Howl (2010)

When I first read Howl back at university, it filled me with an incredible need to rise up and raise my fist to the Man, defy the establishment, defy the conformity, defy the convention.

I wanted to talk about it in a non-academic environment with people of my age, over a few drinks, in a dingy dive bar ...

What can you say? I was a hopeless romantic. An idealist dreaming of a university experience that I only read about in books, where I can meet an Andre Breton. In many ways I still am.

My university life consisted of drinking Red Bull vodkas and going to terrible night clubs, celebrating our youthful energy. I hated it then. I hate it today.

That's why the first few minutes of Howl brought back an imagined reality that I never lived. I felt like an old man, yearning for a youth I never had - I'm 28.

127 Hours (2010)

A colleague recently expressed to me his disdain for 127 Hours, lamenting the time he spent watching a movie in which he believes nothing actually happens. “It’s boring. There’s no story. The guy gets stuck. The guy gets out. I already know what happens. There’s already a book. Why should I watch the movie?”


I was dumbfounded. The very essence of my understanding of this man – my respect for him as a fellow cinephile, based on countless hours of discussion and debate of everything from Exit Through the Gift Shop to Grownups - was destroyed. Why would you watch the movie? Why SHOULDN’T you watch the movie?