Storytelling

Film Festival Mad Libs

Ethan Kuperberg writes an all-too true piece of satire for The New Yorker:

The Independent Film Festival is proud to promote the most innovative, groundbreaking independent cinema in the world. We believe in our commitment …

“Star Trek” and Wonder

J.L. Wall writes on Star Trek over at First Thoughts:

“Saturday evening, burned out and brain-dead after two weeks of grading papers, I plopped down in the living room to take advantage of my weekend …

Watch Tarkovsky Online

The final film of Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky, The Sacrifice (1986), has just been made available on Netflix Instant Streaming. While unfortunately presented in standard definition, this is still a great resource from a …

Making “To the Wonder”

Director Terrence Malick’s new film To the Wonder is a month away from release in the United States. Here are three featurettes documenting Malick’s unique creative process.

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Law & “Les Misérables”

Michael W. Hannon, “Blessed Are Les Misérables: For Theirs Is the True Philosophy of Law”

“Les Misérables is undoubtedly a story of grace and repentance, but it is also a story of law—one that …

“The Man Who Knew Too Much”

The Criterion Collection has republished an analysis of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1934 The Man Who Knew Too Much from David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson’s textbook Film Art. Click the image below to read the full post.…

Tolkien & Typology

Over at Mere Orthodoxy, Chris Krycho discsuses Tolkien and typology.

In his foreword to the second edition of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien boldy declares his dislike of allegory and notes that, whatever critics …

Tolkien & Hollywood Angst

Chris Kycho writes about Tolkien and Peter Jackson over at Mere Orthodoxy

There are two fundamental types of conflict in literature: external and internal. External conflicts pit the character against forces in the world around them: …

The Limits of Fiction

Today, Wheaton College professor and writer Alan Jacobs describes his views on the powers and limits of literature over at The American Conservative. What do you think?

So yesterday Teju Cole posted this reflection on …

Are There Women in Movies?

In an article for The Examined Life, Amanda Ruud considers the way Hollywood films present women characters.

In 1985 a woman named Liz Wallace came up with a test (now commonly called the “Wallace-Bechdel test” or …