Life Itself (2014) – Steve James

WARNING: The following pseudo-review consists of a largely rambling mess of possibly incoherent reflections. It has been divided into two parts. Read beyond the score for more. ACKNOWLEDGMENT: I’m aware that the preceding warning is hardly enticing… but I’d rather you not read this post than read it and be annoyed that you spent your […]

A Short(ish) Note with Graphs and Figures on Why the Oscars Matter

The other day, I was having a discussion with a friend about how there seems to be a growing divergence between the movies that most Americans see and those that the Academy honors with a Best Picture (or, really, any) nomination. It’s certainly true that, for as long as I have been paying attention, the […]

Selma (2014) – Ava DuVernay

In Selma’s most iconic scene, Martin Luther King Jr. is standing on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, a structure named for a former Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan. Behind him are thousands of marchers—mostly black, but some whites too—demonstrating against the suppression of African-American voter registration in Alabama. In front of King is a […]