Riggan Thomson, played by Michael Keaton, goes to his laptop and accepts the call. Among the assorted items sitting beside his laptop is a small, shrivelled skull, an object you often see in European paintings toward the end of the Renaissance; it was how artists asked: “Is that all there is?” Continue reading Your Inner Voice is a Mad Superhero
“Film can heal by allowing people to tell their own stories. And it’s therapeutic for audiences to watch films together and to suspend all of their other duties and beliefs for the time the movie plays.” Continue reading In Conversation With Leah Warshawski
A Grumpy Dad, a Shiftless Lad, a Chance He Had Josh, the aimless teenaged son of Uriel, son of Eliezer, is being lectured by his father: I’m so close to giving up on you. You know what it means when a father gives up on his son? . . . Giving up on you means that instead of wanting to help you before it’s too late, I want to see you suffer so that I can gloat. http://www.voicemagazine.org/articles/columndisplay.php?ART=8683 Continue reading Footnote
In Metropia the holocaust was brought on by a financial collapse inevitable in a world of unbridled corporate greed, a theme we’ll probably be seeing more of as writers react to current global financial crises. And it shares with The Matrix more than just a love of the underground train motif; Metropia makes explicit the implicit Matrix message that human beings might deliberately choose to be slaves to illusions created by the marketplace. The film also rounds out 1984’s message by pointing out that absolute control is a primary goal not only of totalitarian regimes but also of other lovers … Continue reading Metropia: Brazil’s 1984-Style Matrix in 21st-Century Sweden
A common prejudice sees failing schools as an affliction of poor neighbourhoods, yet the film shows that failing schools are an epidemic and that the posh suburban schools are likely to be as ill-equipped to prepare children for university as are inner city schools in violent neighbourhoods. It’s even suggested that failing schools create failing neighbourhoods due to a high dropout rate that spawns growing populations of unemployable youth. (Read the whole article here.) Continue reading Waiting for Superman (Mindful Bard Pick of the Week)
The Mindful Bard 