-
The Sundance Film Festival 2021
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, film festivals have grappled with the same questions facing many businesses and non-profits. Chiefly, how do they keep the money pouring in? We’ve seen many film studios largely switch to streaming platforms, allowing consumers unlimited access to their curated library of content for a monthly fee. Film festivals…
-
Hold the Dark
When critics of all stripes – film, TV, video games, music – write about art that is hard to pin down aesthetically, you’ll often see them use a specific word: dreamlike. Nightmarish if it skews darker. Dreams are an especially apt grounding point for movies because of the way they’re both constructed. There’s a separation…
-
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
Grief happens on a spectrum between two poles. At one extreme, painful memories and raw emotions are stuffed deep inside and buried under layer after layer of thick callous. Any twinge of sadness that manages to work its way through is quickly strangled, along with whatever part of our humanity it attached itself to. On…
-
Apologia for Malick
Not that Terrence Malick needs a defense, but it seems that he has taken some heat from the forum of critics (including some of our own) as of late. This is understandable; Malick films tend to move against the grain of traditional narrative and shooting style. Anything we are unaccustomed to or unacquainted with, that…
-
Song to Song
Chances are high that you haven’t seen Terrence Malick’s new film Song to Song. Few people have. It’s only grossed $421,856 since opening in limited release a month ago. The critical reception has been equally poor. Things weren’t always this way for Malick. Six years ago, he released The Tree of Life to universal acclaim…
-
A Walk in the Woods
Two of my wife and my best friends are inveterate hikers/backpackers. Despite being our age (that is, old), hardly a day goes by without their taking a several mile walk in the country, and often off-road. Of course, they live in the back country of Virginia’s mountains which makes these travels more accessible. Still, their…
