Mike Nichols, the multi-disciplined artist, passed away yesterday. When I read the news, I was amazed at how accomplished he was. Not only film, but stage and performance as well. He was one of the few who achieved the EGOT. Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony. In fact, he had more Tony’s than any other stage director. Although he helmed many memorable films, there was none more memorable for me than The Graduate.

I don’t know when I first saw The Graduate, but I know I had seen it quite a few times before I was 16, as that was the age when I met my first love, Cheryl. Our first kiss, the first time we met, was magic. Soon we…

Decades Project: 1/6 of the 60's

"It's like I was playing some kind of game, but the rules don't make any sense to me. They're being made up by all the wrong people. I mean no one makes them up. They seem to make themselves up."

The Graduate was so much weirder than I expected, and I don't mean because of all the sex stuff. It was weird in the best way possible. I (wrongly) assumed it would be a fairly traditional coming-of-age comedy. This is not the case at all—and not merely because it's exceptionally well built. The weirdest thing about The Graduate is the way it smuggles in satirical social commentary where you least expect it.

Straight from…

“My whole life is such a waste. It’s just nothing.”

the first time I watched this movie I was in senior year of high school, during my 50s & 60s class. I barely knew what it was about but I was excited to watch it anyway. From the very beginning I couldn’t keep my eyes off the screen. The cinematography, the soundtrack, the acting, everything about it was so mesmerizing to me. I felt every emotion. I felt like I was Ben. I couldn’t stop thinking about the ending for weeks and I even made all of my friends and family watch it with me because I felt like it was my duty to show everybody this masterpiece. I must’ve watched…

Hello, darkness my old friend.

A movie scientifically designed in a lab to cause an existential crisis in every young person regardless of the generation. A movie that uses humor as a razor-sharp tool to carve open the facade of false promises fed to fresh graduates in general and fresh male graduates in particular. A movie that is supremely erotic and sexually liberating without being exploitative or gratuitous.

The Graduate is a one-hour forty-five-minute long film school disguised as a motion picture. From the opening shot to the very last frame, every choice made by the filmmakers is a reminder of the kind of genius required to create true art. Nothing is ordinary. Nothing is safe. The rules of cinema…