In Shakespeare’s play Measure for Measure, one character says to another : “The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept.” That line is …
Justice, Law, and Mercy Across an Onscreen Century
A Hero and the Weight of His Mountain
A Hero – 2021 This writeup can also be found at Arts & Faith’s new list of the top 25 films on Crime and Punishment. …
An Open Letter to Elmer Gantry
Elmer Gantry – 1960 Dear Elmer Gantry, meet me at the revival meeting. Do not sit in the preacher’s seat and do not sit in …
The Eight Mountains on a Small Scale
The Eight Mountains – 2022 We are supposed to dream big when we imagine a 2 ½ hour film based on an award-winning Italian novel …
Dreamin’ Wild While It Lasted
Dreamin’ Wild – 2022 What do you remember from your teen years? What if the things you forgot are suddenly remembered by everyone else you …
Into the West and Movie Love Coming to Life
How did you first love the movies? Did you begin to love them because you had a special moviegoing experience with a person whom you …
Godland and the Fog of Alienation
What do we do with films that are defiantly strange? Is strangeness justified in art? It seems right to grapple with that question as we …
The Boy and the Heron – Catching a Wordless Poem for the New Year
The images speak and proclaim. They whisper and they shout. They would call out to us even in the absence of sound. These things are …
Columbus and Crossings
Columbus is a film enamored with frames and spaces. Frames and spaces and the people who walk through them. The ways people talk about those …
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret – Lovingly Bound to Earth
Judy Blume really caught my attention when she said in an interview that Kelly Fremon Craig‘s film version of her novel is actually better than …