On growing up a Jehovah's Witness and escaping through movies.
On the Before trilogy, and when midnight comes for love.
We all want happily ever after, or at least a chance to believe it exists—which is precisely why a film like Blue Valentine is so hard to watch.
But Bull Durham also shows us what we should love about growing older—how external and internal circumstance define possibility, and increase pressure to use time most preciously.
Instead, Don Jon shows the pathology of addiction around a substance that is rarely conceded as addictive in the first place.
In the very first moments of Todd Louiso’s Hello I Must Be Going there is a close-up on Melanie Lynskey’s eyes where they are so dark as to look pupil-less.
In The Broken Circle Breakdown, love doesn’t necessarily survive. Because sometimes, the film seems to say, it can’t.
On Bright Star and Fanny Brawne.
I’m interested in something deeper, something that may seem silly or overwrought to people who don’t have animals in their lives. I’m talking silver screen love stories between human beings and their dogs.