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Category: Movies

  • Persistence of Time: A Review of Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk

    Persistence of Time: A Review of Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk

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    marielcalloway

    Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk begins an existential nightmare and ends as nihilistic commentary on time and fate. But really, what war film doesn’t? And what could Nolan’s Dunkirk stand to teach us that Patton didn’t? That Saving Private Ryan didn’t? Or The Longest Day? The Thin Red Line? Atonement?

  • Obsession and Madness: “Pawn Sacrifice” Review

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    marielcalloway

    Full disclosure: I’m a bit of a chess nerd. That might come as a shock considering how terrible of a chess player I am, but I can confidently say that the magnitude of my theoretical knowledge of the sport in comparison to my deficit of skill is quite large. (Although…

  • Requiem for Nightmares: “Black Mass” Review

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    marielcalloway

    Black Mass is not the typical glorified gangster film of mob bosses living lives of splendor and decadence while wielding exceptional power. Rather, it is a cold and distant examination of violence and manipulative cruelty.

  • Isolating Tensions: Foreground & Background in “Children of Men”

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    marielcalloway

    The world in P.D. James’ novel The Children of Men differs vastly from the onscreen realm that we see in the 2006 film adaptation. The basic premise remains the same: widespread infertility has halted the birth of human babies for nearly twenty-five years and Oxford professor Theo Faron, along with the rest…

  • What We Talk About When We Talk About Theatre: “Birdman” Review

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    marielcalloway

    But how can we talk about Birdman? It, like Raymond Carver’s elusive love, cannot be talked about but only around. It can only be seen in contrast to what is not seen, its presence detected by way of what it moves, and creates, like wind in the trees or antibodies in…

  • Answered Prayers: “Foxcatcher” Review

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    marielcalloway

    In the closing moments of Bennett Miller’s 2005 film Capote, director Bennett Miller tells us that “More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.” Foxcatcher tells a similar tale. It is cold in the same way that Miller’s Capote is cold, a pensive progression of events that will soon go awry…

  • (Don’t!) Let the Beat Drop: “Whiplash” Review

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    marielcalloway

    Like the title suggests, Whiplash is a jarring and explosive event, striking with a force and power that stuns and reverberates for moments to come. Director Damien Chazelle doesn’t direct a film so much as he conducts an orchestra, leading with a barrage of percussion and brass then, deftly, employs…

  • Steady Hands. No Fast Pans. Don’t Use the Zoom. “Nightcrawler” Review

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    marielcalloway

    Dan Gilroy’s Nightcrawler wants to be noir in the same way that Lou Bloom wants to be a cinematic auteur, clinging with tight desperation to an idea that can never fully come to fruition. Instead it lurks in shadows and creates a quiet, pensive beauty grown from a horror that…

  • Paradise Bound: Interstellar and the Quest for Dimensional Transcendence

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    marielcalloway

    In the beginning, God created Adam. Then, because Adam was lonely, God made Eve. When Eve fell, she led Adam to fall with her and God expelled them both from the garden of Eden. In the 17th Century, English poet John Milton provided his own take on the story of Adam and…

  • Gone Girl: Media Gaze and the Feminine Spectacle

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    marielcalloway

    [Spoilers Within] In David Fincher’s Gone Girl, the media is a character in and of itself. It acts with considerable agency, guiding our thoughts and perceptions, casting autonomous judgement with an unquestioned air of authority. From an early point, the film wisely encourages us to ask “Whose story is this?”…