I guess you could say the low point arrived on March 27, 2022, with the broadcast of the 94th Academy Awards. No, the “slap heard ’round the world” wasn’t it—though that cast a pall over the proceedings, didn’t it?—but the … Continue reading Cinema 101
A jitterbug contest. Hot rods drag race on a mountain road. A violent car crash. A woman wanders the Hollywood Hills with a head injury. A man recounts a dream of meeting a monster living behind a diner dumpster. A film … Continue reading MULHOLLAND DRIVE
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
The story of cinema is the story of excitement. One of the first movies projected was of a train pulling into a station. The directors placed the camera on the edge of the platform, making it look like the train … Continue reading Home Viewing: Slow Cinema
If the whole of 2017 could be summed up in one cinematic moment, then that moment would not be found in the cinema but on TVs, tablets, laptops, and phones. And it would not be a moment of illuminating comprehension, … Continue reading 2017: ‘What year is this?’
Mentor, painter, and sailor, Bushnell Keeler, originated the idea but when David Lynch got ahold of it, the art life went from aspiration to execution: “You drink coffee, you smoke cigarettes, you paint, and that is it. Maybe girls come … Continue reading DAVID LYNCH: THE ART LIFE
It’s better not to know so much about what things mean or how they might be interpreted or you’ll be too afraid to let things keep happening. Psychology destroys the mystery, this kind of magic quality. It can be reduced … Continue reading Born On This Day — January 20, 1946
I always say Fellini inspired me. I love being in Fellini’s worlds. And Billy Wilder and Stanley Kubrick and Alfred Hitchcock. To revisit those certain films and go in that world is just—It’s a world that didn’t exist and now it exists. … Continue reading In Their Words — Monday, January 21, 2013
When you go to a mystery film and they tie it all up at the end—to me, that’s a real letdown. In a mystery, somehow in the middle it’s all opened up, and you can go out to infinity trying … Continue reading In Their Words — Saturday, January 12, 2013
Michael J. Cinema 
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