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, 34/100

A thrilling spy film set one year prior to its release, Night Train to Munich is another British film of the war period that had one goal in mind: rally public support. The spies, scientists, and politicians can only do so much. In the end, the average person may very well find themselves face-to-face with a Nazi and they must be willing to act quickly in order to help further the British cause. This is exactly…

The Criterion Challenge, 33/100

As a film from 1930, King of Jazz serves as a great cinematic history lesson. This is a film from a different era, one in which racism was normal and in which an all-white jazz band with its leader cited as the “King of Jazz” were just seen as normal. In 2018, King of Jazz, of course, looks painfully outdated. Fortunately, they did it in pretty colors with great sea greens and salmons throughout the film,…

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…