Author: Francis Co

I recently watched Goodfellas for the third…and final time, not because I intend to retire to eremitism, join a cult or end my life soon, but—to see how it held up. Seeing it first in 2004 while a twenty-year-old, English-as-a-second language twit enamored with mob flicks centered around New Yawk, big-city, third-world, streetwise culture; and,…

As has become customary of late, the sound mixing in Nolan’s much anticipated, much delayed film was a topic of contention, and though intentional, it seriously interfered with desired immersion. Decrypting whose desire it was optimized for—the audience’s or Nolan’s—just may yield the most succinct review possible. I could go one further and declare it…

In just a third of their output, the tapestry of locales and personas from vast walks of life in the Coen brothers’ cinematic universe reads more like an illustrated road atlas of the US than disparate stories. After just six films—Blood Simple, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, No Country for Old Men, Burn After Reading, and…

Sitting through The Witch, and long after it finished, I grappled with my reaction hoping to articulate it into a verdict, weeding out customary knee-jerk biases only for resignation to eventually set in. A second viewing was in order. Although it was one more borne out of pure enjoyment, rather than a needy reassurance, for…

While accurate, to dismiss Jonathan Glazer’s unorthodox alien sci-fi as enigmatic is a simplistic exercise in reductionism, but it is also the easiest to do. Though tangential, comparisons to 2001: A Space Odyssey were inevitable, they would prove only insofar as creative intent. What Kubrick sought to ask would ultimately eclipse what his epic attempted…