Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy takes care to determine what constitutes and calculates the distance between two people, to examine the shapes that relationships can take.
Who wouldn’t wish for release? A dizzying catharsis? A moment where the body no longer obeys but flings itself to the furthest corners of its reach and comes out dancing?
At its core, Spencer is a film about belonging—or more aptly, about one’s failure to belong.
I am thinking of films as haunted houses. I am thinking of Orson Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons.
This is the moment of a woman alone, shuddering with the g-force and fear; repeating into the static void a fierce whisper to convince them: “I’m okay to go. I’m okay to go.”
Christopher Nolan's The Prestige paints twin portraits of men driven by ego, by an existential hole that won't allow them to find satisfaction anywhere but on stage.
Both Josef von Sternberg’s The Scarlet Empress (1934) and Hulu’s current series The Great use the opulence of the Empress’ court to tell the story of Catherine's rise as a triumph of light, elegance, and beauty over a twisted, grotesque darkness.
The magnificent, obsessive care to detail synonymous with Stanley Kubrick’s filmography is perhaps best represented and utilized in his 1975 masterpiece, Barry Lyndon.
On The Secret World of Arrietty, teenage despair, wanting what you can't have, and being wanted when you can't be had.
The beauty of three consecutive shots of a luncheon ballad transforms Brooklyn from a lovely period drama into a lifeline, as profound and identifiable as a fingerprint.
This month on the podcast, we’re at the juncture of maximalism and mid-century modern, tackling Peyton Reed’s rom-com Down With Love with special guest Fran Hoepfner.
Brian De Palma's Phantom of the Paradise is decadence splashed on celluloid, a celebration of the shine of glam rock, and a preemptive funeral for the scene officiated by the dark underside of the business.
