A Tale of Two Heroines: Revisiting the Past with Gone with the Wind (1939) and The Wizard of Oz (1939)
In the year 1939, two blockbuster movies burst onto the big screen in brilliant technicolor, forever changing the face of American film: Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz. On the surface, the heroines of both films have…
Stop Calling Gone with the Wind a "Product of its time"
HBO Max, a streaming service that is still in its infancy, made waves recently when they announced that they were temporarily pulling Gone with the Wind, the 1939 film based on Margaret Mitchell’s novel. The HBO statement reads, “These racist…
Love Jones (1997) & The Photograph (2020): The Value of Words
Nearly 25 years ago, the producers of the independent gem Love Jones had a modest and honest goal with its romance. They sought to make a modern film about African-American life that did not use violence and/or recreational drugs as…
Review| Little Women (2019)
There are a shocking number of retellings of the classic story Little Women, so if someone was going to create another adaptation, a fresh perspective was necessary. It needed a reason to exist. It needed its own identity. I’m thrilled…
Review| A Hidden Life
“…for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden…
Stories and Myths: Fatherhood in The Road (2009) and Life is Beautiful (1997)
It’s hard to be a father. Or so I assume, not being one myself. Though, having been a kid, I can only imagine how awful I was to parent. There are dirty diapers, temper tantrums, scraped knees, and that’s not…
Review| Alita: Battle Angel and an Expected Savior
Alita: Battle Angel is a totally awesome mess. It’s got an unbelievably good lead in the heretofore-mostly-unknown Rosa Salazar, whose character should stand pretty much as deep in the Uncanny Valley as you can get, but somehow manages to be…
The Natural & Contrived Loves of The Lobster (2015) & Never Let Me Go (2010)
Yorgos Lanthimos’ seventh directorial feature, The Lobster, is a compulsive critique on societal expectations often assigned to an individual’s relationship status. It’s a dark comedy that is as neurotic as its Greek director (see Dogtooth and The Killing of a…
Review| Widows (2018)
It has been mentioned by many at this point but considering the type of story Steve McQueen usually endeavors upon, this is not the type of property one might have expected. Lynda La Plante’s 1983 British mini-series doesn’t quite have…
Maybe Redemption Has Stories to Tell: Warrior (2011) & Good Will Hunting (1997)
Every movie is a story about redemption. Warrior (2011) and Good Will Hunting (1997) are no different, but what they tell us about redemption—and its source—could not be less similar. Good Will Hunting is a story about Will Hunting (Matt Damon), a…