Tag: Artists

  • Film Composer Spotlight: Thomas Newman

    Film Composer Spotlight: Thomas Newman

    As iconic as the opening musical blasts of every Star Wars film are, the 20th Century Fox fanfare that (until recently) precedes it is arguably just as iconic. The composer of that tune was the inadvertent patriarch film music’s first and only dynasty: Alfred Newman. The Newman name can be spotted everywhere in the Music…

  • Mother!

    Mother!

    Darren Aronofsky’s Mother! abounds with religious metaphors as well as social commentary via cryptic symbolism impossible to definitively decipher. A mishmash of surreal imagery combines with increasingly compounding absurdity that drives our extremely visceral experience and nearly plot-less depiction of a woman’s gradual psychological unraveling as she struggles to restore her idyllic rustic house after…

  • Poll: Should an Artist’s Sins Affect the Reception of Their Art?

    Poll: Should an Artist’s Sins Affect the Reception of Their Art?

    Art is sacred, but artists are human. The rich poetry of the Psalms has inspired readers for thousands of years, while being written by an adulterer and a murderer. Filmmakers Woody Allen and Roman Polanski have made masterpieces, while being accused of heinous acts in their personal lives. Bill Cosby made one of the most…

  • Synecdoche, New York

    Synecdoche, New York

    The act of creation, if we are truly image bearers of the Divine, is deeply imprinted on our very being. Few films explore the consuming, and neurotic compulsion that is the creative process as deeply (and terrifyingly) as Synecdoche, New York. The 2002 Charlie Kaufman movie follows Caden Cotard, one of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s most…

  • Dead Poets Society

    Dead Poets Society

    Poets, like prophets, are said to be guided by a muse, in some cases THE muse. In Ireland it was thought that poets, especially the great poets, folk healers, and others with knowledge beyond that of the common world were taken by the trouping faeries for seven years only to return gifted in their own…

  • The Machinery of Grading Movies

    The Machinery of Grading Movies

    “‘You don’t get the point,’ he wanted to explain; ‘the picture you see doesn’t consist of the things you see and say words about. There is something else, something you don’t see at all, something you aren’t intended to see. Look at this one over here, by the door here, where the light from the…

  • 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…

  • Birdman

    Birdman

    With Oscar season is in full swing, it’s time to look back at 2014’s best picture winner: Birdman. Join us as we discuss why Birdman is a perfect film, the value of critics, and the plight of the artist.

  • Prelude to a Kiss

    Prelude to a Kiss

    It’s been a decade since I graduated from film school, so maybe I’m forgetting, but I don’t remember studying the opening shot of Prelude to a Kiss. Yet it calls to be studied, much like the common basilisk lizard. You know, the one that walks on water. The camera begins by gazing at an upside-down…

  • A Postmodern Guide to Absolute Truth

    A Postmodern Guide to Absolute Truth

    A few weeks ago, I had a revelation. Age of Ultron just hit theaters as I hit the road for a friend’s wedding, and I found myself discussing the film with some Christians outside my normal circle. Excitedly, I shared my take on the similarities between superhero movies and the Gospel, and why I thought…