Protest and Patriotism: Kota Ezawa’s “National Anthem” Video
A row of black men clad in black uniforms is down on one knee, their arms interlocked along the sideline of what is obviously a football field. Their heads are bowed, while behind them stands a row of...
View ArticleMelanie, the BuddhaChristLamaDoormat of “Gone With the Wind”
“Gone With the Wind” is an alternately enchanting, preposterous, compulsively readable/watchable turbo-charged romance of seduction, goodness and cynicism. Along the way, it is also top-heavy on the...
View ArticleThe Tragicomedy of “Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul.”
Many critics are lumping Adamma Ebo’s “Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul.” into the comedy genre, and suggest the movie should have stuck to its lane in drawing laughs at the hypocrisy and thinly...
View ArticleBodies in Motion: A Meditation
Sometimes, in the diffused light of dawn or dusk, or on foggy streets where almost indiscernible shapes begin to reveal themselves as a human being or two in motion, I will peer a little closer, catch...
View ArticleQuirky Movie Lover’s Delight: John Carney ‘s Hybrid Musical, “Once”
A busker is wailing his heart out to an audience of absolutely no one as drivers and pedestrians go about their business on a Dublin sidewalk. His brow furrowed and throat straining, he espies a...
View ArticleTo Look, To See, To Linger, To Love
A few years ago, I was writing a script and coordinating with a production company to create a short video with narration and music. Part of my task was to amass a large cache of photos, each of which...
View ArticleDocumentary Two-Fer: The Musical Odysseys of Leonard Cohen and Jason Isbell
One an observant, mystically inclined Jew, born to wealthy, pedigreed parents outside Montreal, a poet by training and temperament, handsome, charismatic and refined, who drifts down to New York City...
View ArticleFreedom, Fanaticism, Retrenchment: John Brown and the Southern Baptist...
Two events drew my attention and stood in severe contrast last week. One was coming across the 2020 Showtime mini-series, “The Good Lord Bird,” about pre-Civil War abolitionist John Brown and his...
View ArticleA Pastor Grapples With Faith and the Future: Paul Schrader’s “First Reformed”
A young eco-activist confronts the massive evidence of humankind’s abuse of the earth, and he spirals downward in a doom loop of despair. The new life growing in his wife’s belly offers no solace....
View ArticleBreak the Record, Die Trying? Free Diving With Laura McGann’s “The Deepest...
In the long summer months—which in the generally sunny climes where I have lived I regard as May through at least September—I have long made a habit of swimming in as many backyard and club pools as...
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