This week, FilmFisher is back in class. Presented below are FF writer’s favorite scenes from a classroom. Brian Murnion: Zero for Conduct dir. Jean Vigo (France – 1933): Boarding-school boys pull pranks in and out of the classroom. The 400 Blows dir. Francois Truffaut (France – 1959) “…Doinel, for tomorrow you will conjugate – take…Read On

“It’s The Real Thing”: Person-to-Person Connection in the Finale of Mad Men Recently, Matthew Weiner’s acclaimed television series Mad Men concluded its run with a strange, quiet, opaque, challenging, and divisive final episode. In other words, with an episode of Mad Men. The show’s final moments have earned comparisons to the ambiguous ending of The Sopranos –…Read On

This week, we’re proud to have Greg Wilbur join. Greg is the Dean of New College Franklin and the chief musician at Cornerstone Presbyterian Church in Franklin, Tennessee. He regularly gives very fine lectures at ACCS and SCL conferences. Greg and regular FilmFisher writers were asked to contribute a list of the greatest film scores…Read On

In his review of “The Talented Mr Ripley,” Anthony Lane complains of the obvious casting choices. Matt Damon as the pasty, deviant recluse and Jude Law as the beach-going playboy… how much more interesting would the movie have been had they switched roles? As much as I like “Ripley,” I’ve always been fascinated by the…Read On

You might have seen (and taken part) in more on-line arguments than usual lately. To that end, this week we’re looking at the greatest on-screen arguments in cinematic history. Timothy Lawrence: All 102 minutes of The Unknown Known. The genius of Errol Morris’s self-designed interview camera is that it slides the distinction between the interviewer…Read On

This week, the greatest hospital/surgery scenes in motion picture history. Thomas Banks: Gene Wilder’s “Life! Give my creation life!” scene in “Young Frankenstein.” Because really, how often is the parody more memorable than the work parodied? Jack Nicholson/Louise Fletcher in the “Nurse Ratchet, you turn that television on scene” in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s…Read On

To the zoo. This week, the top five animal movies. Timothy Lawrence: War Horse: Spielberg’s masterful direction really elevates this one. The Rover: I won’t spoil it, but the way in which this film turns out to be “about an animal” is meaningful and heartbreaking. Where The Wild Things Are: In which the “animals” are…Read On

With the recent release of Jurassic World, we decided to take a look at the greatest movie monsters of all time. Fraser Martens The Xenomorph, Alien. A list of 5 great movie monsters is really a list of the 4 greatest monsters other than the Xenomorph. None of the sequels have done justice to how…Read On

School’s out, vacations are beginning. This week, the five best films which deal with travel. Brian Murnion: “Ugetsu” dir. Kenji Mizoguchi, 1953 “The Wages of Fear” dir. Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1953 “Alice in the Cities” dir. Wim Wenders, 1974 “It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World” dir. Stanley Kramer, 1963 “Weekend” dir. Jean-Luc Godard, 1967 Elizabeth…Read On

For the last several years, I’ve figured that there is something Dionysian about Summer and something Apollonian about Winter. When November rolls around, the Best Picture candidates come out. Everyone gets thoughtful, but in the Summer, nothing doing. A few films do a pretty fine job capturing the madness of Summer… I think of “The…Read On

You feel intimidated. Ten minutes in, you think, “This can’t be going anywhere good. I should probably get while the getting is good.” But you have nothing else to do, nowhere to go, nothing else to watch. So you sit and you sit and you sit and you do not like it one little bit…Read On

If the characters are not wicked, the book is. Thus spake GK Chesterton in All Things Considered. Often enough, the quote is a little mangled. I grew up hearing it thus: A story without wicked characters is a wicked story. Granting for the moment that the quote is true, let us admit that the maxim…Read On

Tired of spending forever trying to find something worth watching on Netflix? This week, the five best films streaming on Netflix. Brian Murnion: The Apartment (1960) Sunset Boulevard (1950) In Bloom (2014) Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963) Clueless (1995) Remy Wilkins: There Will Be Blood : People should be aware that the greatest movie of…Read On

The average citizen of the West now lives nearly twice as long as he did a thousand years ago. An extension of the sunset years has proven disorienting to us, a fact chiefly observable in the growing legality and popularity of physician assisted suicide. This week, give five films which deal lucidly with old age…Read On