“The rich, detailed array of characters in Jerry Maguire really serves to highlight one thing, or rather one person. As the opening sequence neatly demonstrates, the utter insignificance of one man in the vast, unknowable world translates into his total significance in his own head.”

“With its simple plot and ‘normal’ characters, the film is driven by its use of negative space and psychological threats, most obviously in the unrelenting, invisible, unknowable entity. The fear of the unknown, and more importantly the question of whether the threat is real at all, is driven home by plot elements which should be mundane rather than supernatural: the central element of sex, the Detroit setting, anachronistic household items.”

“How does a film which opens with the protagonist putting a dog in a trash compactor and then racially harassing a neighbor turn into a romcom with an 85% on Rotten Tomatoes? Jack Nicholson. That's how.”

“The inherent contradiction at the heart of the Piaf in the film- a vulnerable, charismatic, childlike mirage of personas- renders her as unknowable to herself as to her audiences.”

“Midnight Express established Stone’s characteristic mode of controversial, lurid storytelling about real world events — a style sometimes described as ‘unflinching’ in a time before provocation became the ubiquitous currency of social narrative.”

“Like all good ‘content’, He’s All That is peddling not a story but numbness, using two familiar, comforting triggers for the Netflix-native generation: disdain and nostalgia. The bland acting, the insipid plot, the cringeworthy Frito-pushing all are calibrated for the Gen-Z viewer blasting themselves with content from three-odd screens at once, without fully engaging with any of them.”