There’s a scene in Joanna Arnow’s galvanizing 2013 documentary, “i hate myself :)”, where her ex-boyfriend, fearless poet-provocateur James Kepple, defends his use of offensive words, arguing that they exert […]
At nearly two decades old, Albert Brooks’s wonderful film, “Mother,” offers many nostalgic staples of ‘90s Americana: cutting-edge “picture phones,” gasoline priced at $1.21 per gallon and smart comedy for […]
Steven Spielberg is not only the undisputed king of summer movies, he invented them. Films were no longer mere entertainments, they were grand cultural events. The highest compliment one can […]
Four years ago this month, Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life” premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. I published the following piece at HollywoodChicago.com on June 3, 2011. “Where is […]
He was the American journalist who vanishes after the Chilean coup d’état in Costa-Gavras’ 1982 classic, “Missing.” She was Marty McFly’s mother in Robert Zemeckis’ ageless 1985 crowd-pleaser, “Back to […]
It all starts with that helicopter shot. The Twentieth Century Fox logo twinkles in silence before fading out, as a billowing wind starts to sound. Suddenly, the audience finds itself […]
I wrote the following essay back in college and later presented it at the University of Notre Dame’s Midwest Undergraduate Film Conference. It was written for Dan Rybicky’s class on […]
If any film was ever built for the 1.33:1 aspect ratio, it is music video director Mark Romanek’s deeply unsettling 2002 feature debut, “One Hour Photo.” I hadn’t seen the […]
“Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild: With a faery, hand in hand. For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.” This infamous […]
There’s a reason why great works of art are built to last. They tap into universal themes that can be applied to any generation, any culture, any personal life experience. […]
