Bringing Legacy to Light: WINDOWS Through a Widened Scope

The world of voyeurism in film has been traditionally a heteronormative slanted space for parasocial perversion dominated by men both behind and in front of the camera, from Hitchockian foundational staples like REAR WINDOW to dePalma’s erotic successors and everything inbetween. The intrigue teased by Hitchock would enjoy a full sexualized renaissance after the collapse […]

Loud and Queer: Why THELMA AND LOUISE Is a Well-Rounded, Foundational Paradigm of Orientation and Identity

Love can be tacit — loud yet implicit, a silent understanding so potent it warrants no verbalization. A swirling amalgam of all its many emotional components that envelops the heart like a tempestuous twister. Strength is not measured in expression, but in feeling. All too often the power of implication is abandoned in favor of […]

Expressionistic Intent in the Face of Subjectivity: Why Haywire Sets a Precedent for the Biopic Quandary

There exists a thin and ambiguous threshold within the narrative realms of any communicative conduit where emotional experience can easily be exploited as fact — where defining influences execute a punitive coup de grace to manipulate and malign. The integral austerity often essential to documentaries is often entirely abandoned in the adjacent genre of the […]

Detachment Conflict: On FIVE EASY PIECES

The emotional turmoil that FIVE EASY PIECES inflicted is precisely what endeared it to me — a film that challenges our morals and tests our empathy to places often beyond our understanding. Setting and landscape become a two-factor allegory for character and tone: the hardened rock exterior, gritty and crude; the labor and volatility involved […]

BEYOND THE SORDID SOIREE: ON ‘CRIMES OF PASSION’ & THE INTERSECTION OF SEX AND SOCIETY

Sex is far too often presented as reductive surface sensationalism, a buoying excuse to indulge in objectifying hedonism — where dignity is somewhat spared under the guise of “art” and “film” rather than “porn,” a perpetuating agent of the sociological shame with which we equate it. Seldom do we stop to consider the possibilities of […]

Sex, Strategy, & Lawrence Kasdan’s BODY HEAT

Sex, like anything else in film, can be a welcomed addition or gratuitous fodder — and in saying this I’d like to clearly mark myself an outlier from either side in regards to the incessant cyclical discourse that unrelentingly perpetuates cinematic discourse far and wide. I find excess of any kind — be it sex, […]

A MARQUEE ON MASCULINITY: Y TU MAMÁ TAMBIÉN & WITHNAIL AND I

I’m a firm believer that cinema is best experienced in grandiose fashion. It’s a privilege I’ve relentlessly reaped since moving to Los Angeles, where showings of all sorts are abundant and varied. On the big screen, minute details rise and tower like mountains in staggering revelation, a feat made possible by the immaculate flicker of […]

WILD AT HEART: Lynch’s Cinematic Zeitgeist

WILD AT HEART is the American Dream ablaze in hot pink, an enchanting compendium of cinematic parables where EASY RIDER meets THE WIZARD OF OZ. It scorches through the tenuous fibers of illusory chimera with great effect, capturing exhaustion and disillusionment as poignantly as it does ardent ambition. Escapist adventure decays into desperate survival for […]

SWING SHIFT: A HOMAGE TO HOMOSEXUALITY

I want to preface this by confessing I have yet to watch the final theatrical version of SWING SHIFT, so everything stated here-in will strictly pertain to the elusive Demme cut, which was made graciously accessible to me by a cherished friend. I do intend to double-back in the near future to consume and compare […]

Sympathy, Stigma, and A BILL OF DIVORCEMENT

There’s something deeply cerebral and timeless about A BILL OF DIVORCEMENT and the way it philosophizes the societal stigma behind mental illness. Many are quick to dismiss it as dated and regressive — an unfair appraisal, particularly given its resonance when recontextualized to better reflect contemporary circumstance. Yes, we no longer colloquially toss around the […]

NotoriouslyNora

Cinema, poetry, music, and beyond.