And in the midst of all these changes, I think the loose descriptor “spirituality” has become an even more abstract point of common ground for this wide range of films. This is not the fault of the over 40 voters involved this time, the list of films nominated, or even the voting process. I actually don’t think it is even a problem.
The most recent issue of the delightfully ad hoc monthly periodical The Believer is packed with essays, reviews, etc… related to cinema. They typically offer a few full length items from their issues online. This month: Watching Shrek in Iran: Perhaps the question I should have been asking was this: What does it mean that […]
In this essay, theologian J. Kameron Carter considers what’s wrong with theodicy questions, or questions about God, suffering, and evil, in relationship to the recent earthquake in Haiti.
James Gray’s latest wraps three distinct, remarkable characters around a haunting question. It may make you miserable while you watch, but it will stick with you like few love stories do.
The number of film critics who have indelibly shaped my understanding of the cinema is relatively small, perhaps a half dozen, maybe a dozen at the most. Susan Sontag is chief among them, although I’ve never thought of her as a critic per se. During a youth spent at academic institutions in Berkeley, Chicago, Cambridge […]
The current worldwide economic crisis and financial meltdown can be understood as the inherent result of globalized consumer capitalism, a “capitalism without capital,” which in the analysis of philosopher Slavoj ?i?ek, could lead to fascism.
A poem by Timothy E. Bartel.
“It is very difficult to get rid of that hard physic in film,” Norstein said towards the end of the screening. “The image is just an outer layer under which something else is hidden.”
Unspoken Cinema just posted an essay on The Aesthetics of the Meandering Cinema that contains this intriguing tidbit: “When independent cinema however derives its weight from being socially relevant, there appears the question of the aptness or effectivity of its chosen aesthetic. Perhaps this is why there is always the nagging question of whether this […]