Notes from the sketch book

Eastwood, fresh from his Leone collaborations, was already a force to be reckoned with, but with this his second directorial effort, it was a clear assertion of his artistic independence. He wasn’t content to merely inhabit the stoic, laconic cowboy; he wanted to shape the entire landscape. He wanted to mold the narrative to his own unsettling vision. The script was written by Ernest Tidyman, the man behind The French Connection, was already a dark brooding affair. Eastwood, ever the revisionist, injected it with his own brand of moral ambiguity. The stark, wind-scoured terrain of High Plains Drifter offered Eastwood...

As we settle into 2025, the cinematic landscape, as always, presents a curious mix of the predictable and the potentially surprising. One can already sense the familiar churn of franchises attempting to reignite past glories, alongside a smattering of originals hoping to cut through the noise. It’s a landscape where the sheer volume of content often threatens to overwhelm any genuine spark of artistry, leaving one to wonder if we’re not simply treading water. Marvel movies, franchises and I.P have been the go to in the last decade. There’s a creeping sense of sameness to it all, a feeling that...

This art collection is an examination of the Western genre, specifically focusing on Clint Eastwood's transition from television actor to cinematic icon. The series intends to analyze Eastwood's evolution, tracing his rise to prominence through Sergio Leone's "Dollars Trilogy," films that redefined the Western's visual and narrative language. The intention is to observe, assess, and produce artistic interpretations inspired by these films, ultimately culminating in a study of Eastwood's role in the deconstruction of the Western archetype. However, the series initial point of departure is not Leone's work, but Akira Kurosawa's "Yojimbo." This choice underscores the acknowledgement that cinematic influence...

Bong Joon-ho, ever the master of the sleight-of-hand genre, takes on deep-space survival in Mickey 17, a film that wants to be a high-concept meditation on identity, a satire of corporate-megachurch futurism, and a doomed romance all at once. It's the kind of ambition you almost want to applaud, until the pieces start bumping into each other like lost satellites. Robert Pattinson plays Mickey, so down on his luck he's signed up to be a human guinea pig – or rather, a human printer cartridge . Die, get reprinted, repeat. It's a premise ripe with the kind of dark irony...

I am sitting outside having just finished a sketch in pastel, on a sunny day, thankful and reflective. The last surviving Battle of Britain pilot, has passed away at the age of 105. His story, a testament to resilience and unwavering courage. The sky, once a canvas of roaring engines and desperate maneuvers, now holds a different sort of silence. John "Paddy" Hemingway, the last of that fabled 'Few', has taken his final flight, not into the smoky chaos of wartime skies, but into the quietude of a well-lived century. He was, in a way, a living film reel, a...