Of The 1910s
“Villains!” I shrieked, “dissemble no more! I admit the deed! –tear up the planks! here, here! –It is the beating of his hideous heart!” –Edgar Allan Poe, “The Tell-Tale Heart” “In [Thomas] Dixon’s book The Clansman, rape is actual, not…
The Battle for an Ugly World: Se7en (1995) & Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
It’s hard not to be cynical. Don’t believe me? Watch the news. Sit through a few commercials. Scroll Facebook… This can be an ugly little world. Turn on the news and you’re likely to hear stories of violence and tragedy,…
#174 – Ocean’s 8 and The Importance of Representation
On this episode of the Reel World Theology Podcast: We talk about the next film in the Ocean’s Universe, Ocean’s 8. This time, the ladies get a chance to show what they can do as they have us rooting for…
Review| Superfly
The subgenre known as “blaxploitation film”–a term coined by the Los Angeles head of the NAACP, Junius Griffin–rose to prominence in the 1970’s as a direct response to the need for black actors on-screen. Representation mattered in the 1970’s, and blaxploitation…
Keeping Watch on the Evil and the Good: Worshipping the State in Cool Hand Luke (1967) and Minority Report (2002)
For 13 years, my father was a corrections officer in a high security prison in Texas. Among his wards was the infamous Eyeball Killer, a man who murdered prostitutes and surgically removed their eyes. During routine searches of the man’s…
Review| Ocean’s Eight
Ocean’s Eight makes you feel cooler for having seen it. Of course, it’s a heist film; and in a heist film, you first have to have a devious mastermind who came up with the whole thing. In the case of…
Review| Wind River
Imagine being in a bad way and no help is coming. Nobody can or will come to help you, the only person you can rely on is yourself and those who suffer with you, but even they too are helpless…
Review| You Were Never Really Here
Early in Lynne Ramsay’s Cannes-winning, You Were Never Really Here, Joaquin Phoenix’s Joe returns home from a job to find his mother unmoving in front of the TV. Knowing what we know of Joe, we’re not sure if his mother is…
Reel World: Rewind #025 – The Godfather: Part II
On this episode of Reel World: Rewind… With the Oscars now completed and a brand new Best Picture winner crowned, it got the Reel World: Rewind think-tank pondering some of the best picture winners of all-time. Consequently, the conversation will…
Reviewing the Classics| Rashomon
“A human life is so frail, as fleeting as the morning dew.” – the Priest, Rashomon “What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.” – James 4:14 It was fortunate…