Remembering Michael Cimino’s Masterpiece, ‘The Deer Hunter’
Sean MurphyImagine this: Michael Cimino, fresh off five Academy Awards (including Best Picture and Best Director) and the next big “thing” fails to complete the filming of Heaven’s Gate (1980) and…
The American Dream in Stasis: Another Look at ‘Five Easy Pieces’
McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest; Jake Gittes in Chinatown; Jack “Here’s Johnny!” Torrance in The Shining—these aren’t just characters from famous movies, they are permanent fixtures of…
Akira Kurosawa’s ‘Dreams’: A Late Masterpiece from The Master
Understanding that Dreams was among the last films Akira Kurosawa made inexorably adds a regal and elegiac air to the proceedings. The fact that the work is semi-autobiographical (based on…
Ten Songs For Myself
Eight years ago today. I'm sure anyone who has lost a parent (or heaven forbid, a child) can understand that when this happens it becomes a line of demarcation: your…
1973: The Things They Carried
From NYT: On March 29, 1973, the last United States troops left South Vietnam, ending America's direct military involvement in the Vietnam War. I can't recall the last time I watched…