This All Started with Bambi…

As a toddler, I got dragged out of our local movie theater hysterically crying during *that* scene. No spoilers. Honestly, I would’ve dragged myself out too.

For an entire year, I sobbed anytime we so much as drove past my hometown cinema, which was conveniently located in the center of town.

When my parents dared bring me back inside a theater, it was for The Black Stallion and… that snake on the beach? Cue the waterworks all over again.

So, it’s a miracle I ever ended up a cinephile.

I may not throw tantrums during public screenings anymore (private ones, maybe…), but I still take movies incredibly personally.

… And the Word Pregnant

I rediscovered film as an eight-year-old during a hurricane, sheltered in place on a stormy afternoon with my very first Hitchcock on VHS. It was at that atmospherically pivotal moment that I realized cinema wasn’t just entertainment—it was a portal.

Over the years that followed, I got an after-school job at a mom-and-pop video store (RIP), wrote a few sprawling film treatises for elective college credit, and eventually landed at The Criterion Collection during the twilight of LaserDisc and the dawn of DVD—just before transitioning to the West Coast and the world of tech.

But back when I started that very first side gig, my mom shared a peculiar memory from her own youth: a Sunday homily in which the priest warned her congregation about a dangerous new movie, The Moon Is Blue. The Catholic Legion of Decency had rated it “C” for Condemned, he gravely declared—and the act of watching it was considered a mortal sin. A one-way ticket to eternal damnation.

What was so scandalous? Someone said the word “pregnant.” (And maybe “virgin,” just not in reference to Mary.)

That grandiose liturgical prophecy always stuck with her as funny. The patronizing absurdity of it stuck with me.

In hindsight, maybe that’s when SINephile’s fuse was first lit.

So now? I’ve reclaimed that dusty old “C for Condemned,” and repurposed it as Canonized—a rank of honor, rather than a mark of shame.

Through it all, movies never stayed in the background—they’ve been bloodsport, roadmap, and religion. Sometimes all at once.

This is where I write about film the only way I know how: with obsession, irreverence, and a slightly dangerous amount of structure.

New here? Start with my Welcome Post.

The Inside Read

This isn’t a weekly diary of whatever I just happened to watch.

It’s something closer to a syllabus with a sense of humor.

You’ll find:

• Longform reviews and essays that dig into tone, history, and meaning—and still (hopefully) make you laugh. They’re accompanied by the soundtrack, if you wish, and scored according to the SINemeter, with DEFCON levels tracking their existential threat to movie theaters.

• Split Screen: Deeply unhinged double features that prove how two seemingly incomparable movies are secretly twisted siblings in disguise. You’ll never unsee it.

• Crash Courses in genre, subgenre, and stagecraft—from the French New Wave to Erotic Thrillers to Production Design.

• Ctrl+Alt+Decode: The occasional detour into awards absurdity, restoration drama, or that one elusive ‘90s indie that made you rethink your sexuality, your family, or maybe just your haircut.

• Cinema DEFCON: A tongue-in-cheek threat level index for the vanishing theatrical window—because how we watch matters almost as much as what we watch.

So, it’s highbrow meets lowbrow meets deeply opinionated shade.

The Mission

1. To make serious film criticism a little less self-serious

2. Give overlooked films a proper close-up

3. Remind people that loving both Showgirls and Sátántangó doesn’t make you a hypocrite—it makes you honest

4. Treat taste as something earned, not inherited

If you’re the kind of person who lingers through the end credits, listens to directors’ commentaries like they’re true crime, or occasionally yells “the theatrical cut was better!”, I promise you’ll find something here worth reading, possibly sharing—and maybe even applauding.

The Echelons of Judgement

(…and Why You Shouldn’t Take the Points Too Seriously)

While I’ve migrated away from traditional star ratings toward something a little more playful—and decidedly on-brand—here’s a key to understanding how SINemeter rankings roughly translate.

This is my measuring stick.

And those random "+ 3" and "- 1" points you’ll often spot at the bottom of my reviews? Totally unserious.

They're just a playful little nod to the things movies hilariously get right (or wrong)—a little bonus reel for anyone who sticks around through the end credits.

For a more in-depth breakdown on Cinema DEFCON levels and how they get assigned separately from ratings, read all about them over here instead.

In short:
Ratings are serious. Points are just for fun.
(And DEFCON’s a little bit of both.)

Happy you’re here!

SINephile reviews and the newsletter are free—always have been, always will be.

But this site runs on reader support. If something here made you laugh, think, or maybe even mentally recast the next adaptation of Cats, I hope you’ll stick around.

A paid option—with an enhanced ability to help shape SINephile—is coming soon. If you'd like to be one of the first supporters, I’d be honored.

Entirely optional, but deeply appreciated.

The full constellation of SINephile’s socials lives just off-site—

Including Letterboxd, Instagram, Bluesky, Pinterest, and the bunker where we monitor Nicole Kidman’s AMC pre-roll like it’s NORAD.

👉 sinephile.carrd.co