My first experience with Sofia Coppola was when I was about 15 or 16 I think, when I rented The Virgin Suicides. When the film was first in theaters I was really into Josh Hartnett, and I remember being on the 8th grade trip to the Hilton in Reno and seeing that it was playing at the casino’s theater, but because the film was rated R and I was only 13 at the time I couldn’t go see it. Then I forgot about the film for a few years before renting it. I remember thinking it was one of the darkest films I’d seen at that point and also one of the films with the strongest point-of-view from its director. Since then I’ve kind of had a love/hate relationship with Coppola. Regardless, she has maintained her strong point-of-view in all of her films. I’ve yet to see her most recent film, Somewhere, but it has received wide-critical praise so far, including winning the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival over the weekend, becoming the first American woman to win it.

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