CATCHING UP WITH FILM - FILM CRITICISM WITH AN EYE ON A PERSONAL CANON

For the month of February, I will be revisiting and discovering Korean blockbusters. Many countries are very careful with their foreign distribution, selecting films that will appeal to either the arthouse crowd or for the sizable minorities within foreign countries. Regardless, the biggest foreign blockbusters tend to be mostly unknown to foreign audiences. Despite the stereotype of the “meek Asian,” Korea, South Korea in particular, has had a long history of protest. And de

Inspired by the 1001 Movies to Watch Before You Die, Edgar Wright’s 1000 favorite films and other lists, I am striving to come up with my own personal canon of films. For those who remember it, the year 2000 was met with a mixture of dread and anticipation. Constant news reports of Y2K, when apparently the computers of the world would all malfunction since everything would set back to the year 1900, inundated the media of the time. Of course, there were countless predictions

Inspired by the 1001 Movies to Watch Before You Die, Edgar Wright’s 1000 favorite films and other lists, I am striving to come up with my own personal canon of films. A non-straightforward adaptation of Herman Melville’s and Benjamin Britten’s Billy Budd (the music of the latter featuring prominently in this film), Beau Travail follows a regiment of the French Foreign Legion as they train in Djibouti. Denis Lavant plays Galoup, the leader of the regiment. We know from the ver

I’ve always been a sucker for pub trivia, and I almost like creating trivia quizzes more than competing in them. The answers to the first nine questions are all connected by a theme, and the tenth is the theme. Feel free to share this quiz, and no Googling when you’re trying it! (What’s the fun in that?) Answers will be posted next week with the newest quiz. The last name of the family Princess Anastasia belonged to. This element has the symbol Fe on the periodic table. The l

When life gets in the way, yet you still want to continue your film education, here is a short film that you can slip in during a spare moment of the day. The Metamorphosis is one of those texts that lasts because it is so baffling yet so abundantly clear at the same time. My fiance helps out with her family business, and many of her employees are high school students. One of them showed a clear enthusiasm for the text, which they were reading for class, even giving a thought

For the month of February, I will be revisiting and discovering Korean blockbusters. Many countries are very careful with their foreign distribution, selecting films that will appeal to either the arthouse crowd or for the sizable minorities within foreign countries. Regardless, the biggest foreign blockbusters tend to be mostly unknown to foreign audiences. Before Girls’ Trip was a smash success at the American box office, there was a Korean film that featured mostly female

Inspired by the 1001 Movies to Watch Before You Die, Edgar Wright’s 1000 favorite films and other lists, I am striving to come up with my own personal canon of films. Adultery has long been popular subject of many works - Anna Karenina, Fatal Attraction, etc. Often they are about people trapped in loveless marriages, looking for a way out. When the cheated on partner is featured in the film, it’s often unsympathetically. I personally don’t get the popularity of movies about a

Inspired by the 1001 Movies to Watch Before You Die, Edgar Wright’s 1000 favorite films and other lists, I am striving to come up with my own personal canon of films. When it comes to Japanese anime, it tends to be seen as a medium purely for the fantastical. From giant robots to super-powered aliens, anime has been home to some of the most creative storytelling and art that have ever been seen in the genre. While anime is considered just as niche and “weird” in its home coun

Inspired by the 1001 Movies to Watch Before You Die, Edgar Wright’s 1000 favorite films and other lists, I am striving to come up with my own personal canon of films. Brian De Palma is not a visionary director. He loves to burrow into the basest of genre filth and wallow in it. Accusations of misogyny and sensationalism have been leveled at him since the beginning of his career, and there honestly isn’t much defense against them. The not-so-big secret to this is that De Palma

I’ve always been a sucker for pub trivia, and I almost like creating trivia quizzes more than competing in them. The answers to the first nine questions are all connected by a theme, and the tenth is the theme. Feel free to share this quiz, and no Googling when you’re trying it! (What’s the fun in that?) Answers will be posted next week with the newest quiz. These popular Nabisco cookies are surprisingly vegan. Although it looks like a bear, this immensely popular creature is