Sky High focuses on Will Stronghold, son of the greatest superhero duo in history - The Commander and Jetstream, who has some difficulty (but not nearly enough) discovering his powers. Though as much a high school story as a superhero story, Sky High will inevitably be compared with The Incredibles . . . . Continue Reading »
Keanu Reeves seems incapable of playing anything but a Christ figure (remember his supersonic ascension at the end of Matrix 1). In the recent horror film, Constantine , he plays John Constantine (J.C. – get it?), an agnostic, chain-smoking suicide restored to life to work as a free-lance . . . . Continue Reading »
In a 2003 TNR review of Roman Polanski’s Oscar-winning film, The Pianist , Michael Oren gives information about Wilm Hosenfeld, the German officer who assists Szpilman: “while scrounging in an abandoned house for food, Szpilman comes face-to-face with a German officer. Instead of . . . . Continue Reading »
This 2004 Indian musical version of the Austen novel is energetic, colorful, distracting fun. At several points, it departs from Austen’s novel. Darcy’s proposal does not come out of the blue, but at the end of a series of dates (including a helicopter ride over LA and a sunset walk on . . . . Continue Reading »
Hamann allegorized a hermeneutical principle of Jer 38: “We all find ourselves in such a swampy prison as the one in which Jeremiah found himself. Old rags served as ropes to pull him out; to them he owed his gratitude for saving him. Not their appearance, but the services they provided him . . . . Continue Reading »
Some thoughts on Claude Berri’s beautiful and provocative 1986/1987 films Jean de Florette and Manon of the Springs . 1. The story is a reverse Oedipus tale, focusing on how Cesar Soubeyran(Yves Montand) ruins and kills his own son (Jean, played by Girard Depardieu) without knowing it is his . . . . Continue Reading »
I finally watched The Village . Much of it was perfectly silly. The initial explanation of the dead animals littering the village is that a coyote is on the loose, and this theory is put to rest only when it’s decided that coyotes are not big enough to leave big red marks on doors. They need . . . . Continue Reading »
I’m not the first one to notice, by any means, but let me chime in: The Incredibles is an overt attack on egalitarianism. All the bad guys in the movie want to flatten out the differences between “supers” and everyone else - the litigious people who are injured during rescues, Bob . . . . Continue Reading »
New York Press critic Armond White has offered the most incisive summary of Tarantino’s work and influence: “QT made sadism hip and sent it ‘round the world.” In another piece on Tarantino, White points (less convincingly, but still interestingly) to “QT’s” . . . . Continue Reading »
Tom Aitken reviews The Passion of the Christ in the March 26 issue of the London Times Literary Supplement , and says everything I would want to say about the weaknesses of the film, and more. Aitken goes off track a few times when he talks about the gospels themselves, but overall the review is . . . . Continue Reading »
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