In junior high school, my good friend Sara would show me “fast-forward” versions of films — she would sit me down and show me her favorite movies, speeding through the parts that were too drawn-out and inconsequential, with the purpose of getting to the good stuff faster. The Forest, the first mainstream horror movie of…
Condensing a love story into a mere twelve minutes of screen time poses some considerable challenges for the filmmakers and actors, but it can make for very lean storytelling devoid of any fat. That’s the case with Stutterer, which manages to cover the main bases of the classic romantic movie formula within its very tight…
Dedicated to David Jones Nature is not a survivor. Nature neither lives nor dies; it is in nature where everything that lives dies, and it is in it that everything that lives fights for survival. Nature is therefore the place of survival, but it is also its witness. For this is no inert space. More…
“Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young, nor weary of the search for it when he has grown old. For, no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul.” — Epicurus Filled with dream and fantasy sequences in the tradition of the great Italian director…
On a sunny drive through the desert, Emily (Anna Hutchison, “The Cabin in the Woods”) and Lesley (Andrea Whitburn, “Lonesome Dove Church”) chat about Emily’s boyfriend’s indiscretions and Lesley’s anticipation of a party weekend. They speed through twists and turns on a narrow roadway in their cherry red Mustang and joke that they’ll run out…
Based on a short story by Katha Pollit, a columnist for the Nation magazine, Learning to Drive is a small movie with a big heart. While the film is risk averse and will not be mistaken for a timeless work of art, its story of two middle-aged people of vastly different backgrounds assisting each other…
Times are tough. These times I mean. Or rather, Tim Blake Nelson does, or seems to do in his Anesthesia. These are times of self-absorbing, self-imbibing, self-obsessed selfishness from which we’re constantly trying to tell ourselves apart — unwittingly remitting ourselves to the badlands of choice wherein our decisions continue to be ruled by self-interest…
