We all judge films before we see them, it’s why we have movie trailers. They give us an idea of whether or not we want to spend our hard earned cash on seeing a film. But at the end of the day, even after being bombarded by advertising, you never really know until you go. You can’t be sure until you are sitting in that darkened theater watching the film. In the past few weeks there seems to be a lot of uproar over two films in particular. People were rushing to pass judgment on these films even before they were released to the public. This seems more like a plan to taint the films rather than have an actual discussion about them; to give us the viewer a preconceived notion on what the film might be saying before it even has a chance to say it. It turns out that both of these pictures are not just controversial, they’re also two of the year’s best.   

Continue reading →

Every once in awhile I come across one of those lists of “100 Films You Need To See Before You Die.” I always peruse it, making sure that if I were in fact hit by a bus tomorrow, I at least died with the knowledge that I finally saw the complete un-cut version of Erich von Stroheim’s Greed.  Rather than going on great adventures, like any good cinephile my bucket list is mostly filled with films. And yes, I am ashamed and will eventually get around to seeing La Dolce Vita. The point is that these lists recently got me thinking about a different subject, albeit one still dealing with death. The morbid question I want to know the answer to is: What film would you want to watch as you were dying?

Continue reading →