The most accurate & methodical depiction of the metaphysics of tripping ever put to screen. There’s the rhythmic handcar sequence to enter the Trip/Zone, a dreamy reprieve amid the flowery meadows of wonder, the waffling about how to proceed, the cadaverous stripping of ego, the swamps of self-doubt, the terrible torrents of paranoia, leaky tunnels of existential despair, a perilously prideful bunker of false enlightenment, a destructive retreat into dilapidated nihilism, & finally the return to the local pub for a come-down…
Favorite films
Recent activity
AllPinned reviews
More-
-
Ambulance 2022
Some may find the editing in Ambulance to be maximalist overkill. I think it is masterful. After watching dozens of copy-cat action flicks over the last decade, almost nobody creates orchestrated chaos like Michael Bay (besides maybe Tony Scott). His kinetic craftsmanship is unreal. What’s his process, anyways? Does he storyboard? Does he shoot a thousand angles & create the chaotic musicality in postproduction?
Whatever the case, Bay’s choreographic image-ballet is as graceful as it is frenetic, as lyrical as it…
Recent reviews
More-
Shadow in the Cloud 2020
Wait, what? Over in a flash & left me winded. An utterly baffling exercise in genre dysmorphia. Definitely overselling it a bit because it’s also perfunctory. Decide for yourself. It’s a mere 80 minutes & jam packed with gremlins, WWII iconography, & a briefcase culpable of shaken baby syndrome. You won’t be bored.
-
Top Gun 1986
I am all for homoeroticism in machismo cinema. At the same time, I’ll call a spade a spade — at least as I see it. And in the case of Top Gun, I feel that many pseudo-deconstruction theories, including the postulations espoused by Quentin Tarantino’s character in Sleep With Me, are off the mark with their reading of the film’s sexuality. While Tarantino’s overloaded monologue in Sleep With Me is golden manna for an ex-literary major like myself, his elaborate…
Popular reviews
More-
Bo Burnham: Inside 2021
Jean-Luc Godard once famously said that “all you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun.”
Bo Burnham just upped the ante, proving that all you really need is a single human being confined inside a single room—and maybe a caustic sock puppet, too.
-
Sound of Metal 2019
Fu#!. As a once broke touring musician, this film hit hard. Really hard.
And the sound design is straight up impeccable.
