Favorite films

Recent reviews

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  The Beguiled 2017

  ★★★★½ Added

  I never knew where The Beguiled was going. The conventions of film made me speculate, but my predictions were consistently wrong. Even if I came close to calling the movie early, writer/director Sofia Coppola deviated from the norm in a way that was immensely compelling. This isn’t to suggest that The Beguiled is full of shocking twists; it’s more abstract than that. What’s captivating about the film is how it flirts with convention, but choses to introduce more human, complex variables.

  Read the full review here: www.andsoitbeginsfilms.com/2017/06/the-beguiled.html

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  Whiplash 2014

  ★★★★½ Added

  “There are no two words in the English language more harmful than Good Job.”

  These are words of discouragement from Terence Fletcher – renowned conductor, accomplished musician, teacher from Hell. By the time Fletcher (J.K. Simmons) utters this phrase in the thrilling new film, Whiplash, we have a full understanding of who he is: a maniacal tyrant who pushes his students at the Juilliard-like Shaffer Conservatory to the brink of emotional collapse. The harder, longer and louder he berates his…

Popular reviews

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  Spring Breakers 2012

  ★★★★★ Added

  Cinematically speaking, there’s nothing that turns me on more than the art of something new. A vision, while possibly drawing comparison to others, that remains wholly unique. A story I’ve never seen before, or, just as effectively, a story I’ve seen a hundred times, but now with a fresh spin. It’s no matter how the originality comes to be –through story, execution, tone –so long as it’s new. Give me something new, and I’ll give you my full appreciation.

  Click the link below to view my full review:
  www.andsoitbeginsfilms.com/2013/03/spring-breakers.html

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  To the Wonder 2012

  ★★★★½ Added

  “He doesn’t give us things on purpose. I kind of know what’s happening, but I’m not sure. I was doing something not knowing exactly where it leads, and maybe that’s good, because in life, we don’t know where we’re going.”

  That’s about as fine an encapsulation of Terrence Malick’s new moving poem of a film, To the Wonder, as we’re likely to get. The quote was said by the film’s star, Olga Kurylenko, and, to me, brings the entirety of…