If the key image of spiritual awakening in the Christian tradition is the Apostle Paul’s encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus, I would suggest that Roy Neary’s encounter on a dark country road with a UFO is cinema’s “Road to Damascus.” Close Encounters of Read More …
Barry Egan (Adam Sandler) is a timid, lonely man that suffers from fits of rage, stemming from being the only son in a family that had seven other daughters. One strange day brings a broken harmonium, a caring woman, and a nefarious band of phone-sex Read More …
Max Klein (Jeff Bridges) survives a devastating plane crash virtually unscathed, leads many others to safety, and then disappears – not only from the wreckage site, but from himself and his family. Max, having been brought to the threshold of life and death, doesn’t seem Read More …
Picnic at Hanging Rock is one of those rare films which becomes more inexplicable when seen repeatedly. Weir directed this adaptation of the Joan Lindsay novel prior to The Last Wave, a film equally interested in Australia as a land remaining wholly other and inaccessible to its Read More …
In this early Varda film, Cleo is hooked on her own reflection. She is constantly looking in mirrors, window reflections, and ensuring her well-manicured presentation is in order. But something dramatic happens in our two late afternoon hours with Cleo, during which she is waiting Read More …
Spike Lee uses three spiritual awakenings to frame the story of Malcolm X’s life. Malcolm was raised in a Christian household but was never a committed follower. His ties to the underworld led to a prison sentence where he experienced his first spiritual awakening. We Read More …
Delbert Mann’s Marty tells the simple story of two lonely, desperate people (played by Ernest Borgnine and Betsy Blair) meeting one another and waking to the possibility that life can offer more than what society has allotted for them. Marty remains one of only two films to have won Read More …
A beautiful filmic palindrome, Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Ted Chiang’s “The Story of Your Life” is a richly humanistic film, even as its premise is about encountering extraterritorial life. The film opens and closes with a memory, albeit our understanding of the memory and its Read More …
Call it a Chestertonian fairy tale. This film explores a “soul sick” man’s growing awareness of the fact that he is no longer interested in his own self, but in other people and other things around him instead. This realization is then lit like a match when he takes Read More …
Mann fills The Insider with mirrors, windows, and all manner of frames within frames. Based on a Vanity Fair article, the first half of the film narrates the plight of Jeffrey Wigand, the first whistleblower to bring the predatory practices of big tobacco to public attention in Read More …