Forever I have tried to find a delicate balance in understanding how a film can be philosophical in nature without being pretentious. How can a film be philosophical without it trying to hard? How can philosophy be found in everyday activities of our characters? In that regard, I very dearly feel Hal Ashby is the American counterpart to French Eric Rohmer.

There are probably tons of essays one can find about Yojimbo, Kurosawa’s masterpiece which has been remade and adapted so many times in so many ways and in so many languages. Among all the other things, there is one thing that caught my eye more than anything else when I watched Yojimbo. Spatial Awareness.

The genius of Satoshi Kon really hit me when I saw the first two scenes of Millennium Actress. It is not only a lesson in editing but also in storytelling. I can easily say that it is easily of those moments of cinema for me, which made me skip a heartbeat. “The You in You isn’t the You You think is You,” - Satoshi Kon

As you read the title of these three films together, can you find what is common to all three of these movies? They are all structured very differently narrative wise. The styles of directors of all these three films differ greatly, so what is it that binds these three films together, and what can we collectively learn by studying these three films?

It’s a trick as old as Ancient Greek theater and if used effectively builds tension and empathy. It is used in both Oedipus and Disney's Beauty & the Beast and Sopranos and Mad Men. So, what is dramatic irony? Is it a tool or a way of telling the story, is it an end or a means to an end?

Upon my first viewing of 2018’s German masterpiece Never Look Away, I found something that this movie does so well and most movies miss or perhaps do not pay much attention to. I’ve always been enthusiastic about watching movies which show artist at work. Yet all those movies missed the most important thing. The Artist’s Voice.

What caught my eye about Netflix’s The Platform was the choice of objects that each character chose to bring with them for their stay in the Kafka-esque prison labeled as “Vertical Self-Management Center”. Let’s talk about five of those objects and what they represent about the characters that chose them.

So, Season 5 of Better Call Saul ended and I am dying to talk about the filmmaking skills of Saul Goodman. One of the quirks that I always liked about Jimmy McGill a.k.a Saul Goodman is that he is in love with movies. There is always a routine with his love interest and confidante Kim Wexler, where they sit down almost on a daily basis and watch movies. I don’t know anyone else with a regular job, who has watched movies of so much variety.

The current generation is obsessed with perfection. How many times have we heard people say “Oh, I’m a perfectionist.” Next time someone says that to you, ask them, “You are a perfectionist to what extent?” Theodore Sturgeon said 90% of Everything is Crap!

If I ask you, how would you categorize Guy Ritchie’s films? Are they humorous? Are they comical? Are they witty? They do certainly have that charm of British comedy but it is still difficult for me to categorize Guy Ritchie’s work as any of the three – humor, comical, or witty. But again, what I can’t do, Mark Twain certainly can.

If a movie can end well, it can lift you up in ways more than one. Even an ending that is tragic can lift you up because if done right, it is cathartic. A lot of people may debate that Eastwood may not be counted as an Auteur but I can make a pretty good case that he indeed is an auteur of highest order. But let’s talk about what’s perfect about the ending of A Perfect World.

In one of his most hopeful works, Percy Bysshe Shelley, gave winters and spring a new meaning – he wrote, “If winter comes, can SPRING be far behind?” Little did he know that 198 years later after writing this piece of poetry, a Korean band by the name of BTS will forever re-ignite the emotions of winter and thus SPRING in their song SPRING DAY.

As much I hate to categorize auteurs, it ultimately is inevitable. Two basic types for starters: the writer-director or the photographer-director. Auteurs are of both types, after all. To make it simpler – Ingmar Bergman: Writer-Director, Andrei Tarkovsky: Photographer-Director. Fogelman falls in the writer-director category.

Childhood in Loneliness or Loneliness in Childhood. Do both these mean the same? Loss is an emotion most of us experience first in our childhood, no matter the loneliness. Billy Casper learns about loss through Kes.

There have been great movies, and great opening shots in the history of cinema. If you were to recount the top 10 opening sequences in the history of cinema, I am sure the opening scene of Iklimler will never feature as nothing worthwhile is ever accomplished by these vain top 10 lists. Yet, this scene in Iklimler is what is so poetic about cinema as an Art form.

One of the best movies that I saw last year was Pietro Marcello’s Martin Eden based on the classic of the same name by Jack London. It was an Italian movie from start to finish. If you do not know that the movie is based on a classic written almost 115 yrs ago by an American, you will never realize that it has any hint of American-ness in it.

It was around 4 years back when I discovered Le Premier Homme, the unfinished auto-biographical novel by Albert Camus. It was the same time when I had to watch Gianni Amelio's movie based on the same text. Il Primo Uomo or Le Premier Homme or The First Man is a study of rhythm of editing, and length of framing and pacing in filmmaking.

There have been a lot of movies about the forbidden love, so to speak. And yet, Peter Weir’s Witness brings our two protagonists Harrison Ford’s John Book and Kelly McGillis’ Rachel Lapp together in a manner that is so nuanced and so subtle whilst being believable.

The Premise – simple. The characters – basic. The dilemma – complex. Enough Said is a movie that is more about saying and less about talking. What we say when we don’t talk. The essence of human relationships in the movie are expressed in a nuanced way through hiding the intentions and dilemma with the words left unsaid. For any auteur this is an Art worth mastering.

When I started watching movies, it was not because I wanted to make them. Such is the case everything that you want to do in life, you don’t start doing it because you want to earn a living through it, you do it because doing it movies something inside you. Personally, watching 1 movie a day would give me too less learning, and watching 3 movies a day would hinder my learning.