Every year, the Australian-based online quarterly, Senses of Cinema, invites writers from all over the globe to submit their selections for the best movies of the year. My top 10 is relatively familiar at this point, but the sheer breadth … Continue reading SENSES OF CINEMA: 2023 World Cinema Poll
I love lists. Lists bring order to my day: what to do, what to watch, what to read, what to listen to. Lists provide context to larger themes and suss out tiny commonalities. The lists I author, be they for … Continue reading 2023: Now and Then
It’s the most common question you get as a film critic: “What’s good?” Variants include: “What do you like?” “What excites you?” “What should I see?” And if you’ve asked me any one of those in the past two months, … Continue reading Perfect Days: Previewing the 2023 Denver Film Festival
When Jose Bergoglio was elected pope in 2013, it was the first time a Jesuit held the position, the first time a priest from the Americas was elected, and the first non-European to serve as the bishop of Rome since … Continue reading POPE FRANCIS: A MAN OF HIS WORD
Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man abroad and at home. Sing to me his story as a wanderer and a traveler, armed with a camera to photograph the inner, the outer and the eternal. Sing to me … Continue reading Unlocking the Artistry of Wim Wenders
In the beginning I just wanted to make movies, but with the passage of time the journey itself was no longer the goal, but what you find at the end. Now, I make films to discover something I didn’t know, … Continue reading Born On This Day — August 14, 1945
Originality now is rare in the cinema and it isn’t worth striving for because most work that does this is egocentric and pretentious. What is most enjoyable about the cinema is simply working with a language that is classical in … Continue reading In Their Words — Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Ninety-five per cent of films are born of frustration, of self-despair, of ambition for survival, for money, for fattening bank accounts. Five per cent, maybe less, are made because a man has an idea, an idea which he must express. … Continue reading In Their Words — Thursday, July 4, 2013
In the beginning I just wanted to make movies, but with the passage of time the journey itself was no longer the goal, but what you find at the end. Now, I make films to discover something I didn’t know, very much … Continue reading In Their Words — Friday, January 25, 2013
Michael J. Cinema 