“We are a wandering people, even now that we have a dwelling place; as human beings, we are never fully at home; ultimately nothing belongs to us, we are always on the move. And for that very reason, everything we have we share, and we belong to one another.” —Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger Cardinal Ratzinger writes the above words in a reflection on Holy Thursday, capturing … Continue reading On Space and Grace
How far do the bonds of love go? What makes a monster? What makes a man? These are some questions that Guilleromo Del Toro’s sprawling fantasy-fairytale The Shape of Water seeks to ponder. Aside from being a visual treat, the film is an emotive, layered social commentary on the nature of man that will pull on the heartstrings. If Del Toro is a master of … Continue reading The Shape of Water
Within the first two minutes of this film, director Kogonada knocks you off your feet with his commitment to symmetry. The visual symmetry in each shot mirrors a dramatic parallelism drawn between the lives of two people struggling to break free from the past. Casey is a recent high school grad and architecture enthusiast who has forgone going to college in order to take care … Continue reading Columbus
Lady Bird simply sings. It is a triumph—an era-defining coming of age story in the same vein as The Graduate, The Breakfast Club, and The Garden State—that is sure to have a similar impact on those who grew up in the early 2000s. While being wholly novel and refreshing in its approach, Greta Gerwig’s coming-of-age debut seems so well-known, so personal, and so honest that … Continue reading Lady Bird
All work stops at The Washington Post when everyone feels the whole building lurch and groan. The press is running. Steven Spielberg’s The Post recounts the story of The Washington Post, at that point a small, family owned newspaper, crashing onto the public scene as the editors attempt to publish classified White House documents on the Vietnam War. The paper owner, Katherine Graham (Meryl Streep), … Continue reading The Post
How does one make poetry in film? Paterson, Jim Jarmusch’s most recent film, takes on this issue by taking on the poetic style of William Carlos Williams and Wallace Stevens, presenting, through the film form, reality breaking in through the prosaic rhythm of life. The film follows Paterson, a poetry-writing bus driver played by Adam Driver, and his loving relationship with his wife, Laura. Unlike … Continue reading Paterson
65,000 frames, 853 oil paintings, and 90 design paintings all come together into 1 hour and 35 minutes of exploration into the mind of Vincent van Gogh. Set approximately one year after the unexpected death of Van Gogh, Loving Vincent, directed by Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman, follows the path of Armand Roulin (Douglas Booth), a model for several of Van Gogh’s portraits, as he … Continue reading Loving Vincent
Tom Cruise is known for doing his own stunts, but for American Made, he also learned to fly. Based off true events from the 1980’s, American Made tells the story of Barry Seal (Cruise), a commercial pilot, husband, father, and adrenaline junkie who simply cannot content himself with anything safe. After becoming bored with his job, Seal begins smuggling drugs in his airbus cockpit across … Continue reading American Made
Marvel continues to domineer the super-hero movie market with this year’s autumn release, “Thor: Ragnarok.” Since Anthony and Joe Russo’s treacherous “Captain America: Civil War,” Marvel fans have itched to learn the fate of that movie’s missing characters, Thor and the Hulk. This movie satisfies those super-cravings. “Ragnarok” kicks off humorously and, like most other Marvel movies, that humor reemerges throughout the plot (think Captain … Continue reading Thor: Ragnarok
A woman devours an entire pie in a five-minute sequence that is divided by only a single cut. A deceased man lies on a hospital bed, a white sheet covering his corpse. The shot lingers for thirty seconds, the camera static and the frame unchanging, until the body sits up, the sheet still draped over his figure. He turns his head. Where his eyes would … Continue reading A Ghost Story—4.5/5 Stars
Hillsdale Forum 