-
If Beale Street Could Talk
Barry Jenkins and Damien Chazelle both directed Oscar-nominated movies this year. The last time that happened was in 2017 when Chazelle’s La La Land was mistakenly announced as the Best Picture winner only to be supplanted by the true Best Picture winner — Jenkins’ Moonlight. The debacle was a distraction from what should have been…
-
Soundtracks: The New Music of Religion
-
The Shape of Water
You’d be forgiven for writing off Guillermo del Toro as just another genre director. Entries like Hellboy, Blade Runner II, Pacific Rim, and Crimson Peak fit neatly in that vein. But if you really want to uncover del Toro’s heart, look no further than 2006’s Pan’s Labyrinth. The film has been described as an “adult…
-
The Trouble with Angels
-
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…
-
The Miracle Woman
As an average American high school student, in addition to being tested on what I could remember, I was tested on what I would become. There were personality tests, aptitude tests, career tests; all sorts of fraudulent fortune telling, wherein I provided information and the test provided speculation. The results were consistent: I should be…
-
War for the Planet of the Apes
This summer has been holding out on us. Over the past month, we’ve seen the rise of a lasso-wielding warrior, the ongoing drama of transforming cars, and the return of a web-swinging hero. With all of these big blockbusters practically coming back to back, a film would need to be unique in order to survive. War…
-
Oil, Blood, and Daniel Plainview’s Journey to Isolation
There’s a moment in Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2007 epic There Will Be Blood where Daniel Plainview abandons control. The moments are sparse throughout the film, and one could even argue there aren’t any. But among the posturing and work and struggle, only once does Daniel Plainview betray his intentions in life, in work, in oil.…
-
A Few Thoughts On Using the Force
I’d like to open the comments of this article to anyone who wishes to confess that they’ve tried to use the Force. Maybe you haven’t found yourself up-side-down like Luke Skywalker, lifting rocks up and gently moving them through the air. Perhaps you’ve never been able to rearrange the furniture in your living room while…
