Older Films

True Grit

Well, not really women, since True Grit stars a fourteen-year-old girl with John Wayne in his only Academy-Award-winning role. He plays Rooster Cogburn, a name that captures his arrogance and stubbornness. Wayne fulfills our expectations as a bandit-chasing U.S. Marshal but surprises us with his soft side. He calls Mattie (Kim Darby) “little sister”. He shifts between […]
Serving Life

I go to college. Being taught is what makes up my life, and it would be foul play to act as if this were not the case. I cannot conjure up ideas, postulate moving arguments, or construct a philosophy without it coming from what I am being taught, from what smolders in my bones. Consider […]
Never Let Me Go

Anybody who picked up a copy of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go after finding it on Time’s list of the best English novels written since 1923 would likely have been baffled after a hundred pages or so. They would have found the Booker Prize winning author had traded out the contemplative, first-person perspective of […]
How To Watch A Classic Film: The Wizard of Oz

On my first day of Western Civ 257: Literature of Western Civilization in college, we started on Homer’s Odyssey and the professor claimed the text was “above criticism,” a statement which I found a bit precious. How is anything above criticism? Is Homer now become Holy Writ? The more history books I read, though, the […]
Billy Elliot

Only in the final act of the film does anyone ask Billy Elliot about his dancing. Until he stands before the admissions board for the Royal Ballet School, he is either told to dance or told not to dance. When finally someone asks him, “What does it feel like to dance?” Billy unfolds a rather […]
Jiro Dreams Of Sushi

A review of Jiro Dreams of Sushi (2011), Three Stars (2012), A Matter of Taste: Serving Up Paul Liebrandt (2011) In the beginning, Jiro Ono wistfully asks “What defines deliciousness?” At first, it might seem strange for one of the most distinguished chefs alive to ask such a thing. Would we not expect a world-renowned […]