Yep, finally did it! I think the most cliché thing someone could possibly write at this point is, "Gee, so much ink has been spilt about this movie. What else is there to say that hasn't already been said to death?" Ok fine, then let me tell you about MY personal experience watching this.

I was intimidated to watch what has long been touted as the Greatest Movie Ever Made. I'm still a young viewer in terms of engaging with…

Hadn't seen in over a decade, holds up beautifully and then some. This was Shantel's first time watching and she enjoyed it quite much.

I could use the cliche of "What more is there to say?", but I think anybody reflecting on their relationship to a movie should enjoy the exercise of writing about what it means to you now vs back then. As an adult in my later 20s, watching this now makes the communal solidarity hit a lot…

Had to end the year with a Bergman!
And what better way to end a confusing, turbulent year than an art piece about the fracturing of identity and the cinema experience itself with the reels literally catching flames and melting.

I started really eating this up when we arrived at the story that the nurse tells which had me audibly going, "Huh?! What!?". Like, that kind of dialogue does not get put into a 2023/2024 release made here in America…

Most of us have no idea what we’re doing, but we plunge headfirst into a series of decision making that comes to define who we are and it’s both the beauty and terror that The Graduate makes palpable for such an endeavor. The aimless Ben does respond to his post grad restlessness by having an affair with his older neighbor and also trying to woo her daughter later in the film because his programming and social conditioning have convinced him…

An odd trip this one was, a journey film of a man swimming back to his house via a series of pools in his county. But what’s really going on is a psychic exploration of this man’s misplaced nostalgia and longing for a simpler time in a new era that has moved on past its use for his mindset. What I think this captures to strong effect is the way in which this idealized prosperity he keeps happening upon is…

The recurring thought I kept having was “oh, they really don’t make them like this anymore at all.”. But then again, did they ever make them quite like this even then? This is gritty economy of filmmaking in the highest order. We don’t see much of the inner lives that occupy the screen, but the little that we do we don’t envy (even the wealthy druglord and the pushers). This drops you right into the world and is so visually…

(wrote a little blurb for this in my foreign film class)

This was a unique watch! From its first frame, the structure is laid out before our eyes in which we are watching the assembly of a movie from behind the scenes. We very quickly pick up on how much of movie magic relies on practical decision making and the inherent artifice that exists behind the camera. And yet, somehow, the very effort of portraying the inner mechanics lends itself…

arguably the most hangout movie of marty's career and reminded me just how good he is with the character beats as he is the overall form. lots of deep reds, slow motion establishing shots, and bangers from the soundtrack; all of which provide a mood and feel that is unclean and dangerous. as aimless as it might seem, the impression i was given was one of neo-realism where he might as well have picked up his camera and started directing…