Reporting from the Denver Film Festival. With a nod to the writings of James Baldwin, Skinner Myers’ The Sleeping Negro consists of two conversations about race and revolution punctuated by a call to action and the dramatic rendering of theoretical decisions. In … Continue reading THE SLEEPING NEGRO
Reporting from the Denver Film Festival. At first blush, Paris, 13th District appears to be a collection of short stories. It starts with Camille (Makita Samba) meeting Émilie (Lucie Zhang). He is looking for a room to rent, and she is looking … Continue reading PARIS, 13TH DISTRICT (LES OLYMPIADES)
Reporting from the Denver Film Festival. When it comes to cinematic landscapes, few are as iconic—or at least as mined—as Monument Valley. Located in northern Arizona, home to the Navajo Nation, Monument Valley was placed in the geography of cinema … Continue reading THE TAKING
Reporting from the Denver Film Festival. Rysûke Hamaguchi’s cinematic adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s short story, “Drive My Car,” opens with another Murakami short story, also taken from the collections Men Without Women. The story is “Scheherazade,” about a social worker’s weekly … Continue reading DRIVE MY CAR (ドライブ・マイ・カー)
Somewhere deep in the Oregonian woods, a creature lurks. The origins of the beast are not known, though a retired sheriff suspects it to be ancient and long-dormant. Why it decided to show up in 2019 is anybody’s guess, but … Continue reading ANTLERS
Eloise (Thomasin McKenzie) lives for the 1960s. The clothes she wears, the music she listens to, even the movie posters on her bedroom wall scream Swingin’ Sixties. That’s when style mattered, when London was the center of the universe, and … Continue reading LAST NIGHT IN SOHO
1984’s Dune is a mess. Universal Pictures released it, Dino De Laurentiis produced it, and David Lynch directed it based on Frank Herbert’s 1965 sci-fi novel. It was supposed to be a mega-hit, a blockbuster to rival Star Wars with multiple installments. But it … Continue reading DUNE
Wes Anderson’s cinematic style did not appear fully formed. It took a few movies over five years before Anderson locked in on formal compositions, planimetric framing, cuts along the 90-degree axis, diorama-esque interiors, Richard Scarry-like landscapes, idiosyncratic dialogue, peculiar characters, … Continue reading THE FRENCH DISPATCH
The spice exists on only one planet in the entire universe: A desolate, dry planet with vast deserts. Hidden away within the rocks of these deserts are a people known as the Fremen, who have long held a prophecy that … Continue reading DUNE: PART ONE
Michael J. Cinema 
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