Today — Saturday, June 9, 2018 — I cried on the basement floor of the Stanford Bookstore. I was there to pick up my cap and gown. At the cash register, a sudden realization flashed through my head: I was standing in the exact same spot where I met my first Stanford friend back in 2013.
It’s a question I get all the time: “So what are your favorite movies?” Here, finally, is an answer. My idea was that the list could be some neat number, like 100. Turns out that, for me, such a reduction is nigh-impossible. Instead, I’ve opted to go through my film diary and pick out which films have pierced me the most. These are…
A strong new short film by Bella Levaggi ’18 and Spencer Slovic ’18 debuted last night at Roble Arts Gym. “The Ocean & The Avenue,” quite subtly well done, is an imaginative and unflashy 20 minutes that uncovers a glimmer of life’s beauty — the reason for breathing. As a trigger warning, I should caution that it…
In this week’s Recs from the Vault, I look back at the best films I saw in theaters during my four years at Stanford. Whether new films or old ones, these were the movie experiences that impacted me the most. In all of these cases, I wrote extensive reviews. What I present here are mini…
In this week’s Recs from the Vault (a weekly column of some old reviews I’ve written about films that I’ve loved during my time here at Stanford), we take a look at three emotional juggernauts. They’re all available to watch at the Media and Microtext Center in Green Library. The first is best seen on a hot…
This week’s “Recs from the Vault” — capsule reviews of films I’ve loved during my time here at Stanford — we take a look at two little-known thrillers from 1968, a true-crime story that shocked the nation of Mexico, and a delirious rock musical from the Who and Ken Russell. For last week’s “Recs from…
Nearing the end of my senior year (tear), I take time to reflect on the movies that have most shaped who I am as a person. This quarter, I’ll be starting a weekly column called “Recs from the Vault.”
Wes Anderson’s “Isle of Dogs” is cute, but not cutesy. This clean and cold-blooded animated feature, Wes’s second after “Fantastic Mr. Fox” (2009), does not drive dog lovers to the edge of cheap tears à la “Marley and Me.” Anderson avoids the common trap, partly, by frontloading his work with endless groan-worthy puns. From its title (isle of dogs…
