Essays and reflections on movies, their impact and influence, and the people who created them.
The bad news: the novel coronavirus has disrupted life as we know it, and will for the next couple months. But, you’ve gone to the store, you’ve stocked up for the long haul, you’ve washed your hands, and you’re social … Continue reading Streaming Cat Blues
In addition to the praise and accolades each year’s Oscar nominations bring, there’s a fair amount of teeth-gnashing and viewers crying foul. A stupid movie got too much. Another didn’t get enough. My favorite didn’t get anything. On and on … Continue reading Cinema on the Shorter Side: 2020 Oscar Nominated Short Films
On Monday, Jan. 13, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences announced their nominations for this year’s Oscars. Out of the 53 movies nominated, Joker leads the pack with 11 nominations. The Irishman and Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood … Continue reading Oscars 2020
When François Truffaut penned his revolutionary essay, “A Certain Tendency in French Cinema,” the up-and-coming critic laid waste to what he saw as a national tradition of quality: A stultifying funeral procession of moviemaking that could barely keep up with … Continue reading MY JOURNEY THROUGH FRENCH CINEMA
No matter how corrupt, greedy, and heartless our government, our corporations, our media, and our religious and charitable institutions may become, the music will still be wonderful. Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country One of the best scenes in … Continue reading 2019: Something To Do With Death
Who is Frank talking to? That was the question posed as a group of us exited The Irishman. One was a film programmer, the other four: film professors—the fixating kind. But the question was valid. Who is Frank Sheeran (Robert De … Continue reading THE IRISHMAN
For some, equality is a game of mathematics: Clinical, sterile, and dull. But, high up in the Rocky Mountains at the Telluride Film Festival, equality breathes and moves. Here, women dream film, think film, make film, and talk film. And … Continue reading Women Make Film: Dispatches from the 2019 Telluride Film Festival
There are two moments in 2019’s Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood that take your breath away. The first is visual: A series of neon signs flickering on in the setting Los Angeles sun on Friday, Aug. 8, 1969. The second takes … Continue reading ONCE UPON A TIME…IN HOLLYWOOD and YESTERDAY
To see a Studio Ghibli film is to believe: In wonder, in magic, in childhood imagination, and, most importantly, in the capacity for human compassion. And what could we use more right now than a little compassion? Thankfully, GKIDS and … Continue reading Studio Ghibli Fest 2019
Michael J. Cinema 
You must be logged in to post a comment.