I have always heard of the great work of John Cassavetes – the fact that he is, arguably, the one of most influential and important figures in the history of American Independent Cinema (‘The Father’, some have said). I knew I needed to see his films, but I never really took the time to seek out his work. That is until my then-girlfriend, now-wife, purchased the John Cassavetes: Five Films boxed set from the Criterion Collection (one in a long list of reasons I wholeheartedly love my wife). Not only did she buy the box set off of eBay, but she got the Chinese version (a knockoff more than likely). Hell, the DVD for Opening Night is spelled Opening Hight.…

A devastating masterwork of one woman's downward spiral and a dry, humanist deconstruction of acceptable social politics. It is a film about family, commitment, desperation, redemption and the struggles of the working class. It is a film that sucked me right in with jaw-loosening, goosebumps-inducing acting. Gena Rowlands transforms herself. She becomes the distraught Mabel, an unimaginable character. It is so unconventional and uncompromising what she does in the first half, slowly losing her sense of "normal" public and private behavior. Her performance is nothing short of astonishing. Is she becoming mentally ill, or has she always been this way? Is she really mentally sick at all? The conclusion of her mental state lays entirely on the viewer. This is…

I think I may have made a mistake viewing this movie before most of the other Cassavetes directorial efforts. This is a movie that should make most currently working directors green with envy, a film that should make them rethink their careers, and what they truly want to accomplish with film. This intimate, wholly real, incredibly moving and involving film is miles above most of the works I've seen from anyone else so far.

Rowlands again commands complete attention in this film; as Mabel, the wife of a hard working city employee, and mother of three young children, she is a woman that has been struggling under the various familial and societal demands being forced upon her for what we…

I have always heard of the great work of John Cassavetes – the fact that he is, arguably, the one of most influential and important figures in the history of American Independent Cinema (‘The Father’, some have said). I knew I needed to see his films, but I never really took the time to seek out his work. That is until my then-girlfriend, now-wife, purchased the John Cassavetes: Five Films boxed set from the Criterion Collection (one in a long list of reasons I wholeheartedly love my wife). Not only did she buy the box set off of eBay, but she got the Chinese version (a knockoff more than likely). Hell, the DVD for Opening Night is spelled Opening Hight.…