In A Few Good Men, adversarial parties to a court martial prove themselves capable of confronting part of the truth, but never all of it. My childhood owes a lot to this film. No, I’m not one of those kids who watched it in the ’90s and then decided from that moment onward that my […]
★★½ Entropic inversion and square symmetry – enabling the kind of review you can read forwards or backwards. I promised to keep this review short, since Tenet did all the talking and far too much of it. So you may not need more from me than just a concept-illustrating phrase. While the Sator Square is […]
Donald Trump would be a better president if he was meaner. Not louder; not CAPS-LOCK obsessed; not frivolous. “Meaner” in this context means what it would mean if we were to say that Abraham Lincoln was mean to the Confederacy. Or if we were to say that Harry Truman was mean to Japan. What those […]
I once saw a lone cape buffalo in Africa hold off a small pride of lions for the better part of half an hour. They had managed to separate him from the rest of his herd, and I was so sure they had him. But those puny, lazy, pack-hunting amateurs didn’t know what hit them. […]
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This article was originally published on the Cinematic Katzenjammer in March, 2019. ★★★★ You know what movies could benefit from more of these days? Violence. Not the kind where human beings are made of water balloons and discharge blood like fire hoses – the kind that’s disturbing, unnerving, difficult to witness and decidedly […]
★★★★ “Dear Madam, I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement . . . that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from […]
This article was originally published on the Cinematic Katzenjammer in May 2019 for the 35th Anniversary of this film’s original release. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is a masterpiece. It is a glorious fun-house roller coaster made by disturbed geniuses in perfect harmony with each other. Their goal – anything goes. That opening […]
“For over a thousand years Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of triumph, a tumultuous parade. In the procession came trumpeters, musicians and strange animals from conquered territories, together with carts laden with treasure and captured armaments. The conqueror rode in a triumphal chariot, the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him. […]
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This article was originally published on the Cinematic Katzenjammer in May, 2018. The following article is subjective, deeply personal, and politically charged in ways that are sure to upset at least one person. It is that way perhaps for no other reason than because I will begin my celebration of Steven Spielberg by […]
This article was originally published on the Cinematic Katzenjammer in March 2018, as the second of three parts. Part I can be found here. In Part I we talked big picture construction – heroic virtue established by resistance to nihilism, representations of fear, and the condition of the Joker. For Part II, we’re going small. […]
V for Verbatim 