Author: Brian Cooper

  • Netflix and Chill

    Netflix and Chill

    Several months ago Buzzfeed came out with a “literal video” of sorts, the topic Netflix and Chill — a synonym for fooling around. It is hard to say what the exact relationship is between streaming movies and/or television, relaxing (what else would you be doing?), and coitus (or lesser sexual acts). This sort of behavior…

  • Prometheus

    Prometheus

    This year Ridley Scott has been receiving praise for his direction of The Martian; last year he was the center of Biblical controversy with his adaptation of Exodus: Gods and Kings, but one thing remains constant in his work (whether it be Blade Runner or GI Jane), he is asking serious questions. And not just…

  • The End of the Tour

    The End of the Tour

    Biopics are tricky things… then again The End of the Tour is not exactly that; it is not not one either, but it teeters. The biggest divergence is from the sort of hindsight we are provided with in films like Ray, or Walk the Line in which each step of the subject’s life sets them…

  • In the Name of the Father

    In the Name of the Father

    If you were to drive by one of my family’s gatherings you could look into the dirt driveway and see, affixed to several bumpers, a sticker that reads: “England Get Out of Ireland.” Although we have quite a bit of Irish Catholic blood in our veins, there is also a significant amount of English in…

  • More Than Images: The Power of a Film’s Score

    More Than Images: The Power of a Film’s Score

    Prior to diving into this essay, I feel a need to quantify and qualify the topic. First, I am not a musical expert. My knowledge is limited to having played trumpet in grade school, and messing around with a bass guitar for most of the time period following the end of my trumpeting days. Also,…

  • Babette’s Feast

    Babette’s Feast

    Babette’s Feast is the 1987 masterpiece by Gabriel Axel. Masterpiece, in this case, is the warranted term. The film is beautiful. Not just the cinematography — the sparse landscapes, and constant grays and blues that create an intensely happy sort of melancholy — not just the acting, or the script, or any particular aspect. They…

  • Adaptation

    Adaptation

    Deadlines. Creativity. Beauty. Truth. None of these are grammatically correct sentences. I can tell because of the green squiggling line underneath that short section in my Word document. The importance is the emphasis of separating these words from the traditional Subject-Verb-Object structure and leaving them to stand alone as complete ideas. This hints at something…