Unfortunate Passions: David Lean’s Brief Encounter

|Penny Folger| A central moment in David Lean’s Brief Encounter that jumps out are these words by its protagonist. “I’ve fallen in love. I’m an ordinary woman. I didn’t think such violent things could happen to ordinary people.” This little bit of narration is at once melodramatic… Continue reading

Which of John Goodman’s characters across his career would you be most amenable to being trapped in a bunker with at the end of the word: A definitive ranking

|Amelia Foster & Luis Lopez| If everyone has answered the desert island question as part of a misguided workplace seminar or first date gone wrong, then this John Goodman scenario can be your new barometer for whether they get a second date or you’ll be working from home… Continue reading

Graft & Collusion: Finding the Real Tom Waits Within the Illusions of One from the Heart

|Sam L. Landman| As he ventured onto the American Zoetrope lot in the fall of 1980, fully prepared to write the soundtrack to Francis Ford Coppola’s One from the Heart, Tom Waits had already spent a majority of his career as an imposter. (And I say that lovingly, as a fan who’s… Continue reading

Of Earrings and Eras: The Earrings of Madame de… and Cinematic History

|Dan McCabe| The Earrings of Madame de…(1953) may be the last great work of the French “Poetic Realism” period. It certainly isn’t the only film that marks the end of a historical era in the development of motion pictures. What interests me about it is that usually evolve… Continue reading

In the name of the Father, the Son, and Uncle Nicky: A Trinity of Masculinities in Nancy Savoca’s Household Saints

|Matthew Christensen| I should begin by confessing to a degree of uneasiness over my title for this piece. As the adult son of an evangelical minister, the impact of growing up in a devout household has lingered long into my adulthood. The idea of saying anything that… Continue reading

Arica, mi Amor: Cine Chileno y La casa lobo

|Finn Odum| I. Gringos en Arica. The first of my three weeks in Arica, a city on the Chilean-Peruvian border, was spent in a beachside hotel. We had free breakfast in the mornings, a pool overlooking the ocean, and most importantly, a bar just a five-minute walk away. Many of us were… Continue reading