The way that we hear the “news” was never strange to me until I read Amusing Ourselves to […]
film
The opening scene of Pieces of a Woman (2020; Netflix) is like the Free Solo of recent dramas. […]
End-of-year, best-of film lists are some of the best evidence that people do not—and, probably, cannot—simply choose the […]
I have seen movies where I am happy about what happens, but the movie itself is a bad […]
Life has a way of taking apart all the pieces of your enchanted world and refusing to put […]
What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the word “heaven,” or the words […]
La promesse (1997; on the Criterion Channel or for rent on Amazon Prime), written and directed by the […]
By Tim Winterstein –
There are only so many explanations for evil. Think of every single thriller/murder/crime book, show, or film you’ve ever read or seen. I don’t care how long it takes to get to the answer or how many twists there are before the detective solves the crime; you can count the number of motives on one hand.
A lot of movies are pitched as “redemption” stories. A person is caught in a web of his […]
As we watch political parties and candidates and pundits maneuver for power, we should be reminded that having […]
In 1985, one year after the year in which the all-encompassing State of Orwell is set, Terry Gilliam released Brazil (on the Criterion Channel until October 31 or for rent on Amazon Prime). It is all the dread and paranoia of Nineteen Eighty-four superimposed with the absurdity of Monty Python. The world of Brazil is ridiculous and absurd. There are large air ducts running through even the nicest houses, and small ducts and tubes everywhere. Everything depends on the ant-like bustle of transferring paperwork from one bin to another, and from that department to this. The Ministry’s SWAT-like apparatus is always ready to execute some arrest order or another, making the next of kin sign receipts, in duplicate at least.
In a pure coincidence, I followed Three Christs with another movie about who, really, is the delusional person. […]
It is the grandest of delusions: to believe oneself to be Jesus Christ. In the middle of the […]
In the days of high dudgeon prior to a presidential election, with numbers and claims and promises flowing […]
You know how people’s favorite albums depend in large part on when the person encountered the band or […]
I noticed it in Sleepless in Seattle: an incredible Baltimore church (Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church) that […]
One of the enduring difficulties in depicting on the screen the internal life of a character is that […]
My to-watch list on Letterboxd is currently sitting at 140 films. I have a strange relationship with films […]
If I can’t listen to Flannery O’Connor herself reading her stories, all I ask is for an audio version of Mary Steenburgen reading her stories, as she does throughout the new documentary Flannery (2019; playing now in virtual theaters).
The Great War changed irretrievably the expected trajectory of the West. It seemed possible at one time to […]