–By Sam Hendrian– Contains Spoilers It is safe to say that after staying up to 2:30 AM watching I’m Thinking of Ending Things for a second time within 48 hours, I have never been so profoundly haunted and baffled by a cinematic experience. This new Netflix film from writer/director Charlie Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Being John Malkovich) …
Searching for the Miraculous in ‘Fatima’
– By Maria Andress – After two postponements due to Covid-19, the feature film Fatima finally released this past weekend. With many theaters still in shutdown and the film primarily released on streaming, Marco Pontecorvo’s new film in the faith genre (and first film in English) won’t be garnering huge box office success. However, its 87% Audience Rating on Rotten …
A Saint for the Sick: Damien of Molokaʻi
By Matthew Sawczyn “Dear Lord, you died at thirty-three. I begin my life at thirty-three.” Thus prays Fr. Damien upon landing at Molokaʻi, the island where “no patient leaves except in a coffin.” The year is 1873. The terrifying, still mysterious scourge of leprosy ravages the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi, and the island of Molokaʻi has been designated as a quarantine …
How the Modern ‘Emma’ Lacks Jane Austen
– By Maria Andress – This new “Emma” film is, in a word, strange. Strange and more overtly sexual in a coquettish and suggestive manner than any other Jane Austen film released to date. From a character standpoint, this is a retelling where the viewer really hates Emma and her proud meddling at the beginning. It is not until the …
‘1917’: No Greater Love
– By Matthew Sawczyn – Among the gorgeous visuals and bombastic explosions, there’s one brief moment in director Sam Mendes’ 1917 that truly encapsulates this tale’s theme of brotherhood and sacrifice. It’s a “blink and you miss it” line, an offhand act, subtle but powerful. The movie begins with two soldiers resting underneath a tree: Lance Corporal Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) …
The Impractical Nature of Dreams in ‘Rudy’
By Sam Hendrian This article is part of our Classic Film Throwback Series. “Well, you know what my dad always says: Having dreams is what makes life tolerable.” Technically speaking, the word “dream” is synonymous with “hope,” “goal,” “aspiration,” and several other abstract nouns. Yet it seems to operate on a whole level of its own, transcending any concrete definition …
‘The Aeronauts’: A Glimpse at the Birth of Weather Exploration
– By Maria Andress – Released worldwide on Amazon Prime, The Aeronauts may look like an unlikely film to garner high praise; However, it is doing just that. Based on the book “Falling Upward: How We Took to the Air” by Richard Holmes and starring Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones, this film is an excellent example of a period of …
‘1917’, WWI Cinema, and the Horrors of War
– By Sam Hendrian – Hollywood is not-too-fondly renowned for its glorification of terrible things, especially war. Violence has the dangerous ability to entertain rather than disgust, undermining our instinctive understanding of human dignity. Yet despite this unfortunate trend, there are countless examples that do just the opposite, including Sam Mendes’s recently-released, critically-acclaimed World War I film 1917. With the …
Why We Still Need Little Women
– By Sam Hendrian – As someone who enjoyed reading Louisa May Alcott’s beloved novel Little Women, and as an admirer of Greta Gerwig’s directorial talents, I went to see the latest cinematic adaptation of the classic story and enjoyed it immensely. Of course, when people are constantly questioning whether Hollywood still has a bone of originality left in …
‘Honey Boy’: A Lesson on Masculinity from an Unlikely Source
By James Powers Lately, one doesn’t have to look far to find a lot of movies that are deeply concerned with the female experience, but nonetheless directed by men. Assassination Nation, Unsane, Widows, Suspiria, Tully and the upcoming Bombshell, to name just a few. Not that there’s anything wrong with male directors making films about female protagonists – “write what …