Love & Cinema: A Review of Day for Night

The opening five minutes of Day for Night alone are so densely packed with filmmaking minutiae that it might inflict a migraine upon the unsuspecting viewer. But anyone who has ever toyed with the idea of becoming a filmmaker – even for a second – should seek out Day for Night as soon as possible. The film explicitly illustrates the complexity of the process of filmmaking and the madness of the industry to which it belongs. But at the same time it’s not cynical or jaded enough to discourage budding filmmakers, a quality that channels the infectious spirit of the French New Wave film movement which found Truffaut and other rabid cinephiles taking to the streets and making their films by any means necessary.

Click here to read my entire review at Not Coming to a Theater Near You

L'amour fou: DVD Review of Shall We Kiss?

"Shall We Kiss?, a subdued romantic comedy from France, asks the question, is there such a thing as a kiss without consequence? It’s a question for the ages, one that’s been addressed implicitly throughout the years in countless tales of infidelity and explicitly in films like Fisher Stevens’ little-seen Just a Kiss. Shall We Kiss? mulls over the issue for nearly all of its 102-minutes, at first with levity, later with solemn reproach."

Click here to read my DVD review at PopMatters

Breathless: A review of Le Deuxieme Souffle

"Silence pervades most of the action in Le Deuxième souffle, a French gangster film where music is used sparingly and characters are reticent (it takes seven minutes for us to receive the first line of dialogue). Director Jean-Pierre Melville aspires to create organic suspense sequences where character movement is precious and the camera is respectfully observational – and boy, does it work. The film contains a much revered heist sequence where the anticipation plays out with realistic and unbearable intensity."

Click here to read my DVD review at PopMatters