M. Leary Review

See how tough this gets?

“To dwell is to garden.” (Heidegger, “The Origin of the work of Art”) And ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt write them upon the door posts of […]

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.

When teaching courses on basic concepts in religious studies and comparative religion, I often find myself wondering what resources the history of cinema has to offer the classroom. Simply talking about rites of passage, religious language, or variations in Buddhist dogma while scribbling lecture aids on the chalkboard works well enough. But I often wish […]

If the central question of this film rotates on Schroedinger’s cat, the religious implication is this: If the tradition is the box, is God alive or is he dead?

We can now say with Heisenberg certainty that the Coen brothers tried to be serious filmmakers.

Splats of mud in Munyurangabo, the unexpected drift of the lens in Revanche, the train passages in 35 Shots of Rum, the ecstatic beginning of The Headless Woman, the en plein air end of Summer Hours. This year of cinema was rife with memorable shots and sequences from so many different contexts and technologies. I […]

It is hard to believe that this film made the festival rounds up to four years ago, but will now be popping up on critic’s lists for 2009 as it has finally had an actual theatrical run this year. The Sun is the final installment of a three part series of Sokurov biopics covering a […]

If you have never seen any of Marie Menken’s films, watch the three shorts included on the Icarus DVD release of Martina Kudlácek’s recent documentary about her kindly influence on the American avant-garde. These films will probably first strike you as overwrought, minor, or the practice footage of some film student with a Bolex. Glimpses […]