In general, we are people who have cared little for beauty as spectacle. It takes a good deal of persuading to make us go look at a sunset…We like our beauty to be inherent in our way of life, not something we must make a special trip for…The beauty glimpsed between bursts of the labor that justified our joy in it was the beauty that … Continue reading Beauty As Spectacle
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
Titanic disasters and perfect storms aside, it’s actually pretty hard to sink a boat. This was a pleasant surprise for my brother Sean and I when a strong gust of wind blew down our mast so violently that the metal beam punctured a hole through the bottom of our sailboat one afternoon in the summer of 2013. Although the cockpit filled with water, soaking our … Continue reading Sinking The Green Light
“Who baked off those scones? They’re dark.” “That was me, sorry. I left them in there longer so they’d get some color.” “Yeeaah, you gotta get those out sooner or they’ll go hard as soon as they cool.” The opening rush had died down, and Pat and Laura were refilling the display case with the scones I’d baked earlier that morning. In my periphery, Pat … Continue reading On Baking and Being Human
Imagine, for a moment, what it would be like to peer through the world’s first telescope, observing in detail the chasms on the surface of the moon. The light from the sun, striking the moon at an angle, produces crescents around every crater and jagged lines around every facet of the topography. Focusing on any one particular area of the moon only reveals more and … Continue reading The Wander-Stricken Medium: Bridging the Gap Between the Liberal Arts and Film
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
Woody Harrelson might be the best contemporary actor at playing an alcoholic. Naomi Watts and Brie Larson star alongside Harrelson in The Glass Castle, the third feature film (and first under a major studio) from writer/director Destin Daniel Cretton. With so much talent and so many resources, a film like this shouldn’t go wrong. It does. Harrelson plays Rex Walls, husband and father of four. … Continue reading The Glass Castle—2.5/5 stars
Hillsdale Forum 