Extremely competently made, if somewhat by-the-book—I was a pretty stubborn BlackBerry user for quite some time, so the subject material was definitely intriguing to me. (I'd never really followed the downfall once I finally made the full-time switch to iPhone.) Was always curious about whether BB considered different directions to go (i.e. doubling down on becoming the go-to for businesses, etc), rather than clumsily flailing at competing with Apple; alas, this plot point is barely touched on, instead merely touching…
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Friday the 13th 2009
My Jason binge concludes with what's, shockingly, easily the best entry in the series. I did not expect to really, really like this but here we are...this is lean, solidly written and angry as all hell. Dialogue is appropriately sparse and it's legitimately impressive formally—narrative is thin but that's by design and, while there's a little homage paid early on (along with intermittent callbacks), the new(er) Friday the 13th mostly dispenses with attempting to tell a story. Instead, we get…
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Call Me by Your Name 2017
I'd originally planned to write a lengthy essay on this, probably my favorite film of the decade (only Margaret is otherwise in contention) and absolutely the most personally meaningful, for my dad's soon-to-be-defunct poetry magazine Parnassus, but life got in the way—I switched companies just as the deadline was approaching and simply didn't have the hours in the day to write a 4,000 word piece with the proper checks and drafts to do my father proud. I did, however, begin…
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Along the Coast 1958
In many ways, this playful documentary about coastal France symbolizes everything that the French New Wave would ultimately be about. Du côté de la côte is ostensibly about tourism and outsiders in the French Riviera, but it's really a love poem to the area itself—Varda's camera is full of mischief as it pans over two-piece bikinis and crowded sand. Animal floats linger over burnt bodies; a sultry voiceover chimes in with the name of a town as the primary narrator…
