Tag: Essay

Marty

“You don’t like her. My mother don’t like her. She’s a dog. And I’m a fat, ugly man. Well, all I know is I had a good time last night. I’m gonna have a good time tonight. If we have enough good times together, I’m gonna get down on my knees. I’m gonna beg that… Continue reading Marty

How Green Was My Valley

“Everything I ever learnt as a small boy came from my father, and I never found anything he ever told me to be wrong or worthless. The simple lessons he taught me are as sharp and clear in my mind as if I had heard them only yesterday.” Nominated for the 1941 Academy Award for… Continue reading How Green Was My Valley

Mutiny on the Bounty

“Discipline’s the thing. A seaman’s a seaman, a captain’s a captain. And a midshipman is the lowest form of animal life in the British navy.” Twelve films were nominated for the Outstanding Production Academy Award of 1935. Aside from the eventual winner, Frank Lloyd’s Mutiny on the Bounty, which was produced by MGM, five other titles… Continue reading Mutiny on the Bounty

Monsters, Inc.

“You filled your quota on the first kid of the day.” Take 1: Again, Monsters, Inc. genuinely enchants me with its story of male work/life partners that yearn to adopt a baby they can’t make on their own. Take 2: All hail Pixar, through which our entertainment-overlords produce the “feels” somewhere in Emeryville, California. Now ubiquitous with… Continue reading Monsters, Inc.

You Can’t Take It With You

“As near as I can see, the only thing you can take with you is the love of your friends.“ Frank Capra is the epitome of New Deal-era Hollywood. A longtime Columbia Pictures contract employee, his movies are built upon the harsh material realities of the times but equally buoyed with a mixture of optimism, ingenuity,… Continue reading You Can’t Take It With You

Cimarron

“In 1889, President Harrison opened the vast Indian Oklahoma Lands for white settlement.” Described as being, “Terrific As All Creation”, Cimarron is a slight movie important only for having won the 4th Academy Award for Best Production, a title since re-named Best Picture. Now almost unwatchable, save for its sweeping vistas and set design, the movie’s empire building… Continue reading Cimarron

Eraserhead

“I’ve seen this neighborhood change from pastures to the hellhole it is now! “ From The Elephant Man (1980), his most mainstream movie, through Blue Velvet (1986), his most celebrated film, with less-known works like Wild at Heart (1990), The Straight Story (1999), and Inland Empire (2006); and from the studio flop Dune (1984) through a foray into television, Twin Peaks (1990-1991, 2017), I find David Lynch’s work difficult to… Continue reading Eraserhead

Cavalcade

“How very impolite of the twentieth century to wake up the children.“ Noel Coward’s successful, London-set play “Cavalcade” (1931) was adapted for the big screen and won of the 6th Academy Award for Outstanding Production. Hailed as, “A love that suffered and rose triumphant above the crushing events of this modern age! The march of time… Continue reading Cavalcade

Grand Hotel

“And what do you do in the Grand Hotel? Eat. Sleep. Loaf around. Flirt a little, dance a little. A hundred doors leading to one hall. No one knows anything about the person next to them. And when you leave, someone occupies your room, lies in your bed.” “People come. People go. Nothing ever happens,”… Continue reading Grand Hotel

All Quiet on the Western Front

“When it comes to dying for your country, it’s better not to die at all.” American cinematic depictions of war have run the gamut from patriotic and wide-eyed national chauvinism to harsh self-criticism over the value of conquest. There have also been considerable efforts to imagine wars and military crises in other countries, and certainly… Continue reading All Quiet on the Western Front

Wings

“Life marched at double-quick in those feverish days of ’17.” It’s hard to consider artifacts from an earlier time. Not only is there a need to establish context, there is an equal need to evaluate what’s discovered on its own merits as well as in regard to the present. Tagged as, “The Drama of the… Continue reading Wings

The Outlaw Josey Wales

Take 1: “I always heard there were three kinds of suns in Kansas: sunshine, sunflowers, and sons-of-bitches.” Take 2: The Outlaw Josey Wales presents a bicentennial celebration as secessionist apology. Take 3: From “The Hi-Lo Bro Show” podcast: “This is the one where Richard recalls Bleeding Kansas, Garrett professes man-love for Clint, and revisionism is… Continue reading The Outlaw Josey Wales

300: Rise of an Empire

“Better we show them, we chose to die on our feet, rather than live on our knees!” I like 300. I’ve seen it many times and afterwards I often want to get in a fight (and win, naturally). I’ve even taught 300 as an example of good screenwriting, as a depiction of masculine anxiety, and as a showcase… Continue reading 300: Rise of an Empire

Jaws

Imagine the pitch meeting: three men hunt a shark with a belly full of boy. Jaws!  Peter Benchley was born into an upper-class family and the Ivy League. Upon graduating he became a journalist and contributed to various newspapers and magazines, National Geographic among them. With an affinity for the ocean, one of his assignments about sharks particularly… Continue reading Jaws

In the Heat of the Night

Take 1: In the Heat of the Night spends time looking at a racist lawn jockey, considers the value of non-medical abortion, and holds court for Sidney Poitier’s, “They call me Mr. Tibbs.” It’s an Oscar winner that does its job, one tidy sequence of great screen acting after another. Take 2: To understand how and… Continue reading In the Heat of the Night

Amour

“I started to tell him the story of the movie, and as I did, all the emotion came back. I didn’t want to cry in front of the boy, but it was impossible; there I was, crying out loud in the courtyard, and I told him the whole drama to the bitter end.” Carol J.… Continue reading Amour

78/52: Hitchcock’s Shower Scene

“78 Shots & 52 Cuts that Changed Cinema Forever” Film studies is reducible to several main approaches: aesthetic-technical, theoretical-ideological, self-reflective, socio-cultural, and/or obscurantist-celebratory.[1] In all five approaches, the point is expressing pleasure, for if a person doesn’t feel drawn to thinking about movies, there is no reason for any film studies project. But if a person… Continue reading 78/52: Hitchcock’s Shower Scene

Eighth Grade and Mid90s

“Congratulations, superlative winners!” “A lot of the time we feel that our lives are the worst, but I think that if you looked in anybody else’s closet, you wouldn’t trade your shit for their shit. So let’s go.” Take 1: Any honest adult remembers middle school as an awkward phase organized around avoiding embarrassment. With… Continue reading Eighth Grade and Mid90s

Surviving Home

Surviving (adjective): remaining alive, especially after the death of another or others Home (noun): 1- the place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family; 2- an institution for people needing professional care; 3-  the goal or end point; 4- the place where a player is free from attack; 5- a game on… Continue reading Surviving Home

Who Framed Roger Rabbit

“I’m not bad. I’m just drawn that way.” Robert Zemeckis’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit landed in the summer of 1988 and re-focused American pop culture on live actors performing alongside animated characters. Ancillary markets did double-time, pushing toys and apparel off shelves and racks, and the “how’d they do that?” vibe helped shift entertainment reportage towards technical… Continue reading Who Framed Roger Rabbit

To Live and Die in L.A.

“We’re going this way.” I like a movie where I see a man’s penis. Call it reflexive homoeroticism, but I interpret the gesture as an affront to standard taste, and I like it. When we see William Petersen’s penis in William Friedkin’s To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), it is the most necessary equipment imaginable in… Continue reading To Live and Die in L.A.

Sans Soleil

“Who said that time heals all wounds? It would be better to say that time heals everything – except wounds.” French filmmaker Chris Marker experimented widely across his 60+ year career, most often as an essayist. The reason this term of art fits is that his body of work, including shorts, features, books, and installations,… Continue reading Sans Soleil

Raging Bull

“So give me a stage / Where this bull here can rage / And though I could fight / I’d much rather recite / That’s entertainment.“ The reputation of Raging Bull, Martin Scorsese’s masterpiece from 1980, is hard to oversell or adequately describe. Critics from around the world regularly claim the movie’s status atop “best of”… Continue reading Raging Bull

Quest for Fire

“Fire was a symbol of power and a means of survival. The tribe who possessed fire, possessed life.” In the early 1980s there was an uptick in films focused on pre-historic humans. The sources of this fascination were several, but Stanley Kubrick’s 2,001: A Space Odyssey (1968) is surely part of the conversation since it contains “The… Continue reading Quest for Fire

Grave of the Fireflies

“All this child needs is some food.” It’s not often that children star in movies. When they do, they often succeed; they almost never die. In Isao Takahata’s Grave of the Fireflies (1988) these rules are upended in the adaptation of a short story called “Grave of the Fireflies,” written by Akiyuki Nosaka and published in 1967.… Continue reading Grave of the Fireflies

Cinema Paradiso

“Whatever you end up doing, love it.” Giuseppe Tornatore’s Cinema Paradiso (1988) is simply exquisite. A film lovers valentine to other film lovers, rendered with period detail and a lavishly sentimental score by the father-son team of Ennio and Andrea Morricone, the chaptered plot expresses pivotal moments in the life of Salvatore Di Vita, played as six-year… Continue reading Cinema Paradiso

Fast Times at Ridgemont High

“My grades aren’t that bad and you’re telling me the fun is over. Man, I’m still waiting for the fun to start!” Iconic is an overused modifier that means standing-in for something absent. When we claim a movie is iconic, which is the case with Amy Heckerling’s 1982 fantasy Fast Times at Ridgemont High, the point… Continue reading Fast Times at Ridgemont High

Hollywood Shuffle

“There’s always work at the post office.” When Key & Peele left the air in 2015 after a four-season run, there were arguments in some circles about whether it was a cleaned-up version of Chappelle’s Show (2003-2006). Partisans were quick to point out the “friendlier” nature of Jordan Peele and Keegan-Michael Key, each of whom presents a gentler presence… Continue reading Hollywood Shuffle

Monsoon Wedding

“These are my children, and I will protect them from myself even if I have to.” Mira Nair is a terrific filmmaker. Her work straddles documentary and fiction storytelling, and she’s a true international citizen with experience living and working in multiple countries that have helped her establish a truly open and curious point-of-view.  Her… Continue reading Monsoon Wedding

Gosford Park

“What gift do you think a good servant has that separates them from the others? It’s the gift of anticipation.” It’s hard to warm up to Robert Altman’s movies, but it’s easy to be terribly impressed. Long-known for building texture—the consequence of using large casts, building scenes with overlapping dialogue, moving his camera to re-frame… Continue reading Gosford Park

Winged Migration

“The story of bird migration is the story of promise – a promise to return.” It’s difficult to overstate the scale of the natural world. This planet is big; the oceans cover most of the world’s surface area; we are but a speck among teaming millions of living species, competing with one another for water… Continue reading Winged Migration

The Others

“Sometimes the world of the living gets mixed up with the world of the dead.” A quality horror movie makes you feel bad-good. The mounting dread threatening on-screen characters increases our anticipation of whatever frights may yet be in store for us, and this worry lets us get hit in the feels.  Conventional wisdom also… Continue reading The Others

Training Day

“You gotta control your smiles and cries, because that’s all you have and nobody can take that away from you.” Antoine Fuqua’s Training Day (2001) is Denzel Washington’s Best Actor Oscar audition tape, but it’s really the story of a White boy who can’t stray from championing corny old-fashioned virtues like honesty and justice. Jake Hoyt (Ethan… Continue reading Training Day

A Beautiful Mind

“I’ve gotten used to ignoring them and I think, as a result, they’ve kind of given up on me. I think that’s what it’s like with all our dreams and our nightmares.” Ron Howard’s Best Picture Oscar winner for 2001, A Beautiful Mind, features rich costume and set design, convincing make-up effects, and a too-good-to-be-untrue central story… Continue reading A Beautiful Mind

Y Tu Mama Tambien

“The greatest pleasure is giving pleasure.” It’s sometimes quite difficult to translate the success of one creative medium into another. In reality-derived creative media there are also limits to what parts of reality we will look at and listen to. Should we really stare at suffering? Are bodily functions worth our time? Is human intimacy… Continue reading Y Tu Mama Tambien

Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner

“A film. A people. A legend.” Imagine seeing and hearing these hot button items in a single movie: full-frontal male nudity, extramarital sex, polygamy, rape, animal and child abuse, murder, frequent urination, and walrus heart tartare. Then combine these subjects with a presentation of modern Canada’s ancient aboriginal people and let the whole thing run… Continue reading Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner

No Man’s Land

“A pessimist thinks things can’t be worse. An optimist knows they can.” Danis Tanović’s No Man’s Land (2001) is a real bummer. It is also a thoughtful consideration of why and how conflict rises among like-seeming people, and how that conflict threatens certain basic beliefs many of us hold in common, as in the pursuit of self-interest… Continue reading No Man’s Land

The English Patient

“I promise, I’ll come back for you. I promise, I’ll never leave you.” I was late to the party for The English Patient, Anthony Minghella’s Academy Award winning Best Picture from 1996. Having watched the March 24, 1997 Oscars telecast, I was then-clinging to an ill-fit graduate school program, and I had just found full-time work.… Continue reading The English Patient

Outlaw King

“You could fight for God, or country, or family. I do not care, so long as you fight!” Chris Pine is beautiful. With big blue eyes, a fit body, and sculpted lips, he can emote, when necessary, and he can move through required action choreography, which is the necessary step, it seems, of big budgeted… Continue reading Outlaw King

James and the Giant Peach

“When I had a problem, my mom and dad would tell me to look at it another way.” When Roald Dahl published James and the Giant Peach in 1961, he was a Welshman in his middle 40s, married to the American actress Patricia Neal, and the father of three (they would eventually have five children together). He… Continue reading James and the Giant Peach

Thank You for Your Service

“I’m not a hero.” Since 9/11 we’ve made a cultural fetish of celebrating the military. This effort takes the form of fundraisers, gratitude campaigns, and gold star political trophy-ism, all in the name of troop morale and patriotism. Everyone loves the uniformed trooper because the uniform signifies that the wearer is better, morally superior, and… Continue reading Thank You for Your Service

M

“I can’t help myself! I have no control over this, this evil thing inside of me, the fire, the voices, the torment!” The transition from silent movies to sound film was a sea change in the life of motion pictures. It’s been well documented how the transition led to the destruction of many careers and… Continue reading M

Godzilla

“Of course, they’ll want to use it as a weapon. Bombs versus bombs, missiles versus missiles, and now a new superweapon to throw upon us all!” Ishirō Honda’s Godzilla (1954) is the most self-reflective civilizational account of disaster ever made. After more than 30 franchise movies about the eponymous creature, made mostly in Japan and through licensing… Continue reading Godzilla

Fargo

“There’s more to life than a little money, you know. Don’tcha know that?” The Joel Coen-directed Fargo (1996) is the story of a sad sack named Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy). He’s a husband and father, and he works at an Oldsmobile dealership where he’s leveraged the value of cars he doesn’t own with a bank that’s… Continue reading Fargo

Courage Under Fire

“Oh, great. Great. The captain’s crying.” Film studies teachers point out how moviemakers make movies. We do this in the hope of helping our students recognize that what seems obvious and clear is the result of careful design and planning, and a whole lot of steady effort that is anything but “natural.” We often spend… Continue reading Courage Under Fire

Breaking the Waves

“You cannot love words. You can’t be in love with a word. You can only love another human being. That’s perfection.” Because high schoolers often read and dislike William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet,” thoughtful teachers seek contemporary tie-ins to enliven an old story of young love gone wrong. In 1996, Baz Luhrmann’s William Shakespeare’s Romeo +Juliet fit… Continue reading Breaking the Waves

Big Night

“Give people what they want, then later you can give them what you want.” Food is a primal devotion. Any occasion I have to eat or drink something delicious is an occasion to be seized. The fact of enjoying my appetite is a baseline of personal experience that renews in me every few hours, better… Continue reading Big Night

When We Were Kings

“I have wrestled with an alligator. I done tussled with a whale. I done handcuffed lightning, thrown thunder in jail.” Long before he was an ad man for an electric grill, George Forman hit hard. In Leon Gast’s When We Were Kings (1996) we see this power expressed through archival footage of the young Foreman training with… Continue reading When We Were Kings

Sherrybaby

“I got clean in prison. And I’ve been out for 4 days.”  According to Hollywood rumor Susan Sarandon once said that no woman can out-perform her own exposed bosom. It’s axiomatic; the attraction of movies is based on seeing things normally obscured from view, so the revelation of a naked body is often overwhelming. There… Continue reading Sherrybaby

American Promise

“Fourteen years in the making.” The idea of watching documentaries turns many people off. In fact, the number of blockbuster documentaries in history is short; only Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004) has earned $100 million in box office receipts, compared to a minimum of 700 fictional feature-length blockbusters. Why is this the case? One reason is the… Continue reading American Promise

Mission: Impossible

“Now, inside the black vault, there are three systems operating whenever the technician is out of the room. The first is sound-sensitive… The second system detects any increase in temperature… The third one is on the floor and is pressure-sensitive… Now, believe me when I tell you, gentlemen, all three systems are state-of-the-art.” Popular action… Continue reading Mission: Impossible

Jerry Maguire

“I am out here for you. You don’t know what it’s like to be me out here for you. It is an up-at-dawn, pride-swallowing siege that I will never fully tell you about, okay?” Tom Cruise has a smile that has launched over a dozen blockbusters. He’s been a world-renowned movie star since the middle… Continue reading Jerry Maguire

The Gold Rush

“Three days from anywhere. A Lone Prospector.” Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush (1925) is a sweet confection from an earlier time before sound film. Built on vignettes, The Gold Rush follows a poor simpleton, The Tramp (Chaplin), who tries prospecting during the Klondike Gold Rush of 1898.  When The Tramp makes his way through a snowstorm, he finds a… Continue reading The Gold Rush

Scream

“There are certain rules that one must abide by in order to successfully survive a horror movie.” The Wes Craven horror movie Scream (1996) should be sub-titled “Suburban White kids are rich and have too much time on their hands, so they drink and party and die.” The story takes shape around the discovery of a gruesome… Continue reading Scream

Inequality for All

“We make the rules of the economy – and we have the power to change those rules.” Possession of a steady income leads to asset accumulation that can, over time, lead to wealth and make a person immune to the tides of financial markets or personal catastrophe. Jacob Kornbluth’s lecture-documentary Inequality for All (2013) focuses on former… Continue reading Inequality for All

Saving Private Ryan

“FUBAR.” War is a difficult subject to portray in a movie. If the aim is a celebration of violence, then the response is uncomplicated moral clarity. If the aim is an exploration of the complexities and destructiveness of the wartime experience, then the response is often far more ambiguous, troublesome, and confused. When these two… Continue reading Saving Private Ryan

Halloween

“I met this six-year-old child with this blank, pale, emotionless face, and the blackest eyes, the Devil’s eyes. I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up.” Re-watching John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) after many years is to be reminded of changing movie-making technologies and the nature of our… Continue reading Halloween

Looking for Richard

“What’s this thing that gets between us and Shakespeare?” What, exactly, is Looking for Richard, the 1996 directorial debut-documentary of Oscar-Emmy-Tony winning actor Al Pacino?  First: Looking for Richard is Pacino’s sincere pursuit of the reasons why Americans don’t like William Shakespeare. Despite the fact that “Richard III,” the historical play Shakespeare wrote during the period 1592-1594, may… Continue reading Looking for Richard

La Pointe Courte

“I wouldn’t have loved you if you were just like me.” The French New Wave generally describes a late 1950s to early 1960s movement of young filmmakers who rebelled against the established industry. Because New Wavers grew up in the 1940s, exposed to new ideas about art and politics, post-World War II, they viewed movies… Continue reading La Pointe Courte

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

“I guess you’ve noticed something a little strange with Dad. It’s okay, though. I’m still Dad.” Roy Neary, played by Richard Dreyfuss, is the lead character in Steven Spielberg’s 1977 blockbuster Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  The story begins one night when Roy crosses paths with several alien spacecraft. Subsequently, he has visions of a… Continue reading Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Fight Club

“You’re not your job. You’re not how much money you have in the bank. You’re not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet.” Ever since Chuck Palahniuk managed to publish his debut novel Fight Club in 1996, his idea of male vulnerability displaced onto fantasies of homosocial bonding and violence have increasingly seeped… Continue reading Fight Club

Pitch Perfect

“I got my ticket for the long way ’round.” Boy world and girl world occupy distinct spheres of youthful activity. In the former go fruitful competition and physical vigor; in the latter rest beauty and cooperation. In Jason Moore’s 2012 fantasy Pitch Perfect the roles merge, as the boys reform through learning common courtesy while the girls… Continue reading Pitch Perfect

Scarface

“Listen, that’s the attitude of too many morons in this country. They think these hoodlums are some sort of demigods.” Al Pacino’s scene-chewing turn as Tony Montana in Brian De Palma’s Scarface (1983) is a mess of a good time. There’s a whole lot of snorted blow and bulging eyeballs, and the dreamy, post-disco face of Miami… Continue reading Scarface

Boogie Nights

“We’ve all done bad things. We’ve all had those guilty feelings in our heart. I’m going to take your brain out of your head and wash it and scrub it and make it clean.” When Paul Thomas Anderson released Boogie Nights in 1997 it was talked about as a Pulp Fiction-esque snapshot of vulgar American pop culture. Some… Continue reading Boogie Nights

Wonder

“It takes a lot to look this good.” Wonder (2017), a sentimental parable of how to enact kindness by seeing through exteriors into the soul of a good person, is not, itself, a good movie. Directed by Stephen Chbosky, the movie is tripe, really, although it’s the kind of tripe that wisely smears the canvas with… Continue reading Wonder

Red Hook Summer

“Isn’t Jesus Black?” Spike Lee is an American wunderkind-turned-aging master. He’s also completely bonkers, as in part thrilling, part frightening, and always hard to look away from. As a public personality closely associated with New York City, his movies often sprawl away from characters and into exegeses on socio-political problems. Consequently, his work straddles the… Continue reading Red Hook Summer

Remember the Titans

“This is no democracy. It is a dictatorship. I am the law.” Denzel Washington can do no wrong. He’s handsome, smart, emotionally controlled, thoughtful, and he’s got a memorable gait. His screen characters are always the kind of men who are ahead of everyone else, if only others would get with the program and follow.… Continue reading Remember the Titans

The French Connection

“Get your hands on your heads, get off the bar, and get on the wall!” Gene Hackman has long been a personal favorite. Perhaps it’s his speaking voice that echoes a spot in my memory about educated, mid-western speech. Maybe it’s the rough-hewn physical presence with a receding hairline and wily eyes that see more… Continue reading The French Connection

The Breadwinner

“We are a land whose people are its greatest treasure.“ Nora Twomey’s 2017 animated feature The Breadwinner, based on Deborah Ellis’s 2000 novel, is the story of 12-year old Parvana, an Afghani girl living with her family in Taliban-controlled Kabul. When her father is arrested and imprisoned, Parvana’s family must figure out a way to survive.… Continue reading The Breadwinner

The Siege of Jadotville

“You do realize that you are outnumbered by a factor of twenty.“ Streaming media present screening options like a buffet stretching out onto the street. There’s too much food and not enough nutrition. Under this metaphor I stumbled onto Richie Smyth’s Irish-South African movie The Siege of Jadotville (2016), wondering if the war scenes would entertain me.… Continue reading The Siege of Jadotville

In Bruges

“What’s Belgium famous for? Chocolates and child abuse, and they only invented the chocolates to get to the kids.” Movie violence is often funny, as in the accidental killing of an unimportant character, and profane dialogue frequently rises to great poetry, particularly because the F-word is useful in every grammatical mixture imaginable. Combine these two… Continue reading In Bruges

Tower

Take 1: One day worth an essay. Take 2: Non-fiction animation is rare, and Tower performs its magic by enlivening testimony with re-enactments to heal from a then-50-years old school shooting. –May 31, 2024

Dog Soldiers

Dog Soldiers was released in the United Kingdom in 2002. It gathered mixed reviews and devoted fans but failed, despite its high action content, to pick up an international theatrical distributor. Subsequently released on home video, courtesy of Artisan Entertainment, Dog Soldiers has been well received among cinephiles and writers, this author included, for whom its Grand Guignol… Continue reading Dog Soldiers

"These are the words I said to you," sayeth the Curator, Garrett Chaffin-Quiray