Light and Dark: Film Review of The Fablemans Attribution: Jorge Simonet, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Geoff Carter Steven Spielberg’s semi-autobiographical film The Fabelmans is—like much of his work—simultaneously totally enjoyable and disturbingly inevitable. It is Spielberg’s peculiar gift that he is able to mythologize the ordinary, to turn the everyday into the epic, and the …
Read
Category:Movies
The Pen in Hand Guide to the Movies: Review of “Top Gun: Maverick”
Photo by Houses Cheung on Unsplash Deja Vu All Over Again: Film Review of Top Gun: Maverick By Geoff Carter Movies are nectar for the masses. The people love the panache, the stars, the glitz, the glamor, and their occasional sheer audacity of movies. But most of all, the people love their predictability. Action thrillers like Die Hard, True …
Read
The Pen in Hand Guide to the Movies: Film Review of “Triangle of Sadness”
Photo by Jake Hills on Unsplash https://unsplash.com/photos/23LET4Hxj_U Human Triangulation: Review of Triangle of Sadness A herd of male models—if that’s the proper collective noun for a group of them; maybe a pride or a flamboyance or a charm of male models would be more appropriate—at any rate, at the beginning of the film Triangle of Sadness, this group is …
Read
The Pen in Hand Guide to the Movies: Film Review of “Tar”
Photo by Justin Campbell on Unsplash Symphony For One: Review of Tar The opening of Todd Field’s psychological opus Tar is rather odd. The film’s credits fade in over a black background while a Shipibo Conibo Icaro (an indigenous Amazon people’s healing song) plays in the background. The oddly hypnotic music sung in a strange language over (what are usually) …
Read
The Pen in Hand Guide to the Movies: Film Review of “Women Talking”
Photo by Justin Campbell on Unsplash Strong Words: Film Review of Women Talking By Geoff Carter Language not only defines reality; it constructs reality, forming the narratives that are the lanes through which we navigate our world. Finding names for subtleties of emotions, relationships, and belief helps in the understanding of the concepts underlying the words. Language also …
Read
Kickass Watches The Sting
Attribution: English: Illustrator unknown; presumably a work-for-hire for distributor Universal Pictures., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joined the keeper and Phyllis in watching the old movie “The Sting,” and shared their conclusion that it was a good thing to do: great acting by old favorites, remembering Paul Newman …
Read
The Pen in Hand Guide to the Movies: Film Review of Elvis
Photo by Justin Campbell on Unsplash Soul Man: Film Review of Elvis by Geoff Carter Years ago, I went to an Elvis impersonator contest—yes, Virginia, there is such a thing—and was fascinated, although not surprised, that there were two categories for the performers: young Elvis and Vegas Elvis. Of course, to nearly every American, these categories speak for …
Read
The Pen in Hand Guide to the Movies: Review of Babylon
Photo by Justin Campbell on Unsplash Over the Top: Film Review of Babylon To call Damien Chazelle’s Babylon an exercise in excess would be a hyperbolic understatement. From the first surreal sequence of an elephant being transported through the California desert to one of the wildest and most decadent bacchanals ever presented on film, Babylon begins with one of the most incredibly …
Read
Kickass and Ducking the Bullet
John Warwick Brooke , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper and Phyllis tried to watch the latest movie version of “All Quiet on the Western Front,” but were put off by the movie maker’s skill in portraying the gore of ground combat; to the point that …
Read
The Pen in Hand Guide to the Movies: Review of The Menu
Photo by Justin Campbell on Unsplash Food for Thought: Review of The Menu By Geoff Carter “You’ll get less than you desire, and more than you deserve”. This little nugget of wisdom is whispered to an arrogant dinner guest by Elsa, the maître d’hôtel at the Hawthorne, an ultra-exclusive gourmet restaurant set on a remote island in The Menu, …
Read
The Pen in Hand Guide to the Movies: Film Review of The Banshees of Inisherin
Farrell and Gleeson at Film Event Raph_PH, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons Friendly Fire: A Film Review of The Banshees of Inisherin By Geoff Carter One of the staples of the movie industry is the “buddy film” in which two friends—usually guys—share adventures, tribulations, and even (in a few rare cases) some emotionality. We can …
Read
The Pen in Hand’s Guide to the Movies: Ringing in the New Year
Maasaak, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (Originally posted in December, 2020) By Geoff Carter We thought we had it made after getting out of 2020, but this has been another hard year—remembering everything that happened is painful—but we have to; if we do not remember, we’ll be doomed to repeat the same mistakes yet again. …
Read