Category: Cinema
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Books and Their Movies
Never judge a book by its movie! (Not a MavPhil original, I am sorry to say. Source? Paging Dave Lull.)
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Kamala as Zelig
Do you remember Zelig? If Zelig was the human chameleon, Kamala Harris is the political chameleon. Official Trailer #1 Mia Farrow as Kamala Who is Kamala Harris? The Language Nazi cannot resist pointing our that the author of the linked piece confuses 'errant' with 'arrant' about five paragraphs down.
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The Civil War Movie
Rather than submitting to sensory assault, your time would be better spent quietly preparing in three separate senses I will explain later. I won't be seeing the movie, for reasons given by my Alypius and the Gladiators. Addendum: Why bother watching a fictional civil war scenario when the first phases of hot civil war are…
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Dinesh D’Souza on our Incipient Police State
Here, with a link to a trailer of his new movie. ………………………. 'Terrorist' is experiencing semantic spread. It emerged in the Congressional FBI whistleblower hearings that the abbreviation '2A' is a "terrorist marker." That came as news to me. (But see here.) I have been using '2A' from time to time as an innocuous abbreviation of…
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Roberto Rossellini’s Socrates
Substack latest. The philosopher at the hour of death.
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“Not Hung Up on the Completion Thing”
In grad school I knew people who fit the above description. I used to joke about them ending up graduate student emeriti. Desultory and undisciplined, and allowed to take incompletes in their courses, they took them in spades. And so the above line from The Big Chill (1983) stuck with me. William Hurt has died…
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The Enigmatic B. Traven and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Substack latest.
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: The Seder Scene in “Crimes and Misdemeanors”
"Crimes and Misdemeanors" is Woody Allen's masterpiece. Here is the Seder scene. Addendum 8/26 The scene ends with Saul saying "If necessary, I will always choose God over the truth." It works cinematically, but it is a philosophically lame response to the atheist Aunt May. It is lame because Saul portrays the theist as one…
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Ted Kennedy’s Car
In this Age of Feeling, fact-based cogent arguments have little effect on the febrile pates of liberals. So one needs to supplement calm reasoning with bumperstickers, invective, and contumely, not that 'contumely' is a word one could expect a liberal to understand. And so, for your viewing enjoyment, I present: Of course, cars don't kill…
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Double Indemnity, 1944
I took a welcome break from the cable shout shows and the gun 'conversation' the other night to watch the 1944 film noir Double Indemnity, starring Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, and Edward G. Robinson. The Stanwyck character talks an insurance agent played by MacMurray into murdering her husband in order to collect on a double indemnity policy. …
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Did I Watch the Oscars?
Of course not. I don't watch garbage like that. Part of my motive, I suspect, is that I do not want to be reminded of how sick we are collectively becoming. I now hand off to Rod Dreher, Triumph of the Freaks. Related articles Maverick Philosopher: The Craphole Contretemps Continues Maverick Philosopher: 'Porn Literacy' Class…
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The Case for Christ
As cinema and story-telling, The Case for Christ leaves something to be desired. But if ideas are your thing, then this movie may hold your attention as it held mine. It will help if you are at least open to the possibility that Christ rose from the dead. The review in Christianity Today is worth…
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Scorsese’s Silence
A review by Brad Miner. Excerpt: As the book reaches its climax, Rodrigues feels the sand giving way beneath him: From the deepest core of my being yet another voice made itself heard in a whisper. Supposing God does not exist. . . . This was a frightening fancy. . . .What an absurd drama…
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The Passion of Martin Scorsese
Not everything in the NYT is leftist crap. The new Scorsese effort is based on the novel “Silence,” by Shusaku Endo. My copy should be arriving today. A tip of the hat to Karl White for informing me of it. “The novel poses a very profound theological question,” Peter C. Phan, a Jesuit theologian at…
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Robert De Niro . . .
. . . must be getting some 'Mean Tweets' along about now over his attack on Donald Trump. I've admired De Niro as an actor ever since Martin Scorsese's 1973 Mean Streets. Now actors and actresses have a right to their political opinions, but I can't see that most of them have a right to…