thoughts at the intersection of movies, TV, and pop culture
In the vast silence and through the many pauses in action, Fang reminds us that all art is a series of choices. She succeeds in turning down the volume on the world, making us lean forward and listen close. To slow down, to pay attention, and to find virtue in that peace.
Tesla is a film that often plays like a History Channel special about the life and times of visionary inventor Nikola Tesla, at which it both succeeds and fails. It is both as boring as a lecture on electrical currents, and it is not remotely informative.
‘Shirley’ imagines the unconventional woman as societal terrorist, capable of profound, delectable corruption.
‘Light from Light’ worked with a light and careful hand to craft a sense of existential ennui that’s hard to do without becoming overbearing.
The implication that an audience’s emotions should be wrenched out than coaxed out is as arrogant as ‘Midsommar’ is self-indulgent.
‘On the Basis of Sex’ failed to find and use the fortitude of its subject, rather relying on the convention of “humble beginnings” and sucked all the air out of its own story.
There is a lot of well-meaning ignorance floating around this story, but ignorance is only well-meaning if it does more good than harm.
It’s tempting to believe that the post-Weinstein revelations would yield semi-immediate results, given the fervor with which the court of public opinion rendered their verdict against those men. But then a film like “The Wife” comes along.
Does it make you a bad person for buying a ticket to see Nate Parker’s ‘The Birth of a Nation’?
Just in time for the holidays, Ron Howard cooked up the film version of a turducken: a movie based on … More
