REVIEW: Lost Highway [1997]

“I like to remember things my own way” POSSIBLE SPOILERS Every cinephile has a moment when “the movies” became more than entertainment. Mine was David Lynch‘s Lost Highway. It was my first foray into the auteur’s catalog—a viewing that occurred three or four years after its initial release courtesy of a rented VHS cassette tape. My experience with film as an art form had progressed beyond usual action or comedy reprieves from real life challenges, but no indie drama yet seen had quite the same unparalleled effect in its dementedly…

Read More

REVIEW: Dakota [2012]

“You find a way to afford the horse” Writer/director Ami Canaan Mann‘s WIGS network three-part series Dakota has the potential to be an intriguing gender reversal for the subject of high stakes poker. One generally thinks Rounders, The Sting, House of Games or many other male-centric vehicles when it comes to players putting it all on the line for a quick score in the best of times and a reprieve from a loan shark’s brutality in the worst. Poker films use women as distractions, schemers, and accomplices. So, listening to…

Read More