Thanks to Alexander Carpenter for pointing me to this article, Seven Degrees of Bob Dylan . I am anxiously awaiting the Bay Area release of the new Bob Dylan biopic, I’m Not There. I am intrigued by the director’s (Todd Haynes) use of seven different actors (from Cate Blanchett to Heath Ledger) to play different [...]
There are many striking elements to George Stevens’ The Diary of Anne Frank. William C. Mellor’s stunning cinematography consistently captures the claustrophobia and mental/emotional degeneration of two and a half years in an attic. Unfortunately, Mellor does not employ his skills to shed light on the horrors of the Holocaust. Cynthia Ozick’s focus on Otto [...]
During his speech at St. Mary’s graduation service, Father O’Malley (Bing Crosby) tells the assembled, “St. Mary’s is founded on faith, hope, and charity.” He might as well have added lies to this list of building blocks. Throughout the course of the film, the major characters lie to one another and others they encounter. Father [...]
Having been a fan of Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man, I have always wanted to read John Krakauer’s Into the Wild, and I want to do so even more now that I have seen Sean Penn’s cinematic adaptation of it. Chris McCandless’ enigmatic existence makes for an epic film full of important questions concerning society, life, [...]
Thanks to Alex Carpenter for pointing out this video. Jeff Skoll made his fortune ($2 billion) as the first president of eBay. Now he’s spending it at the movies. His company, Participant Productions, makes entertaining, issues-driven films that inspire real change — Murderball, Syriana, An Inconvenient Truth … Here, he talks about the people who’ve [...]
Manohla Dargis, a film critic for the New York Times, has a review of an upcoming documentary about abortion called Lake of Fire. I have not seen the film yet, but her review is certainly compelling. The article also contains segments of an interview with the director, Tony Kaye. I appreciate both of their comments [...]
This year, two major films will examine the effects of the Iraq War on American soil. While we do not physically experience the daily bombings and violence of the war that takes place thousands of miles away, we are dealing with and will increasingly deal with the mental, emotional, and physical after effects of this [...]
Films are the great hypothetical (forgive the Shaquille O’Neal analogy). We can easily ask of any character in a film, “What if I was in that situation?” Thus, one of the many benefits of a more inquisitive filmwatching is a greater sense of empathy for “the Other.” Such filmwatching also leads us to examine our [...]
Lately, I have been putting together a syllabus for a course I want to teach on sports and theology, religion, spirituality, ethics…. I have not figured out an appropriate title just yet, but the essence of it will speak to the reality of sports as a field ripe for the discussion of justice, race, gender, [...]
