Posts Tagged ‘Ralph Fiennes’
Film Review – Conclave
Electing a new Pope is a sacred one steeped in rituals and looking to God for guidance. On the other hand, it is also a popularity contest or at least one that examines all the potential candidates for how virtuous they are in the eyes…
READ MOREEpisode 124 – The Menu
Ashlee joins the podcast this week to review the new dark comedy, The Menu, starring Ralph Fiennes and Anya Taylor-Joy. We also reminisce about our days as video store clerks, just before the DVD market bottomed out. Finally, as our streaming homework, we review the…
READ MOREFilm Review – The Menu
The Menu (2022) operates as a black comedy involving the rituals of fine dining. In broader terms, it can be seen as an allegory for consumerism, art, and the commodification of basic human necessities. Whether a person has a fancy luxury vehicle or a cheap used…
READ MOREFilm Review – Official Secrets
Official Secrets takes place in the post-9/11 world, one that grows closer to the war on Iraq. What preceded the U.S. invasion of Iraq was a vote by the United Nations Security Council to vote in favor of the impending war. There was immense pressure on the…
READ MOREFilm Review – The LEGO Batman Movie
Good News! Everything is still Awesome! Back in 2014, The LEGO Movie was a shot of pure joy. It was the best kind of surprise, a property that was likely to only be a 90 minute commercial for a toy line was in actuality a…
READ MOREFilm Review – Hail, Caesar!
Hollywood’s golden era was famously controlled by giant production studios that lorded over their workers as if within fictitious fiefdoms of entertainment and prestige. Studios like MGM (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) hired people known as fixers to maintain a positive public image of the people they employed by…
READ MOREFilm Review – Spectre
Over the course of fifty-three years, the character of James Bond has created enough appeal to stretch out over what is now twenty-four movies, not including the non-official Bond flicks such as the first Casino Royale and Never Say Never Again. It’s impressive simply because…
READ MOREFilm Review – The Grand Budapest Hotel
In the connection between history and understanding is memory. Stories are predicated on memory between time and place. It is in this space where interpretation comes from. Information about somewhere and some-when informs our imagination, which in turn creates a memory of something we were…
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