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Category Archives: Movies

Further Thoughts on Grizzly Man.

27-Aug-11

http://solent-art.co.uk/?p=70 I have written before that the movie Grizzly Man did not disturb me too much – I felt that the death of Timothy Treadwell – who was eaten by a grizzly bear after spending more than ten summers living in close quarters with them – was appropriate: we all must die, and this was a […]

The Story of Temple Drake.

31-Jul-11

http://artedgeek.com/ALFA_DATA Since my return from West Virginia, where I enjoyed the comforts of modern life, the physical challenges of my cabin life I have felt more as a burden than a pleasure.  Summer is no time for physical labor or being overly responsible.  Just yesterday I brought in groceries – bread and milk and ice – […]

Of Gods and Men.

01-Apr-11

I saw the movie Of Gods and Men two nights ago at the excellent little art-house movie theater in Kew Gardens.  The movie was not perfect – poorly paced, occasionally indulgent, not quite as intelligent as it might have been – but it was very good, and it affected me.  It depicted the monastic life beautifully […]

Into Eternity.

18-Feb-11

I saw the well-reviewed documentary “Into Eternity” last week, and was not too impressed, though I don’t quite regret the two hours.  There has to be some excuse for making a movie out of what might be a thousand-word essay; and “Into Eternity” does not offer that kind of visual or experiential payoff.  The facility […]

Fritz Lang at the Film Forum.

29-Jan-11

After suffering from a bit of the blahs, due to missing my cabin and spending a bit too much time in the distracted city, I’ve regained my appreciation – for whatever reason – for the texture of city life again.  Yesterday a friend lured me away from a successful day of writing to go to […]

The Last Station.

17-Mar-10

Tolstoy is a figure I have always kept at arm’s length; beyond reading Anna Karenina (easily the greatest novel ever written; really no other deserves to be put in the same paragraph with it; I hated it) and the most famous short stories, I have mostly avoided him.  That he was full of hatred and […]

Me and Orson Welles.

29-Nov-09

Any American with talent and artistic ambition must be a little haunted by Orson Welles.  On the one hand, there is his achievement – he wrote (cowrote), directed, and starred in Citizen Kane, universally acknowledged as one of the five or so greatest films of all time, when he was 25 – and on the […]

Spike Lee’s When the Levees Broke.

03-Jun-09

“Mean old Levee taught me to weep and moan.” – old Blues song. If you want to get on the emotional inside of the experience of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans – and hence to feel the depth of America’s racial and economic segregation – then you would do well to watch Spike Lee’s documentary […]

Religulous.

19-Nov-08

It’s not immediately obvious that the main message of the movie Religulous – that religion is ridiculous and we have no room for it anymore in the world – would appeal to any person (like myself) who describes himself as religious.  Religious people have seen atheists set up paper tigers and rip them apart before.  […]