“I Think It’s Weird”: Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza

|Steven Rybin| 15-year-old Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman), a teenage actor and budding entrepreneur, lives with his mom Anita (Mary Elizabeth Ellis) and younger brother Greg (Milo Herschlag) in the San Fernando Valley during the long summer of 1973. Whether it’s waterbeds or… Continue reading

TraditionVision: Ozu’s Exploration of the Multi-Generational Adjustment to TV

|Dan Howard| In this day in age, television is just as common and almost essential to our daily lives as food or nature. Sometimes, it feels like it’s just always been around, but in fact, the first concept of what would ultimately become television, Facsimile Transmissions, was introduced… Continue reading

A Youthquake for Yakuza: Coming of Age in Sailor Suit and Machine Gun

Pulp-style Illustration of characters from the film, Izumi, Makoto, and Fatso, along with the title in Japanese, bold yellow font.

|Jake Rudegeair| “Coming of age” always struck me as a flat phrase for something so bumpy, so relentless. It doesn’t really illustrate that slow erosion of our bodies and souls as we’re worn down by the slings and arrows of experience, cruelly and carelessly reformed over and over… Continue reading