By Tim Winterstein – Any piece of art can age in essentially two ways. Whether it’s a book […]
film
By Tim Winterstein – [CONTAINS SPOILERS] Every year, there are certain themes that stand out from the films […]
By Tim Winterstein – By the time you read this, I’ll be at the 20th Annual Newport Beach […]
By Tim Winterstein – Today is a day for the silence of God. Through all the false accusations, […]
By Tim Winterstein – How do filmmakers do the kind of thing that makes a movie great? No […]
By Tim Winterstein – I took my two younger children (9 and 7) to see Apollo 11 this […]
By Tim Winterstein – One thing you notice about Hirokazu Kore-eda’s debut as a director of a feature […]
By Tim Winterstein – “What is truth?” Pilate asked Jesus when Jesus said that those who are of […]
By Tim Winterstein – “And you may find yourself/Living in a shotgun shack And you may find yourself/In […]
By Tim Winterstein – If you have never read (or heard of) Olov Hartman’s Holy Masquerade, it’s a […]
By Tim Winterstein – There are not many movies that depict the Christian life with any sort of […]
By Tim Winterstein – [SPOILERS] Velvet Buzzsaw (streaming on Netflix) is the latest example of how Netflix is […]
By Tim Winterstein – Puns abound in the 2015 documentary Finders Keepers (streaming on Netflix). The title is […]
By Tim Winterstein –
There’s nothing quite as uncomfortable as watching someone who does awkward well. In comedy, consider both Steve Carell’s Michael Scott and Ricky Gervais’ David Brent on both the American and English versions of The Office. But Jim Cummings could teach a master class on dramatic and (within the world of the film) unintentional awkwardness—that is, he does teach a master class in his first full-length, Thunder Road (available for rent or purchase on iTunes or Amazon).
By Tim Winterstein –
I pretty much knew what I was going to get when I turned on Beautiful Boy. I didn’t know if it would be good as a film or not (although I was looking forward to seeing Steve Carell in a serious role—though sometimes I had trouble not letting his The Office persona bleed into his role here, particularly when he’s angry). I think, generally speaking, films about addiction have focused on either the addict’s point of view or the mother’s. I don’t know if I can think of another one where the father is at the center of the story.
By Tim Winterstein –
Watching a screen is more or less a passive activity, regardless of the film or show. And whether it’s on the “more” side or the “less” side, watching can fulfill various purposes. I’m a fan of escapism at certain times. When my brain has been engaged throughout the day and under various stressors, I prefer something that will simply entertain with as little mental energy expended as possible. At other times, I want something that will expand the way I think about things and make me put together the pieces—which, admittedly, are being distributed to me.
By Tim Winterstein –
[SPOILERS]
I don’t know if the current cultural moment is producing a thematic bounty of what it means to deal with pain and guilt or if it was always equally present. Either way, the idea of what to do with guilt we can’t erase—because we can’t go back and undo it—seems to run through a lot of the films and shows that I’ve written about here. Or maybe those are just the themes that are most fertile for theological reflection, especially when they’re being explored by those who most likely wouldn’t give the answers that Christians would give.
By Tim Winterstein –
A couple years ago at the Newport Beach Film Festival, when my brother said I needed to watch a film called California Typewriter, I laughed. I didn’t care about typewriters; I certainly didn’t want to watch a whole movie about them. Maybe you would share that reaction. What could possibly be so interesting about an obsolete machine that would appeal to more than a few collectors and those who feed off nostalgia for obscurities? And that nostalgia itself might be limited, since those who grew up learning to type on typewriters might have been happy to move on to word processors and computers, happy to leave behind correction fluid and replacement ink ribbons.
By Tim Winterstein –
The Haunting of Hill House is probably the most philosophical ghost story you’ll ever watch—except for maybe A Ghost Story, but that one is not scary. Hill House (10 episodes, streaming on Netflix) definitely has its share of cover-your-eyes moments and horror commonplaces. But, as with the best of them, those elements are just a device to deliver something far more important than jump scares. The layers of the show (and of the House) are multiple and heavy.
By Tim Winterstein –
So I’ve just seen my favorite movie of the year. I’m not taking credit for noticing this, though. That goes to my friend Nick, who recommended to me Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far On Foot. Maybe we just agree that Joaquin Phoenix plays all the parts from now on, eh? (Except maybe Jesus in the upcoming Mary Magdalene. I’ll withhold judgment for now.) He is brilliant, and the rest of the cast is nearly perfect. I barely recognized Jonah Hill. Jack Black does Jack Black. And this might be the first movie I’ve seen where Rooney Mara is happy at the end.