Photo by Krists Luhaers on Unsplash By Geoff Carter Movies are by far the dominant popular art form in American. Books have become nearly passe. Theater is hanging on, not quite dead yet, but definitely not the force it used to be. Sports, particularly football and basketball, are still popular, but the laconic and deliberate former national pastime—baseball—has …
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Category:Movies
The Pen in Hand Guide to the Movies: Review of Oscar Nominated Short Live Films
Photo by Sam McGhee on Unsplash Less is More: Film Reviews of Oscar Nominated Live Action Shorts By Geoff Carter My wife and I have made it an annual tradition to trek to the local movie theater and see the Oscar-nominated Best Short Subject Films, both the animated and live action categories. Not only is it a treat …
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The Pen in Hand Guide to the Movies: Review of “RRR”
Dani Charles Silverscreen Media Inc. (https://silverscreen.in), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons Epic Fun: Film Review of RRR by Geoff Carter From nearly the first frame of the epic film RRR, the viewer is whisked up and taken on an incredible whirlwind of frenetic action, reimagined history, fantastically exotic settings, espionage, revolution, brotherhood, and—really?—a phenomenally exuberant …
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The Pen in Hand Guide to the Movies: And the Winner is….
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons Reflections on the Academy Awards Well, the viewing world—18.7 million people—survived another Academy Awards presentation. The program itself, a three plus hour marathon of Hollywood stargazing, Vegas style theatrics, straight-out kitsch, high fashion, and sometimes genuine unabashed emotion, is, as always, eminently predictable …
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The Pen in Hand Guide to the Movies: Review of “Everything Everywhere All at Once”
Photo by Liam McGarry on Unsplash All Over the Place: Film Review of Everything Everywhere All at Once By Geoff Carter Everything Everywhere All at Once is a film that does more than live up to its name. It is a frantic roller coaster ride to the ends of the universe—and back, a sci-fi thriller (sort of a Matrix redux involving …
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Dialogues on Working the Culture: Bloody Dreams on the Silver Screen
Photo by Maxim Hopman on Unsplash https://unsplash.com/photos/PEJHULxUHZs Featuring the Fabulous Dadbots: Mark M., Dave S. Mark O., Dennis C., Paul C., and Geoff Carter Hey bots, I wrote this a couple weeks ago and thought it might be a good jumping-off point for a new thread. -G Justice For All? Violence at the Movies Movies are by far …
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Disenchantment
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter Disney World, the mother of all family theme parks, is based just outside of Orlando, Florida. Its component pieces, EPCOT, The Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, and Disney’s Hollywood Studios, span over 27,000 acres—about 43 square miles—and rake in huge profits—over twenty-seven billion dollars in 2022 alone. It is …
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The Pen in Hand Guide to the Movies: Review of “All Quiet on the Western Front”
Photo by Hermes Rivera on Unsplash Life in the Trenches: Film Review of All Quiet on the Western Front By Geoff Carter Since the 1998 release of the Steven Spielberg’s groundbreaking epic Saving Private Ryan, war films have undergone a number of profound stylistic transformations. Spielberg’s use of desaturated color, alternating camera speeds, flattened lenses, blood-spattered lenses, and shaky …
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The Pen in Hand Guide to the Movies: Review of “The Fablemans”
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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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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) …
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