2018 Ranked
Seen in Theaters

In a film about the Chappaquiddick incident - in which a car driven by Senator Ted Kennedy (Jason Clarke) went off a bridge with him and Mary Jo Kopechne (Kate Mara) inside, only for the drunk Kennedy to let her die in the car while he walked home and did not report the accident until the cops were already at the scene the next morning - director John Curran opts to open in a rather…

NOTE: This excerpt is the introductory section of an essay I wrote for Cineccentric, entitled "The Role of Nostalgia in the Films of Todd Haynes". Here is a link to entire piece, one which I spent a good amount of time writing and am reasonably proud of having written. In advance, thank you to anyone who opts to follow the link and spend part of their life reading the essay. It is appreciated more than you know.

Todd Haynes is…

The Criterion Challenge, 47/100

Blonde Venus simply does not work very well. Many of these Josef von Sternberg and Marlene Dietrich vehicles are good, but flawed films especially narratively. Blonde Venus, unfortunately, hardly even has that to say as it largely just flawed. Telling the story of a woman named Helen Farraday (Marlene Dietrich) and her marriage to a scientist named Ned (Herbert Marshall), Blonde Venus starts with them falling in love before, after many years pass, it is revealed…

An encapsulation of the issues of 1968 all within the setting of a high school. Touching on issues of race, sex, sexuality, authoritarianism, war, sacrifice, and counterculture, High School is another brimming example of cinema verite (or, as Wiseman prefers, "observational documentary"). Seamlessly weaving together a portrait of students learning, students interacting, and speeches given by students, one can find many instances where the day experienced by these kids mirrors the experiences of today. Events such as gym are unchanged.…

2011 Ranked

Forgive me father, for I have sinned. When I saw Drive for the first time in 2013, I had just finished my first film class in high school and was set to graduate from high school in a few weeks. Now, a week and a half removed from finishing college a semester early, it was time to atone for the sins of my youth. Unacquainted with good films at the time aside from the ones I saw in…