spirituality

SXSW 2020: CARGO: Interesting But Unfocused
SXSW 2020: CARGO: Interesting But Unfocused

Cargo fails on its promise to meld the concepts of science fiction, fantasy and Hinduism, and ends up feeling muddled.

EMANUEL: Radical Forgiveness In A World Desperately In Need
EMANUEL: Radical Forgiveness In A World Desperately In Need

Emanuel digs knee-deep into the prevalence of racist violence reaching yet another horrible conclusion with the acts committed against the Charleston 9 that fateful day in 2015.

25 IN 24: Embracing The Chaos and The Joy of Music
25 IN 24: Embracing The Chaos & The Joy of Music

The allure of Jon Foreman’s approach to life can be summed up by one day documented for all posterity in the documentary 25 in 24.

BETWEEN WORLDS: A Paranormal Drama with Potential
BETWEEN WORLDS: A Paranormal Drama With Potential

Between Worlds has potential in its more surreal moments, but it never utilizes the tension and conflict that could come from this story.

Sculptures in Time Pt. II: Tarkovsky's ANDREI RUBLEV
Sculptures in Time Pt. II: Tarkovsky’s ANDREI RUBLEV

For Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky, the artist was inextricably joined to his society, both its benefits and its ills. Tarkovsky defined these colloquies between society and an individual artist as “dialectics of personality.” In other words, individual development was indefinably caught-up within personal and distant interactions with a society.

Sculptures In Time Pt. I: Tarkovsky's IVAN'S CHILDHOOD
Sculptures In Time Pt. I: Tarkovsky’s IVAN’S CHILDHOOD

About midway through Andrei Tarkovsky’s feature 1962 film debut of Ivan’s Childhood, in the midst of a Russian battlefield field torn asunder during World II, a cross is backlit by a setting sun. The cross is obscured in shadow and yet its beauty remains. A spiritual man, Tarkovsky was never afraid to ask questions about spiritual matters.

The Revenant
THE REVENANT: A Superreal And Raw Film

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discovered I had not lived. — Walden (Henry David Thoreau) Set in the remote wilderness of Montana and South Dakota in the 1820s, director Alejandro Iñárritu’s biographical western, The Revenant, follows fur trapper Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his remarkable quest of survival and retribution. Having been mauled by a bear and left for dead, Glass must find a strength and resolve to overcome the elements and fight his way back to civilization while attempting to have a cathartic release from his experiences.

KNIGHT OF CUPS: Look, But Don’t Touch

Knight of Cups is the first film I’ve ever seen where over a third of the audience left the theatre during the film. Without any context, I understand why this film would drive people to leave the movie. The film is an artistic montage, never stopping to deliver any linear narrative or dialogue scenes, continuing its visual poetry.

Ingmar Bergman
The Beginner’s Guide: Ingmar Bergman, Director

Saying you like Ingmar Bergman is like saying you like cinema. His influence and style have become more than an influence, a defining layer in the foundation of cinema. With some directors you can recall a few classic movies, but with filmmakers like Bergman, who has so many definitive credits as a director, his filmography can almost seem too daunting to follow.