people in the past and those who are alive today, particularly in finding connections between them in terms…
3 Days in September (2026)
How would you handle it if, on the day of your wedding (which is supposed to be one of the happiest moments in your life if the socially mandated beliefs are held to be true), a stranger suddenly emerges and reveals that your soon-to-be-spouse has actually been unfaithful, to the point of having engaged in…
Baby’s Laxative (1931)
In the canon of revolutionary and historically resonant filmmakers, you rarely find someone who has left quite as much of an impression on cinema as Jean Renoir, whose entire life was defined by the constant pursuit of a new kind of artistic expression, which he inherited from his equally important artistically-minded family. A provocative voice…
Savage House (2026)
There’s a quote by the wonderful W.C. Fields that I absolutely adore, where he famously stated his belief that “a rich man is nothing but a poor man with money”, which is both a hilarious quip and a shockingly relevant observation. Wealth is a concept that seems easy to define at first, since it is…
The Searchers (1956)
The exceptionally insightful critic Stuart Byron once famously asserted that “in a broad sense it can be said that all recent American cinema derives from John Ford’s The Searchers” – and it just so happens that this was amongst the first pieces of film criticism I read as an adolescent. It is something that has…
Il posto (1961)
When I was younger and entering into the workforce, I came across a quote by Ernest Hemingway, who said “We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master”, which stood out to me not only because of its relevance, but also how (in only a few words), he encapsulated so…
Final Portrait (2017)
“It is impossible to ever finish a portrait” There tend to be many ambiguities related to the nature of art, but perhaps most challenging to comprehend is its tendency to never be complete. Anyone who has peddled in a form of creation, whether professionally or merely as a pastime, will know that there are two…
Marty, Life Is Short (2026)
When asked how he manages to maintain such a joyful disposition, Martin Short simply attributes it to being born with the “happy gene”, the kind of personality that always finds the positive in any situation. It has informed his outlook on life, guided his career, and been the foundation on which he has built what…
