We go to the movies to experience something new. Extraordinary. Meaningful. Moving. Whether it's drama or comedy or horror or sci-fi, we want to watch something *transcendent.* A work of art that feels so outside of ourselves yet illuminates and helps us to recognize universal truths about life. What a fantastic world we live in that such myriad beauty exists—and what an injustice we've done to so many films that contain it.
To be frank: movie lovers have become boring.…
I was left absolutely stunned at the end of this movie. I assumed I would like it for the grisly death scenes alone, and was hopeful that it could elevate into more esteemed territory—but my god. Terrifier 2 is an unequivocal triumph in horror. The genre is wonderful in its ability to defamiliarize the darkest truths of life, to engage the most sinister demons that plague our very core. Terrifier 2 presents a familiar feeling: one of inescapable anguish. The…
After watching so many bad movies in the month of October, it was a revelation to watch a classic like Suspiria. My god, what a force this film is. So many movies are painfully open about their ideas, speaking their thoughts as opposed to visually exploring them through their characters. This is not a problem with Suspiria, which is essentially the haunted house version of a movie. Like a haunted house, you know it’s all fake—but that doesn’t stop you…
For me, the aim of any film is to achieve catharsis—an apex where the ideas reach their climax, an ether where the characters find ultimate absolution or conviction or retribution. Catharsis doesn’t have to be positive. But it should be soaring, transcendent, revealing. The point is to reflect existence back onto the viewer, to show what we’re capable of when pushed to the brink. In Midsommar…the catharsis is nonexistent. It’s not even tepid or unclear. The ending, the entire film…
Cinema is a beautiful medium that allows stories to visually explore universal truths of life, the struggles we all face as human beings. A lonely journey through space symbolizes the grieving process for Ryan as she copes with the loss of her daughter in Gravity. The alien invasion in The World’s End challenges Gary’s notion of life-fulfillment and forces him to grow up. The grand interweaving dream-within-a-dream of Mulholland Drive represents the pressures of Hollywood and the consequences it can…
If you'd like to read my complete breakdown of Mulholland Drive, check out my article here! filmcolossus.com/mulholland-drive-explanation
But in short: Mulholland Drive is unlike anything else. David Lynch fully realized the offbeat, surreal aesthetic he had been developing since his early short films with this Hollywood story about fiction vs. reality. What do we see when we look at ourselves? At the world around us? And what happens when we venture too far away from what's real? And how do…
