Your chances of finding a great film at the multiplex are probably much slimmer than your chances of finding one at the San Francisco International Film Festival. Darren Hughes was there, and here are his summations of a few films he saw there. I’ll be adding several of these to my must-see, or must-rent, list. Read more
The new issue of Senses of Cinema sounds is a feast of thought-provoking essays. Not only does it have a feature on the long, slow emergence of Blade Runner as a classic, but it features four essays on Robert Bresson… including one that asks us to consider the correlation of Bresson’s filmmaking and Flannery O’Connor’s writing. They express their faith through images and characters and styles that only seem faithless and without reverence. Initially, in O’Connor especially, this comes off... Read more
As a huge fan of Hal Hartley’s The Unbelievable Truth, Trust, Simple Men, and Henry Fool, I can’t wait to see his Henry Fool sequel, Fay Grim. Here he is talking about it with to Choire Sicha in a special for The LA Times: Sicha: It’s a crucial component to “Fay Grim” that Fay goes off and becomes involved with the drama of Europe. Hartley: I wanted Fay to be the representative American of a certain type: well-intentioned but ill-informed.... Read more
Opus is meditating on a profound passage from The Screwtape Letters. And you can meditate with him, free of charge. I recommend it. Read more
Full disclosure: Darrel Manson, who writes for HollywoodJesus.com, is a friend as well as a colleague. But I’m glad he’s read Through a Screen Darkly, and he’s posted some thoughts about that here. Read more
My favorite poet, Anne Overstreet, will be reading tomorrow night as just one participant in an evening full of art… at The Thread. To convince you that I’m a huge fan of Anne’s work, there’s this: I married her. So unless I’m hit by a train, I’ll be there cheering. (more…) Read more
2013 Update: I haven’t seen Memento in many years, but I feel that I have seen enough Christopher Nolan movies to last a lifetime. It saddens me that Nolan seems stuck on telling stories about men who, trapped in desperate circumstances, can find hope only in violent resistance. He knows that to fight is to get your hands dirty, but he seems to see no other meaningful way to live. I’ve grown tired of that vision. But I suspect that... Read more
Be warned: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is very faithful to the book. That is to say, it chronicles on the big screen in vivid color the adventures of two individuals pumped full of drugs as they journey through Las Vegas and abuse tourists, residents, waitresses, each other, and themselves. They get high, they get higher, they get even higher, they get sick, they yell and break things, they vomit, and then they do it all again. In other... Read more
Park Chanwook, the Korean director currently winning fans with his hyperviolent stories of revenge, has clearly absorbed the techniques of great kung-fu filmmakers, Alfred Hitchcock, Quentin Tarantino, and other contemporary stylists like David Fincher. He knows how to dazzle you with visions of supreme “coolness.” He knows how to shock you. He knows how to make you squirm, and how to send the squeamish — and even many of the ironclad — running for the exits. So, does the hype... Read more
How am I supposed to understand my purpose here when, regularly writing about movies that most evangelicals would never bother to watch, I’m suddenly given an Evangelical Press Award for reviewing a little-known foreign film directed by an atheist? Many thanks to the folks who enjoyed this review and gave me this honor. I’m surprised and delighted! Read more
Looking Closer
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