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…

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When I was a child, I thought I was surrounded by bad guys. This is not a metaphor. I had the creeping suspicion that everyone I knew—my grandma, the dentist, the children’s pastor at my church, my pre-school teachers, everybody—was…

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“And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God.” Exodus 3:6 (NKJV) The story of Moses and the burning bush has rattled my being since I was old enough to understand its nuances. An all-consuming fire…

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“But you looked at me and I could see your mother in your eyes I thought about the things she lost and how she always cries And how your daddy tries to fight the truth with Bombay gin And I…

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How does one go about remaking Dario Argento’s blood-splattered hallucination Suspiria? One doesn’t. Were one to try they would wreck upon the shoals of its bewildering non-plot and nightmarish visual logic. The most a writer or director can do is…

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Florida was a meme long before the internet. A vacation destination, a retirement home, a place where dreams came true—all the manufactured joy money can buy. For all of Florida’s appealing façade, it often seems that common sense gets trapped…

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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…

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In the social jungle of human existence, there is no feeling of being alive without a sense of identity.” – Erik Erikson, Identity, Youth, and Crisis One of the first films that comes to mind when thinking of explorations of…

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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…

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“We must all face reality sooner or later, Dowd.” “Well, I have wrestled with reality for 35 years, Doctor, and I’m happy to state I finally won out over it.” —Dr. Raymond Sanderson & Elwood P. Dowd, Harvey “Why are…

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