Film Won’t Save the World (But It Might Save You)

By David Braga - Aug. 15, 2017, 8:00 AM

If we wait for a movie to infect millions of minds and change the world on its own, we’ll be waiting forever. If we allow it to change us and then take that change out into our daily actions—by donating what we can, supporting noble causes, giving what time we have—then maybe, if we’re lucky, we’ll see that change ripple outward. 

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The Internet’s Own Boy

By Sandra Tzvetkova - Aug. 15, 2017, 7:00 AM

Artificially slowing down the spread of ideas, knowledge, and creative work—basically, anything that the digital age has made easy to duplicate and share almost infinitely at no extra cost—is counterintuitive. That we’re able to share a film or news with anyone in the world with an Internet connection is not the problem; it’s an incredible advancement.

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The Babadook, Traversing Trauma, and the Personal Importance of Film

By Eva Phillips - Aug. 15, 2017, 6:00 AM

Film, regardless of the genre, regardless of the budget, regardless of the amount of dialogue, should be preserved and venerated for the powers it possesses for any given individual and for the way that it can tendril into people’s lives in unexpected ways.

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The Fargo Question

By Joe Gates - Aug. 14, 2017, 8:00 AM

Hawley takes a vastly different approach than the Coen brothers did in his portrait of Minnesota. It is still as magically self-contained, but skillfully blown wider and deeper.

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Gaslighting, Motherhood, and Clint Eastwood’s Changeling

By Eva Phillips - July 31, 2017, 7:00 AM

What Changeling is most remarkable for is delicately depicting not only the raw anguish of the loss of a child, but also the vile treatment of women, the vile disregard for women’s voices, and the imperious manipulation of grief that women experience far too frequently in our society.

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Y Tu Mamá También and the Other You

By Joe Gates - July 21, 2017, 9:00 AM

People don’t show everyone, or sometimes anyone, the complete picture of who they are. And if they do, they might not like what they find on the other side.

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Okja: Super-Pig Saves Film Criticism

By David Braga - July 17, 2017, 9:00 AM

Okja does seem like a step in the right direction: a chance for a wall to break down permanently between critic and audience—not to kill film criticism, but to let it grow into a more analytical, thoughtful, and communal art. 

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Deconstructing Family with Son of Sofia

By Sandra Tzvetkova - July 4, 2017, 8:00 AM

Psykou’s message is that the entire family system—with its perceived obstacles, coming-of-age ordeals, and Freudian family tensions—is a story made up in the self-serving imagination of those whom it exists to empower.

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If It Bleeds, It Leads: Nightcrawler and Consumption

By Joe Gates - June 26, 2017, 9:00 AM

Many of our fictions—Nightcrawler, Black Mirror, Mr. Robot, Fight Club, to name a few—are our dreams of enterprise and technology turned nightmares.

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The Magdalene Sisters: Why We Need Bleak Women’s Tales

By Eva Phillips - June 19, 2017, 8:00 AM

Films like this one, gorgeously and relentlessly crafted to show the depths of human depravity and human resilience, attest to why seemingly hyperbolic feminist dystopias like The Handmaid’s Tale are crucial.

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