Dan Hoffman

On the most basic level, movies simply ask for a type of attentiveness that is hard to muster if you’re depressed. Cerebral films tend to have a lot of silences and moments where the spectator is encouraged to reflect on the images. That’s fine, but when you’re depressed, the only reflecting you’ll be doing is on various sad thoughts and anxieties floating around in your head.

I happened upon Requiem for a Dream at the local video store, and I’m pretty sure I was filled with tears by the end. It was so damn sad the way heroin fucked up all the characters lives, and the editing seemed so awesome. The score by the Kronos Quartet really tugged my heart strings. But now, looking back, what an overwrought, over-indulgent, over-stylized piece of shit that movie is.

His earliest appearance on the first season of Family Matters in 1989 was supposed to be a one-time cameo, but his performance was a hit, and he became the true star of the show. I recall as a child not even remembering that Family Matters was called Family Matters; I just told my parents that I wanted to watch “the Steve Urkel show.”

Child celebrities are notorious for disappointing us once they become adults. But the following actresses have not only remained successful (with the exception of Molly Ringwald), but have also appeared nude in film and/or print!

In describing the Blow Up, you can use words like “alienation.” It is based on a short story of the same name by Julio Cortázar, an author who smart people read. The final scene, a mimed tennis match, goes down as one of the best in cinema history.

I thought that it was kind of a cliché to be so into it – some of the other students who had seen it even told me that – but I realized that even if that was so, Breathless was still resonating with young audiences, and there was something about it that distinguished it from other landmark films. So why Breathless? Why is it one of the key films in cinematic history? Why is it so fascinating for critics but equally so for average intellectually-minded audiences? What mark has it left?