Writing On Film
I’ve had the opportunity to contribute several pieces of film criticism to Chorus.fm, and some reviews on my Letterboxd page have been circulated widely as well. Links and several excerpts are below.
"[Moonlight] is so deeply personal, so much about how... aspects of identity manifest in one person alongside so many others facets of being, and then how interconnected that is with the entirety of the human experience. By being so specific on Chiron, by celebrating his story so empathetically, Moonlight becomes a triumph on a massive scale from the first second of its runtime."
"This is a beautiful piece of writing about our movie." -Kumail Nanjiani, co-writer/star of the Big Sick talking about my piece on his film.
"It's not unlike being in a trance, except it still engages the mind as we, like [Adam] Driver’s Paterson, take in the information we are presented with and work through it to come to the thoughts and conclusions we come to. It brings an awareness to every step we take after we see the film, it is profound how close to home many of the aspects of Paterson are"
"Perfectly composed cinematography mesmerizes and illuminates every second of the runtime. An early frame features a shot with a woman and a man both getting dressed in different rooms, divided by a wall. We see them both, doing essentially the same thing, but they’re separated, going through it differently. They look like they’re in different worlds, because they are. There’s a fantastic visual sequence where the man is on a bed, pulling on the last of his clothes. A woman’s foot enters from below to gently touch his back. Some dialogue is exchanged, there’s a cut to a different perspective. When cutting back to that same frame, the man leaves, and a woman’s face is now present in a mirror on the wall. Sitting in the theater, eyes on the screen, I don’t remember if she was there before. The effect is beautiful."