Deep Focus

Citizen Kane: The Greatest Movie Ever Made – Well, maybe not…

Science-fiction has long been the genre that wrestles best with the “improbable made possible,” to quote Rod Serling, and what that being “made possible” means for humanity. Science-fiction is the story-thought realm of technological, social, and political ethics. Sci-fi, for all its aliens, spaceships, and ray guns, is about the practical, immediate, tangible parts of our lives. Never Let Me Go is a good science-fiction film…

One will be hard pressed to find another film that deals as explicitly with the idea of the soul, what it means to have a soul – to be some strange mix of the spiritual and physical – what it means that we are all soul-full beings, shaped by our experiences, and what our responsibilities are to ourselves and more importantly each other as soul-full women and men…

This film excels in its portrayal of Mr. Freeze. His story is compelling because he’s not just trying to steal for thievery’s sake; he’s trying to save his wife. He is a man rocked by grief. Batman, and by extension, this film, is to be commended for treating him with compassion…

We are given a verse, and then the first image we see is a cross, shining through the blackness, out of focus but shining nonetheless…

Films about the British royal family always carry an air of inaccessibility, but it is that very air that makes them engrossing. The best British royal films always show the royals to be just like the rest of us albeit a bit more concerned about decorum. This is okay too though, because they are, after all, not allowed to be themselves, but carriers of an identity hundreds of years old…

The film’s visuals are stunning and unlike anything else audiences have ever seen, but somehow nothing in the movies makes sense. If you can turn off your mind and enjoy the show, you’ll have a great time…

Watching Marcus wear down Will is just one of the many humorous pleasures of the film. Eventually, but kicking and screaming most of the way, Will sees that life without another is meaningless, and that “once you open your heart to one person, you open it to others.” About a Boy is sweet, but also often bittersweet, for it deals with the human condition in a realistic way. Both comedy and drama come from the characters and their situations, for such is life…

Our experiences in a movie theater can range from pure entertainment to art to a divine moment. Rob has shared how the film Beckett became an experience of hearing God’s call to ministry. The Year of Living Dangerously became a moment of “conversion” in my life…

Nolan’s post-modern leanings fall into the realm of, as I mentioned before, epistemology, or how we know what we know. He often accomplishes this through the manipulation of time…

Despicable Me is anything but despicable. Following How To Train Your Dragon and Toy Story 3 this summer movie season (both excellent films in their own rights), Despicable Me carries a charm all its own. It is engaging and fun in just about every possible way…

The film Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man is a visual and musical memoir of the legendary singer-songwriter of the 60’s and 70’s, Leonard Cohen, and the current artists he has influenced. This documentary, while centering on the “Come So Far for Beauty” concert at the Sydney Opera House in 2005 in honor of Cohen, also includes intimate interviews with this Canadian beat poet who put much of his work to music, and with the artists who draw inspiration from him…

Similar to the radio show, which has been on the air since 1974 (or as Guy Noir says, “…since Jesus was in the 3rd grade.”), this fictional movie is not about anything in particular really. Less about plot (the viewer is supposedly getting a behind-the-scenes look at the final radio broadcast of the show due to the sale of the Fitzgerald Theater to a cold-hearted corporate hack), the film is more about moments, songs, conversations, and characters…

“Iris,” the most adult film of the three movies, is also a true story of a woman stricken with Alzheimer’s disease. Adapted from John Bayley’s (portrayed by Jim Broadbent) memoir of his wife, the philosopher and novelist Iris Murdoch (Judi Dench), the movie shows viewers their 40-plus year marriage. It movingly brings to light the love and pain which commitment can bring, particularly when one of the life partners slowly loses her mind to Alzheimer’s disease…

Though the plot is somewhat predictable and a tear-jerker (in the best and worst sense of the phrase), Sam’s unconditional, unabashed, and inexhaustible love for Lucy is inspiring to any parent regardless of their I.Q. Even Rita is transformed, as she discovers her own humanity by seeing the beauty of Sam’s…

Mental illness is not something we “successful and self-reliant” Americans like to look at. Thus, these portrayals give us a window into persons we often otherwise fail to see…

2012 is ridiculous in an awesome kind of way, but what else can you expect from a disaster movie literally about the end of the world?