James K. A. Smith

Micro Review: “God in Postliberal Perspective”

God in Postliberal Perspective: Between Realism and Non-realism  By Robert Andrew Cathey Ashgate, 2009 As the “between” of the subtitle indicates, Cathey (McCormick Theological Seminary) takes himself to be charting a course between the Scylla of realism and the Charybdis of anti-realism, with specific reference to the doctrine of God. Anti-realism is represented by Anglican […]

Jeffrey Overstreet

If Oscar Wilde had been a film critic…

If Oscar Wilde had been a film critic, which films in this week’s top 10 might have provoked this response? “The public have always, and in every age, been badly brought up. They are continually asking Art to be popular, to please their want of taste, to flatter their absurd vanity, to tell them what […]

Jeffrey Overstreet

Panahi is alive and out of prison. But free?

The term “free” is relative in Iran. Let us say that Jafar Panahi is alive and out of prison. Here is the latest update at The Guardian. This is a tremendous relief to all of who love him and his work. But he has reminded the world – or at least those who pay attention […]

Jeffrey Overstreet

Filmwell's Book of Filmmaker Wisdom – Excerpt 9: Bresson

“Models. What they lose in apparent prominence during the shooting, they gain in depth and truth on the screen. It is the flattest and dullest parts that have in the end the most life.” – Robert Bresson, Notes on the Cinematographer

James K. A. Smith

Micro Review: “The Remains of Being”

The Remains of Being: Hermeneutic Ontology After Metaphysics By Santiago Zabala Columbia University Press, 2009 Zabala (Potsdam Univ.), part of a younger generation of Italian philosophers, is receiving increased attention in English-speaking philosophy largely, it seems, because of his connection to Gianni Vattimo. Building on his earlier exposition of Ernst Tugendhat in The Hermeneutic Nature […]

Ron Reed

Dan Black: Symphonies

Tron? Vertigo? Saul Bass. Goldfinger. French New Wave? Any western in particular? Kurosawa? Donnie Darko? Some cross between King Kong and Godzilla? (Thanks, Mike.)

Jeffrey Overstreet

"A vast potential…"

“Cinema, as Tarkovsky has shown, has vast potential to move into the depths. Yet it uses them just as infrequently as television uses its capacities. Rarely do we see on the screen something that enriches our soul, and doesn’t pull it out onto the surface, onto the field of petty passions. Of course, art cannot […]