Oliver Stone, coming off the successes of Platoon, Wall Street and Born on the Fourth of July wrote and directed JFK. Upon its release it was controversial for reasons that shall be explained, but for thematic reasons does well at answering the question: what exactly had America become post-World War II?

Despite its title, the film is not about the president who was famously assassinated in 1963. The movie itself is about the curious circumstances surrounding his death and the one man, Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner), trying to prove that the circumstances were, in fact, peculiar.

The tone and tenor of the film are established within the first ten minutes beginning with a replaying of Eisenhower’s address to the nation upon his departure from the Office of the President. Famously in this speech, Eisenhower, warned the American people of a managerial, industrial apparatus with the sole purpose of creating weapons so powerful we can destroy ourselves with them; “The Military-Industrial Complex,” as it was termed by Eisenhower.

Kennedy was consistent in his opposition to this apparatus in public and private. Kennedy, in public addresses, had indicated a new tone for the country, a less apocalyptic tone, especially after his Cuban missile standoff with the Soviet Union. Kennedy had understood that the only reason such a situation could have ever occurred was because the United States (and the Soviet Union) had an entire class racing to a literal finish line: what Wendell Berry had termed, “the world-ending fire.”

Kennedy’s rejection of this apparatus, complex and class earned him a suspect reputation among the military-intelligence power brokers in Washington and viewed him as soft on the Soviet Union. Throughout this part of the film, Kennedy is delivering an address, likely to a college, rejecting this mentality and honing in on a vision oriented toward posterity, our own human mortality and children. The film cuts shortly after this to footage from the Zapruder tape and news coverage after Kennedy’s assassination. Immediately, Jim Garrison, a district attorney in New Orleans, and his office get to work as Lee Harvey Oswald, Kennedy’s assassin, was from New Orleans. The only lead his office and the FBI had turned out to be a dead end. By this point, Lyndon Johnson had begun further planning for the war in Vietnam, the conflict that became emblematic of the military-industrial apparatus.

Everyone up to this point in the film, expresses their doubts around the curious circumstances of John Kennedy’s assasination, Garrison included. Garrison chats it with a liquored-up Senator (Walter Matthau); he exclaims: “One pristine bullet, that dog don’t hunt!” He is commenting on the validity of the Warren Commission, the committee formed to investigate the Kennedy Assassination. Upon hearing this Garrison begins to find inconsistencies and illegalities within the report.

Garrison, for most of the film, is piecing and weaving together different threads of the events, the circumstances and possibly a case so as to bring to trial men he thinks are partially responsible for the assassination of Kennedy. As he is piecing everything together, many potential witnesses refuse to testify or die under suspect circumstances. But the most important scene of the film, narratively and thematically is the conversation between Jim Garrison and Mr. X (Donald Sutherland), which occurs roughly two thirds into the film. The conversation details the extremely suspicious activities of the military-industrial-intelligence apparatus in the weeks and days leading up to the Kennedy Assassination.

In the aftermath of the Second World War and beyond, the intelligence wing of the American government had funded a number of operations that sought to contain communism at home and abroad. This came to be known as Black Ops. This is how Mr. X describes the pre and post-Kennedy assassination activities of the military bureaucracy, with the killing itself being one of them.

On the surface, one can accede to the position that the Kennedy assassination was a black operation. But much deeper than this and what this scene is emblematic of is the final entrenchment of a technological, managerial and bureaucratic system that had been built and has persisted into the 21st century. Its only purpose is to function according to the law of production, so long as the product is clean the people will be happy. As Donald Sutherland’s character aptly notes the “most basic organizing principle for any society, Mr Garrison, is war.”

War in this sense is closer to what we would call annihilation. Annihilation, namely, of your opponent. Kennedy’s assassination is this principle internally applied. The precise destruction of one’s enemy can only be the industrial production of weapons or the effect of industrial production upon weaponry. That Kennedy posed such a threat to the dismantling of this apparatus is why he had to go, is the logic the managerial state will use as a last defense.

Such a system should be at any degree, be inimical to any self-understanding catholic politics. Any historically aware catholic political thought will know that the Church is the inheritor and executor of the Roman political and juridical legacy, which is concerned primarily with virtue. The Church is above all, also, concerned with the harmonization among opposites and difference but the Roman Empire, the Church and later the Holy Roman Empire would settle these things concretely and justly without the total annihilation of their enemies.

To conclude, what Catholics can take from this film, is not necessarily fear but the distinct possibility that this how government functions, not according to laws but according to the cold logic of destruction.

Directed by Paul Greengrass. Starring David Alan BascheOlivia ThirlbyLiza Colón-Zayas.

By Zach Smith

United 93 is a legendarily bad hang of a movie. Nobody is booting this up when bored on a Tuesday. Nobody is begging for a rewatch. Paul Greengrass’ docudrama of the September 11th attacks is one I’d been avoiding for 20 years based on its reputation alone. Its greatness has never been in question (Greengrass was nominated for Best Director at the Oscars for it, and it was famously snubbed in Best Picture the year of its release) but its subject matter is enough to make anyone old enough to remember September 11th quickly give it a “nope.”

For the 25th anniversary of September 11th, though, I felt it was finally time to check it out.

It’s masterful.

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Na Hong-Jin’s fourth feature directorial effort and first in ten years may be the most perplexing film of the year.

As the credits rolled, I turned to my friend and remarked “I am not sure if that was good bad or bad good” only to find out that is Reactor Mag’s review title. Both 1/10 and 10/10 scores are understandable for Hope. It is the first and possibly the last film to play in competition at the Cannes Film Festival that sits at the exact nexus of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Zack Snyder’s DC films, and Prometheus (complete with another freaky Michael Fassbender). And in today’s era of post-ironic, clinging facetiousness, it is almost impossible to determine where the joke begins and ends.

Saying almost anything about the plot of Hope would spoil all of it. Like my earlier comparison of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Hope is largely noise.

Monsters are attacking the small South Korean village of Hope Harbor and the townsfolk have to mount a desperate effort to save what’s left. About two-thirds of the film’s gargantuan yet surprisingly weightless 156-minute runtime is dedicated to just two action setpieces. Characters are only really texture to the soundwaves, but if there is one thing this movie has, it is texture. For a film with absolutely no character arcs, there are a lot of memorable characters: grannies who appear to reactivate like sleeper agents from the 6-25 Upheaval (Korean War), a weirdo who might secretly be a serial killer, and yep an unrecognizable Michael Fassbender to name just a few. As a sidenote on the film’s top-billed Western cast members, I am not entirely sure some of them have a single line of dialogue.

The two aforementioned action setpieces are thrilling and make the runtime seem far shorter. There are multiple chases – in or on foot, bicycle, horse, and car. Squid Game breakout Hoyeon plays a small-town cop with proficiency in machine gun grenade launcher attachments– of course during a car chase. If you enjoyed the opening scenes of Batman v Superman or A Quiet Place: Part Two, there is over an hour of that kind of human dwarfing, hi-fi Cloverfield destruction. About thirty or forty minutes in, though, we get the reveal of the monster, whose CGI looks so bad that it might be a gag. We are talking slightly above the level of that Chinese animated movie made by a mother and son for $200. The idea that everything is all one elaborate joke is slightly more believable in the same movie where an extended monologue about explosive diarrhea is the best scene.

What the director is trying to convey is equally vexing. In a slightly spoiler-y quote (skip this paragraph and the next if you want to avoid) Na Hong-Jin said to the Korea Times that “I wanted to depict human affairs from the perspective of a god. But putting an actual god in the film seemed awkward, so I turned the figure into an alien”. However, Hope ends exactly when we start to understand the monsters’ purpose and what the film might be trying to say. Allegedly, this is supposed to be the first in a trilogy, but this film is intended to stand on its own. Yet there is something here about the relative insignificance of human drama and society in the face of divine or cosmic drama. The DNA of Prometheus (2011) and Man of Steel (2013) are palpable here.

The first act is peppered with references to North Korean spy paranoia and immigration which made me think we were going to get more commentary around those topics: the Korean divide, refugees, xenophobia, and so on. Again, there may be something said there, but the film never gets to any sort of resolution. The monsters might be misunderstood refugees that instantly receive aggression without any questions asked. At the same time, characters like Hoyeon’s express a rage at the brutal indifference and injustice of the monsters’ attack. Or the monsters are essentially deities whose struggle makes the humans insignificant because they were never remotely on the same playing field and the human response is representative of struggle in the face of natural/economic/transcendent disaster. What are we supposed to take away here? But unlike Batman v Superman or Alien: Covenant, this is all only hinted at. There is not enough to be provocative positively or negatively.

Hope might be a serious attempt at a franchise starter or a cheeky anti-blockbuster that purposely builds you up just to let you down. It is probably both and either way, you are the joke. Almost two decades of self-injuriously self-aware, big budget filmmaking probably culminating in Deadpool & Wolverine has made the difference between the two unclear. 2026 feels like a year, though, where we might be finally moving on from the 2010s model with sincere pictures like Backrooms and The Odyssey making more money than the latest cynical, actually bad pretending to be performatively bad takes on Star Wars, the DC universe, and Masters of the Universe.

As harsh as the preceding paragraph sounds, it might be surprising that I would recommend it to some audiences. The action, even with the terrible digital effects, is great, mainly because everything besides the monsters is joyously tactile and practical. Suspension of disbelief is stretched thin, especially when it comes to the durability of a jean jacket, but even that becomes an entertaining gag in its own right. Stay for a mid-credit scene on that one. The quirky cast of characters are funny and give you just enough attachment to favor them over the monsters. Perhaps the film being non-Western makes the formula cut further from the bone or that my reaction to it was thrillingly puzzled exasperation rather than the usual numbing indifference, but I enjoyed Na Hong-jin’s messy epic far more often than I did not.

Hope is now playing in theaters.

Totalitarianism is evil. Plain and simple.

Whether it’s communism or fascism, it is incompatible with Catholicism. The opposition to totalitarianism goes as far back as Ancient Greece and has endured to this day, although the line of who’s on whose side has been drastically blurred. The modern-day Western “anti-fascist” fancies himself as a “freedom fighter” when, in reality, he is fighting for newer and much more oppressive overlords. While the true roots of antifascism act as a sort of crossroads for both “right and left” politics (if one believes in such a thing), it is undeniable that left-leaning politics and socialists were much more extreme and devoted adherents to this ideology, especially in post WWII Europe. This brings us to Costa-Gavras’s revolutionary political thriller Z, which, while it is a little left-leaning, is a true and authentic anti-fascist film worth seeing regardless of political affiliation.

Z is based on real events, and it pulls no punches, throwing accusations and villainizing those it sees as evil. Within the first 2 minutes, after being introduced to the cast, Z opens up with perhaps the most provocative opening ever made by a political film. Costa tears off the gloves and states up front in a freeze frame, “Any similarities to real persons or events are not coincidental. It is INTENTIONAL” (Intentional is really spelled in all caps).

Z focuses on the real-life murder of Greek politician Gregorius Lambrakis and the government collusion that led to it. This assassination led to chaos and a loss of faith in government and the Royal Court, which was subsequently taken over in a military coup that favored the assassins. Costa does change names, but the circumstances and events all remain the same. The film’s title is the zeta in the Greek word Zi (he lives), which was the symbol of protest in Greece after his assassination that was graffitied all over in solidarity.

The government in real life and in Z was right-wing. The film does not condemn anyone who is right, but merely condemns those who go about in the political sphere in extreme ways. It condemns corruption, murder, and about every other Shady act that a government can do. It reminds me of the astonishing documentary The Act of Killing by Joshua Oppenheimer, which very clearly shows that the lengths that some governments will go to fight communism or socialism have them becoming the very monsters that they are trying to save people from. Instead of winning on the ideas and in the Public Square, they resort to totalitarian tactics and become just as bad as the enemy.

Z gives the audience a look at the lengths an establishment will go to to maintain order. It is a living organism that will do anything to survive and continue. It will adapt, acquire, and remove any part of itself that dares threaten its own survival, and will stop at nothing or no one to do so. We see small pieces of it scattered throughout American politics, but never have we seen it in all its ugliness as Z shows Greece’s establishment.

Z’s power ultimately lies in its craftsmanship. Despite using mostly professional actors, including the legendary Yves Montand (Wages of Fear, Le Cercle Rouge, Grand Prix) as Z, this film feels about as real as real can get. It fits in the same vein as The Battle of Algiers, where the line between reality and film seems so blurred that it feels like a documentary. Every character feels real, and every scenario feels unscripted. Editor Françoise Bonnot put together one of the most incredibly edited films of the 1960s, and perhaps the 20th century. Her editing genius, combined with a wild score by Míkis Theodorakis, truly makes Z the most pulse-pounding political thriller of the 20th century. From the very first shot, it is evident to the audience that the gas pedal was all the way to the floor and will never be lifted up. The editing and pacing never feel nauseating, keeping the inertia up until the very end.

The film fundamentally understands what true oppression is and how to effectively bring it into the light. Unlike contemporary films such as One Battle After Another that merely LARP an oppression fetish, Z was made in a time and place of astounding corruption. This understanding of Oppression is a bipartisan issue that has existed as long as government has. The left-leanings of this film are definitely not lost in the shuffle. They do not come out as strong necessarily as something like Battleship Potemkin, but nevertheless they are present. It is a shame as a Catholic to watch the death of another Christian monarchy in Europe, yet understandable given the circumstances and the manner in which they conducted themselves.

Costa-Gavras’s masterful thriller saw massive underground success upon release. It was frequently shown at Black Panther Party meetings with unanimous positive consensus. The film has continued to gain respect and accolades for members of both sides of the aisle, including a resounding endorsement from critic Armond White. This bipartisan support for Z is a testament to the universality of its messaging and how film can have a political stance in which the audience can disagree with the film’s beliefs, yet sympathize with its themes. This creative tact is something modern mainstream Hollywood films desperately lack and perhaps lies at the core of why Hollywood feels so disconnected from the rest of the world.

Z is ultimately a film as revolutionary as the revolution that it tries to inspire in its audience. It stands as a testament to the power of filmmaking and to what it looks like when everything in a film works perfectly together. As problematic as Gavras is as a person, the quality and impact of his magnum opus is undeniable and something that needs to be seen by all. Such an intense and quality piece of art is something that must be handled and approached with care. My prayer for the future of this film is that people can extrapolate the importance of fighting true injustice and oppression from it; instead of feeling justified in fighting their enemies with more intense violence.

Welcome back to “What’s Good on Streaming”; aiming to showcase what’s actually good from your streaming subscriptions! This is an exclusive for paid subscribers, so if you want to check out the rest of the list and see what’s good each week, consider joining our paid tier!

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Every era of film history has a slew of important milestones that defined the medium and pushed it forward. Many of those films are still enjoyable today, but few manage to retain their power decades later. Terminator 2: Judgment Day is one of those films. Ever since his sophomore effort The Terminator (1984) fresh out of the Roger Corman school of blockbuster filmmaking, James Cameron has proven himself as the greatest set piece director of all time. Terminator 2 (or T2) is a gallery of incredible action set pieces and, not to be all spectacle, has a message about AI and the value of human life that feels far more relevant today.

Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) is in a mental institution and her son John (Edward Furlong) is growing up with adoptive parents after the events of the first film. Skynet, the evil AI overlords of the post-apocalyptic future, failed at their attempt to send a Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) back in time to kill a pregnant Sarah and prevent John from leading the resistance. Now in the near future of 1995, SkyNet has sent back another Terminator to kill John, but luckily the resistance has sent one to protect him, too. A big part of the fun here is seeing Arnie’s Terminator T-800 turn good as he must save John from the more advanced, shapeshifting T-1000 (Robert Patrick).

T2 arrived seven years after the original and it effortlessly brings the audience up to speed without drowning them in exposition. It also sets up a new status quo that creates tension without totally undermining the original (*ahem* Alien 3 or Terminator: Dark Fate). The energy is a bit different, too. While the original is a marvel of budget blockbuster filmmaking, T2 spares no expense. Like most of Cameron’s films, this feels big, even when the cast is small and the locales relatively austere.

Cameron’s long-standing obsession with computer-generated imagery begins here. The usage of CG was quite new in 1991. Despite its primitive nature at the time, Terminator 2 elevated the tool to a new height that still holds up today. The best film craftsmen know how to make the best of what they are given, something Cameron learned from Corman and displayed well in the original Terminator. The effect of Robert Patrick’s silvery, metallic shapeshifting is frighteningly entrancing and the limited detail of the design only adds to the inhuman menace of the antagonist. The T-1000 seems like a creation of the future.

T2 won three Academy Awards– for Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Effects Editing, and Best Sound. It was also nominated for Best Cinematography and Best Editing. Sound designer Gary Rydstrom is probably the most famous sound technician in the medium and was a key talent at Skywalker Sound in the post-Return of the Jedi era. The film’s many practical effects that blended seamlessly with the CGI were created by Stan Winston. He had previously worked on the gruesome effects in The Thing (1982) and would go on to help create the dinosaurs for Jurassic Park (1993).

And finally, the elephant in the room when discussing Terminator 2 is how well the messages around AI resonate today. Are we doomed to a techno-dystopia or do we actually have the freedom to create a better future? Pope Leo XIV writes in Magnifica Humanitas that we must participate in “the construction site of our time” so that “like Nehemiah, we too are called to unite listening and courage, prayer and responsibility, so that, even when a technocratic mentality or partisan interests seem to prevail, the human city may become a more fitting place to live” (#241).

Terminator 2 (and Cameron’s later work with the Avatar series) have a subtly deep anti-authoritarian flair to them. It is no coincidence that the evil T-1000 comes in the form of the police officer while Arnie’s T-800 is a biker. Sarah Connor has to break free of the abusive mental health system. And the real villain is a corporation that will create an all-powerful, world ending AI system. As Catholics, we might feel that the anarchism is a bit too strong and it helps that a warm humanism can be a balance. At the end of the film, Sarah says, “If a machine, a Terminator, can learn the value of a human life, maybe we can too”. Sarah’s militant radicalism is contrasted in the second half of the film with John’s call to ethical responsibility. If we prejudge people because they might make the wrong decision in the future as Sarah does to Cyberdyne engineer Miles Dyson (Joe Morton), we are no better than the AI. James Cameron’s atheist humanism is palpable, but Catholics can find agreement on the importance of human dignity and mercy.

The success of Terminator 2 would lead to four sequels, all of which failed to live up to the first two commercially and critically. The absence of Cameron in the director’s seat and the presence of quite a few bad creative decisions are to blame. There are many great action and sci-fi films out there, but no one does it quite like Jimmy. Give Terminator 2: Judgment Day a first watch or a fiftieth. It is absolutely worth your time.

There have, of course, been political films since the earliest days of cinema. Man is a political animal and has always used art to express his views on the world and what is wrong with it in his eyes. D. W. Griffith used sweeping epic in Birth of a Nation to express his racialist view of the American project; Frank Capra’s more buoyant, optimistic, idealistic America shines through in comedy and drama such as You Can’t Take it With You, Meet John Doe, or Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (#10). Film was used by both sides to great effect in World War II as a propaganda tool, shaping public opinion and arousing support for the war effort.

However, with the heating up of the Cold War, a new genre of film began to take shape in American cinema: the political thriller.1 The 1950s, 60s, and 70s were decades of great paranoia in American life. On the one hand, the country had never been so prosperous, powerful, and patriotic. On the other hand, the specters of Communist infiltration or nuclear annihilation loomed large in the public consciousness. American power was at its zenith, but also always on the brink of utter destruction by nefarious forces from the East. High profile discoveries of Soviet infiltrators such as the Rosenbergs and Alger Hiss proved that this fear was not simply baseless paranoia; there were indeed Communists among us, passing secrets to the Soviets and working to undermine the American way of life. This cultural milieu was the perfect breeding ground for a new genre of film.

In 1962, John Frankenheimer pretty nearly perfected the new genre with The Manchurian Candidate. The film manages to package nearly all the fear and emotion of the Kennedy administration into one two-hour package. This film was released at the very height of the Cold War, right in the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962. It’s not a conservative or right-wing film; John Frankenheimer was very close with the Kennedys and the film’s McCarthy-like Sen. Iselin is as unlikable as the Communists. However, it plays directly on the fear of Communist willingness to use emerging technological advances to infiltrate American society and destroy our way of life. It’s a tight, well-constructed thriller that draws the viewer right into the paranoia and terror of the Cold War, and deserves its reputation as a political classic.

In my endeavor to avoid spoilers, I can give only a brief sketch of the plot and engage with its themes, but there is so much that could be discussed about the brilliance of Frankenheimer’s direction in The Manchurian Candidate. The film follows two men, Capt. Bennett Marco (Frank Sinatra) and Sgt. Raymond Shaw (Lawrence Harvey), who were captured by Communists while fighting in the Korean War and brainwashed to accomplish a Soviet mission back in America. They are not dyed-in-the-wool communists following this brainwashing; they are only under Soviet control when certain hypnotic triggers are performed to accomplish certain missions. Marco is plagued by dreams, subconscious memories of the brainwashing which fill him with horror. In these dreams, he sees Shaw brutally murder two other members of their unit under Soviet hypnosis. Marco, an Army intelligence officer, makes it his mission to uncover the truth of these dreams and if possible foil the Soviet plans for Raymond Shaw.

The film is masterfully constructed, with the tension slowly ratcheted up as we see the depths of Soviet control over Shaw’s mind and the lengths he will go under hypnosis to achieve his mission. The film is astonishingly brutal, and Frankenheimer is unafraid to shock his audience with Communist cruelty. He also plays the characters against each other beautifully, sometimes aloof and unlikable, sometimes incredibly sympathetic just in time for the Soviets to torture them. The cinematography and lighting takes its cues from classic noir, with deep shadows, excellent composition, and well-timed dutch angles contributing to the unsettling feeling of the film. However, it also feels extremely modern at times, with the focus softening in certain shots to create a sense of fuzziness and disorientation. The brainwashing scene is one of the most disorienting and terrifying scenes of this era of film, with a constantly revolving camera, actors and characters being swapped with each other as the subconscious fluctuates between seeing a ladies’ garden party and a Communist Party meeting, and brutality juxtaposed with nonchalant indifference. Frankenheimer’s meticulous construction of this film makes it an absolute masterpiece.

The performances are also excellent, with perhaps Sinatra’s best acting performance of his career as the dogged Capt. Marco and Harvey’s oft-robotic Shaw riding the line between unlikable and sympathetic. Supporting turns from Janet Leigh and Leslie Parrish as love interests keep the film from being too dour, but even these relationships are in jeopardy as the film rushes towards its conclusion. I would also be remiss if I did not mention Angela Lansbury’s superb role as Shaw’s controlling mother, playing against type in a magnificent way. Shaw’s relationship with his mother is openly compared to Orestes and Clytemnestra, one of the reasons Shaw was so suggestible to Soviet hypnosis. For this character to work, she has to be utterly vile and Lansbury accomplishes this in a chilling performance.

Overall, The Manchurian Candidate is a window into the American psyche of the early 1960s. Its sense of paranoia, its dread of Soviet evil, and its patriotic sensibilities all contribute to a gripping thriller that was perfectly attuned to its audience. Even now, nearly 65 years later, it has the power to shock, thrill, and disturb a modern audience. It’s a powerful film which has inspired many imitators over the years but in my view none surpasses it in style or substance. It is well worth a watch2 and will provoke much thought and discussion between cinephiles and history buffs. I wish I could delve a bit deeper into the characters and themes, but that would ruin the experience, so I will leave you simply with this final thought:

Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful man I've ever known in my life.

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Running over 200 miles is never a small feat. Today, we are proud to highlight a recent documentary produced by Jacob Schmiedicke focusing on one man, who has made it his goal to choose the path less traveled, and in doing so, inspire a generation of young men behind to discover their God-given purpose.

Run So As To Win is not just an entertaining short film but a riveting journey. It’s the raw story of Jonathan Kuplack, a recent upstart in ultramarathons (we’re talking 50+ mile races) and a passionate advocate for young men living up to their God-given potential. In 2025, Jonathan ran “the MAMMOTH,” one of the largest and highest-altitude 200-mile trail races of its kind in the world, through the mountains of northern California.

$20,000 in prize money is awarded at the Mammoth. But Jonathan wasn’t running for cash or glory. As the camera tracks Jonathan and his crew (his wife and a Catholic priest) over the three-day race, you get to feel his motivation up close: radical trust in God. It’s a foreign concept to most audiences, pushing oneself physically to grow spiritually, but this documentary may challenge your concept of body-soul unity.

The film feels dramatic at points but never over-the-top. The storytelling is genuine and will keep even your children on the edge of their seats. But viewer, be warned: you may find yourself lacing up those old running shoes the next day.

Directed by Jonathan Lynn. Starring Tim Curry, Madeline Kahn, Christopher Lloyd, Eileen Brennan, Michael McKean, Martin Mull, and Lesley Ann Warren.

By

I’ve seen Clue 8 times now. Jonathan Lynn’s comedic whodunit is one of my favorite movies of all time, ever since my parents showed it to me in 3rd grade.

The plot is as simple as the board game it’s based on: in the middle of the Red Scare, six suspected communists are invited to an isolated manor, each given a pseudonym and a weapon. The lights go out, and their blackmailer dies. Who did it? That’s for you to deduce as the plot unfolds.

The ensemble cast is, for lack of a better word, iconic. Each actor fully inhabits their archetype, turning caricatures into unforgettable performances. Wadsworth anchors the chaos with his breathless, escalating exposition. Colonel Mustard shines through his cluelessness and literal-minded blunders. Mrs. White commands the room with barely-contained, improvised rage. Mr. Green brings a frantic, anxious physical comedy that contrasts perfectly with Professor Plum’s sharp one-liners. Mrs. Peacock’s nervous screeching is unfortunately relatable amid the panic. And Miss Scarlett’s cynical confidence around the craziness rounds out a room full of hilarious conflicting personalities. Even the minor characters, like sultry maid Yvette, feel fleshed out and believable, which is impressive for a film with such a big cast.

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For our latest reader poll, we asked you for your Top 10 films from the 1940s.

Here’s the results!

40. I Remember Mama (dir. George Stevens)

39. Brief Encounter (dir. David Lean)

“A wonderful early film from David Lean. As opposed to the grand spectacle of his later epics for which he is most famous, this is an intimate character piece dealing with love, adultery, and loneliness.”

38. Bambi (prod. Walt Disney)

“Opened the door to the possibilities of animation.”

37. The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (prod. Walt Disney)

“I might be the only person who votes for this, but I do not care. According to my nostalgia, this is peak Disney” (Editor’s Note: You weren’t!)

36. The Lady Eve (dir. Preston Sturges)

“I consider this movie about a con woman who falls in love with the naive heir to a vast fortune to be the greatest romantic comedy”

35. Dumbo (prod. Walt Disney)

34. The Great Dictator (dir. Charlie Chaplin)

33. My Favorite Wife (prod. Leo McCarey)

32. To Be or Not To Be (dir. Ernst Lubitsch)

31. The Bells of St. Mary’s (dir. Leo McCarey)

30. Gaslight (dir. George Cukor)

29. Bicycle Thieves (dir. Vittorio De Sica)

“The seminal film of Italian Neorealism compassionately depicts a desperate husband and father trying to provide for his family”

28. Meet Me in St. Louis (dir. Vincente Minnelli)

27. The Big Sleep (dir. Howard Hawks)

“Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall navigating a complex web of crime, murder, and corruption? Can't get more iconic than that.”

26. My Darling Clementine (dir. John Ford)

“The standard by which all other Wyatt Earp movies are measured.”

“One of Ford's very best films. A somber, meditative telling of an iconic story with which most of us are familiar. Henry Fonda and Victor Mature are fantastic in their respective roles as Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday, and the film contains some of the most beautiful black and white cinematography and Western iconography you'll find.”

25. How Green Was My Valley (dir. John Ford)

“Noted for being the most personal film from John Ford’s lengthy catalog, it is also his true masterpiece. Featuring a stunning debut from a young Roddy McDowell, it is a hauntingly beautiful portrait of childhood memories, faith, and familial relationships with a message of hope and reunion that feels more heartfelt and profound on each viewing.”

24. His Girl Friday (dir. Howard Hawks)

“A frenetic screwball masterclass on journalistic integrity or lack thereof”

23. Out of the Past (dir. Jacques Tourneur)

“A beautiful, thought-provoking noir, in which the tragedy is more palpable than in most other examples of the genre.”

22. Laura (dir. Otto Preminger)

21. The Grapes of Wrath (dir. John Ford)

“John Ford's sad but powerful adaptation of the John Steinbeck novel is the definitive movie about the Great Depression”

20. Miracle on 34th Street (dir. George Seaton)

19. Going My Way (dir. Leo McCarey)

“Though some might dismiss this film as escapist fluff, it remains a classic of wartime cinema with its commentary on societal changes, financial burdens, and generational gaps conveyed through the charming guise of pleasant showtunes and warm, humane performances. Watching this film is like seeing a time capsule of life in the urban Catholic neighborhoods: a staple of American life that has largely disappeared within our lifetime.”

18. Shadow of a Doubt (dir. Alfred Hitchcock)

17. Mrs. Miniver (dir. William Wyler)

16. Pinocchio (prod. Walt Disney)

“This fairy tale on moral behavior is whimsical, fantastic, scary, but ultimately redemptive.”

“The visual metaphor of the naughty boys turning into donkeys is the best representation of sin in cinema”

15. Arsenic and Old Lace (dir. Frank Capra)

“Forever and always my favorite movie, without flaw. No notes. The movie that taught me comedy.”

14. Notorious (dir. Alfred Hitchcock)

“Another Hitchcock masterpiece. Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman are particularly exceptional in this one.”

13. The Red Shoes (dir. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger)

“The Red Shoes confronts that tension between making great art and having a fulfilling personal life like no other film has.”

12. The Philadelphia Story (dir. George Cukor)

“Charming mash of characters and beats. Normally it would be higher in the list, but what a decade!”

11. The Best Years of Our Lives (dir. William Wyler)

“Released after the end of World War II, William Wyler’s drama about a trio of returning veterans adjusting to life on the homefront is not only an insightful depiction of postwar mores and frustrations, but possibly, the greatest film made about America. With its blend of deep-focus cinematography, psychological realism, and casual Midwestern art direction, it is a classic portrait of small-town Americana that everyone should see before they die.”

10. Rope (dir. Alfred Hitchcock)

“One of Hitchcock's most innovative and suspenseful films. An anxiety-inducing masterpiece.”

“Sleek and sophisticated -- the audience knows something the characters don't and that makes the conversations clever and sometimes cruel.”

9. Rebecca (dir. Alfred Hitchcock)

8. Fantasia (prod. Walt Disney)

“Disney's synthesis of animation and classical music is nothing less than sublime.”

“An amazing feat of gorgeous animation blended with great music”

7. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (dir. John Huston)

“The characters live in my head rent free. One my kids requested to rewatch.”

6. The Maltese Falcon (dir. John Huston)

“This top ten list could probably be almost exclusively Bogart movies and this is one of his best.”

“Clever, classy, with more twists than a martini, it is the standard bearer for film noir and private detectives.”

5. Double Indemnity (dir. Billy Wilder)

“Arguably the most iconic of film noirs, Billy Wilder's early masterpiece is endlessly rewatchable, featuring a masterful turn from Barbara Stanwyck as the standard-setting example of the femme fatale, Phyllis Dietrichson.”

4. The Third Man (dir. Carol Reed)

“I can't think of a better film noir. I also think this has the greatest black-and-white cinematography ever done.”

“Everything here is iconic: from Orson Welles' coolly malevolent performance as Harry Lime, to the instantly-recognizable zither soundtrack. The Third Man is dark, stylish, and endlessly rewatchable. One of the greatest films ever made.”

3. Citizen Kane (dir. Orson Welles)

“Actor and director Orson Welles' keen exploration about the rise and fall of a newspaper tycoon has rightfully become the stuff of Hollywood legend.”

“It’s so monumental not least of which because it helped to define the cinematic language as we know it today. Shots from different angles, for example.”

2. It’s a Wonderful Life (dir. Frank Capra)

“A movie that punches your weight as you get older.”

“I watch it every year during the holidays to remind myself of the riches we have but often overlook.”

1. Casablanca (dir. Michael Curtiz)

“It has it all. Action, comedy, love, Nazis and of course Bogie. My top movie ever.”

“Not only is this one of the most quotable movies, but it's also an effective story about personal sacrifice for a just cause.”

There is a scene in Mel Brook’s History of the World Part I when the Roman emperor (hilariously portrayed by Dom DeLuise) is being showered by gifts from all over the empire. One of the gifts turns out to be a bathing basin to which the emperor remarks in an unimpressed manner, “Nice. Not thrilling, but nice.”

I cannot think of a more apt description for The Dog Stars. The film is nice.

Not thrilling, but nice.

Like an empty bathing basin, The Dog Stars in itself is a perfectly fine film, but, sadly, it has no substance. It is an empty, hollow shell of a film that says nothing new about the post-apocalyptic genre. The film does its best to make the viewer feel like you are watching a post apocalyptic film by combining different aspects of the genre and tosses them altogether in an unappetizing way. The Dog Stars merely takes the ingredients of the genre and shuffles those ingredients like a pack of cards and then deals them out in a random order. The hand that is dealt is unsatisfying and underwhelming.

The Dog Stars follows Hig (Jacob Elordi) as he navigates living in a world decimated by a global pandemic. A former mechanic turned pilot, he follows a routine of scouting around his airfield, flying into Denver looking for supplies, visiting his old home, debating his gruff survival partner Bangley (Josh Brolin), and hanging out with his dog, Jasper. When his routine abruptly changes, the film then plays the hand that it dealt for the audience.

The film plays its hand without saying anything new. It displays the cliché of old versus young survival perspectives. The older characters are focused on survival against all odds and distrusting everyone while the younger generation wants to believe that everyone should come together and re-form society. The seemingly hopeful and idealistic community that the main characters are trying to reach turns out to actually be hell. The peaceful community living right in front of them is where they should’ve just gone the entire time.

Nice. Not thrilling, but nice.

The film has absolutely nothing new to say about surviving after a fallen society, survivors guilt, or anything about grief and trying to find meaning in a meaningless world. Male and female characters are essentially the same and they fall in love purely because of common circumstances and shared trauma. There is no actual love that is present. Each character is essentially the same. Bangley and Pops (Guy Pearce) represent the older survival at all costs perspective while Hig and Cima (Margaret Qualley) represent the younger survivalist perspective. Both pairs of these characters are exactly the same outside of having slightly different living circumstances which makes for a boring and uninspired story.

The writing is awful and the script is abrasive as is the dialogue. Characters would randomly start talking without any context which made no sense within the context of the scene. Character motivations were either not overly explained or not explained at all. I think this film is made for fans of the book, not the casual moviegoer. If you read the book and you enjoyed the book you would then enjoy the movie. Reading the novel would provide essential context and continuity that clarify certain character choices and motivations. However, good film adaptations provide context for all viewers whether or not you read the original material.

There are some positives to the film: the cinematography was really good. The shots of Hig’s plane flying through the Rockies and various wide shots of characters walking through nature were really beautiful. The quiet “show not tell” moments paired with Harry Gregson-Williams’ score (Shrek, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Martian) combine for a pleasant viewing experience. Unfortunately, these moments are few and are not enough to carry the film through its two hour run time.

I do not understand why Ridley Scott made this movie. I do not know if he was a big fan of the book or if he was tired of making bad historical epics. I think that he must have found something profound in the story which justified its adaptation. Sadly, he does not convey his motivation through the actual film. The Dog Stars is further proof that he is no longer able to make good films that have any impact on cinema. If you are an average moviegoer, this is a perfectly acceptable film to skip.

It’s been a bit of time since we graced all of you with a video essay! Following our two recent videos on Alfred Hitchcock’s I Confess and Ralph Nelson’s Lilies of the Field, we’re eagerly and lovingly handing over to you a new one that doesn’t simply invite you to watch a new movie, but asks you — if you have seen this film before — to…

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The YouTube channel What’s Going On With Shipping? posts almost daily news and discussion about the shipping industry. Surprisingly for such a topic, the team has managed to amass over 700,000 subscribers. It has made maritime trade into the Internet’s second favorite type of shipping. While I am not entirely sure why there is so much interest beyond general geopolitical tension, I can say with relative certainty that real news involving container ships is much more worth your time than the latest Jason Statham action film set on one.

Statham plays Cole Reed, the most nondescript variant of the actor’s usual “man you really do not want to mess with” schtick. He is ex-police, ex-Navy, ex-peaceful harmony and now the beloved bodyguard of shipping magnate Tibu Campallo (Ramon Tikaram). On the eve of the company being sold off, Tibu is murdered with Cole framed for it. To clear his name and uncover why the hit was ordered, Reed must fight his way through a container ship of goons. The cast is rounded out with Annabelle Wallis as the ship’s third mate and only non-goon, Tony Award nominee Adrian Lester as a Navy captain, and the gruff Nordic heavy played by Roland Moller.

Just about every element of the promotional campaign for Mutiny would seem to indicate that it would be at best mildly enjoyable, but, believe it or not, there was reason to be optimistic. Director Jean-Francois Richet’s last effort Plane (2023) was one of that year’s biggest surprises. The Gerard Butler-Mike Colter action film was full of propulsive action and decent drama. A sequel succinctly titled Ship was swiftly put into development only to be cancelled right before filming began when Butler abruptly departed. Even more shockingly, Mutiny is not a rework of that film. But either way, perhaps lightning could strike again.

Mutiny is the worst kind of bad film, the type that you forget immediately rather than hate forever. At least some passion of the heart is involved in the latter. Statham has over two decades of action B-movie material, most of which is at least more entertaining than this. There is the really fun Transporter movie (and its okay sequels), Crank, Hobbs and Shaw, his Guy Ritchie collaborations, and so on. And of course, the crown jewel of them all Meg 2: The Trench where Statham walks on the bottom of the ocean, fights dinosaurs, and 1v1s a megalodon while riding a jet ski.

A couple scenes in Mutiny have within them a few brief moments that are enjoyable. It was fun when Reed fought a dude with a fire axe and a harpoon gun. The problem is less to do with explicit incompetence and more with a lack of care or flavor. Richet films the action fine enough. The cast read their lines without the stilted awkwardness that can sometimes appear in cheap genre pics. One exception is Wallis, who is so dull here that you might be tempted to think the failure of Tom Cruise’s The Mummy (2017) and so the Dark Universe was singlehandedly her fault. The saving grace of the film is the runtime, which is mercifully, if abruptly short.

Two scenarios exist where Mutiny is worth watching. First, you are on an airplane. You have already watched Top Gun: Maverick and The Sheep Detectives. It is time for you to drift off to sleep, but it is hard to do with the guy next to you snoring so loudly. Put this on. Second, you are at a family member’s house where there is television service but no wi-fi or cell service. Their cable package does not include Turner Classic Movies, but this is playing on TNT. Sure, why not.

Mutiny is now playing in theaters.

At no point in my life have I ever wanted to be in politics. The layers of subterfuge, intrigue, and the insurmountable mechanizations of governmental bureaucracy provide little appeal. It is, however, a reality we all feel the effects of daily as ordinary citizens. While many do courageously enter this arena, faith in established institutions continues to erode. Events over the past decade have caused a warranted sense of unease and distrust. But suspicion in government is hardly a new sentiment, as is nothing under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9). Faced with such events as the Red Scare, the Kennedy assassination, Watergate, and Vietnam, previous generations turned to film, giving the highly effective thriller genre a political twist.

The political thriller is best defined by a central conflict that is political in nature, rather than merely using politics as a backdrop. Typical characteristics revolve around the notion of paranoia, namely the conspiratorial nature of governments and crimes against their citizenry, often with plots of assassination and other clandestine activity around cover-ups. Academic and screenwriter Pablo Castrillo identifies three further elements of the genre, noting that such films often revolve around an everyman protagonist who is out of his element when confronting forces far more powerful than he, an investigation to uncover the truth, and a backdrop situated among actual historical events or, in the very least, one that is plausible.1

The power of the genre lies in its immediacy. Films with settings alien to everyday life often require more audience legwork to connect how the message might impact their own lives. Political thriller films thrive on a pervasive sense of imbalance within a backdrop that corresponds to the audience’s reality, triggering an acute feeling of fragility. When well executed, the genre can be widely entertaining. But more importantly, it can invite audiences to not place all their faith in human institutions and ask, what if not everything we are told by these institutions is true? Director Costa-Gavras used his seminal film Z (1969) as a scintillating critique of a Greek dictatorship’s corrupt practices, including challenging the narrative around the assassination of a renowned democratic politician. Oliver Stone’s JFK (1991) sought to question the official government narrative surrounding the Kennedy assassination. Using a gripping narrative structure, these films can elicit a thoughtful consideration of such events, all while remaining within the realm of dramatization.

The antagonists of the political thriller are those grounded in reality, that is, those tied to real historical entities or pervading anxieties of the era. Films in the 1920s and 1930s established the genre’s narrative vocabulary, with early iterations depicting anarchists and local European agents as boogeymen. Fritz Lang’s 1928 Spione follows a Russian spy seducing an Eastern European colonel into betraying his government. With the onset of the Second World War, the obvious enemy became the Nazis, with Alfred Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent (1940) reflecting the anxieties of a world on the brink of war, following a reporter attempting to expose an international spy ring intent on upsetting the fragile pre-war balance. The Cold War saw the true proliferation of the genre, focusing on the threat of communist infiltration and the backlash of McCarthyist paranoia. From this backdrop emerged the first full-fledged political thriller in film history, The Manchurian Candidate (1962). In a dizzying labyrinth of paranoia and fear, the film sowed the seeds of what would become a genre hallmark, mistrust and pessimism within a framework of invisible governmental power structures. This was the first film to properly explore a conspiracy within the American government, suggesting that this institution may have been infiltrated or corrupted.

The 1960s and 1970s saw a series of cataclysmic political events that provided ample inspiration for the budding genre. The assassinations of Kennedy, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr., along with Vietnam and Watergate, ushered in the golden age of the genre, where feelings of paranoia transformed into a full-on perception of a systemic conspiracy. These gritty films utilized documentary-style techniques, relying on a dark, grainy aesthetic to immerse the viewer in a world very much their own. Notable entries include The Parallax View (1974), involving an investigation into the assassination of a U.S. senator by a shadowy organization, and ultimately, All the President’s Men (1976), which followed historical events closely with a journalist’s uncovering of the Watergate conspiracy.

The following decades saw the genre achieve a more mainstream status, while broadening its focus to include corporate influence, intelligence agencies, terrorism, and media manipulation. In the Line of Fire (1991) and Enemy of the State (1998) blend big-budget action with familiar genre tropes, focusing on shadow agencies and terrorism. With the close of the Cold War and the boom of the late ‘80s, political thrillers tended to place their anxiety elsewhere, focusing on terrorism and big corporations and legal entities. Tom Clancy novels provided ample inspiration for a slew of thrillers with a political twist, including The Hunt for Red October, Clear and Present Danger, and Patriot Games (1993), which perfectly encapsulated the age’s current boogeyman, IRA terrorists during “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland.

Following 9/11, political thrillers were forced to reckon with the threat of terrorism with a heightened and critical focus on the intelligence operatives that were supposedly protecting citizens from these dangers. Spielberg’s Munich (2005), the third entry in what many scholars call his 9/11 trilogy, grapples with the question of state-sponsored vengeance and the fallout of a terrorist attack. As the decade progressed, thrillers again turned a critical eye to the covert operations of certain government agencies, with the Bourne series focusing on a man trained as a weapon by the American intelligence apparatus. Following the characteristics of the genre, after an episode of memory loss, Bourne embarks on an investigative journey to discover how these shadowy agencies operated and where he received his training. The political thriller also enjoyed an appearance in the MCU with Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), which adapted familiar genre tropes through a superhero lens. Steve Rogers learns that the organization he served (S.H.I.E.L.D.) has in fact become infiltrated by Hydra.

As the tumultuous events of 2020 and beyond began to be reflected in cinematic language, faith in institutions continued to deteriorate to the point where the focus became less about corruption within the government and more about what would happen if the entire order as we know it collapsed. 2024’s Civil War provides a perfect example of this post-COVID frame of mind. The political consensus has already collapsed, and the film focuses less on putting together who did what than on simply witnessing events as they unfold. It’s a signal to the fact that perhaps people have become less confident that political reality can actually be understood. As the decade comes to a conclusion, it will be interesting to see how this genre develops, with a plethora of significant world events that could provide influence.

Political thrillers are essential in understanding the anxieties of the age and challenging the viewer to ask difficult questions about the institutions they live under. Another valuable element of the genre includes its focus on the ordinary everyman, an aspect that many will find it easy to relate to. As Castrillo notes, “[the genre’s] characters are human beings subject to the same limitations and prone to the same weaknesses as the viewers, and the world, society, and institutions respond to them in ways that are at once familiar and ordinary.”2 We are often learning alongside them as they stumble toward the truth, making for a particularly compelling experience. In All the President’s Men, a pair of inexperienced, young reporters suddenly find themselves led to the highest levels of government by their investigation. In Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation (1974), his protagonist is a highly ordinary man who has a sense of neurosis. There is nothing extraordinary about him besides his commitment to the truth, which leads him to uncover a corporate conspiracy, simply because he would not back down from his investigation. While not every film in the genre ends on a happy note or with the perfect revelation, what the genre does is help show that ordinary people, even when faced with insurmountable odds or extremely powerful organizations, can in fact make a difference. Everyone who speaks out against corruption, sheds light on a cover-up, and simply questions the narrative can make a positive impact.

Thus, our next series will examine this fascinating genre in detail, highlighting five films throughout history that are worth exploring in more detail. We believe that film can inspire positive change while being entertaining. We hope that you will enjoy this series and look forward to your thoughts and observations in the comments.

About twenty people were packed into the small storefront of the now-defunct Flying Squirrel, a retro toy store in Pittsburgh. In the middle of the back of the room, a 16mm projector sat just below head level. It was showing the 1948 noir He Walked By Night, famously shot by John Alton who pioneered the genre’s shadowy aesthetic. In the iconic climax, protagonist Roy Morgan (Richard Baseheart) is running from the police through the Los Angeles sewer system. The tunnels are dim, claustrophobic, and slickly wet. Rain falls outside on the concrete. And as the projector whirred, you could almost feel a little humidity in the room. That was my first time seeing a film on 16mm, a small, loud, and grainy enough print that it is hard to forget you are watching a film. Yet, the filminess of the format does not detract from the tactility of the narrative. In fact, they are intricately correlated.

The most sought-after movie ticket right now is to see The Odyssey on IMAX 70mm, a combination only available in a few dozen theaters globally. Screenings have run 24/7 in some locations. I barely saw it on IMAX myself (LIEMAX is the only option in the Burgh). What is remarkable about the popularity of the film, which began back with Oppenheimer, is the renewed interest in film prints, practical effects, and tactility. It was a total contrast to see the trailer for Avengers: Doomsday before The Odyssey, which looks completely fake and alien, even by superhero standards.

A great deal of ink and camera space has been spilled on this incoming shift in cinema. Like Stories of Old released a wonderful YouTube video last year about the need to reclaim texture and realism in movies. He is absolutely right on his points, including how even highly digital films like Avatar (2009) can still feel real. Yet, there is something even deeper at play here that relates to our own embodied nature and connection to our environment many have failed to mention. To understand this, I would like to call attention to two documents from the papacy of Pope Francis: the encyclical Laudato Si and his address to artists on the 50th anniversary of the inauguration of the Vatican Museums’ collection of modern art.

In his brief address to artists, Pope Francis makes a few key points that can guide our interpretation of the current moment. First, he describes the relationship between Catholicism and art as “natural and special”. The natural relationship is in the quest of both to understand and appreciate the complexity and ambiguity of life. It is special because of the effect that Catholic faith and symbolism has had on the history of art. It is to the former that he draws the great paradox at the heart of art: that it is something new, even artificial, that really does have something meaningful to say about our current reality. Pope Francis calls “the psychology of artists: the ability to press forward and beyond, in a tension between reality and dream”.

How does art, especially cinema, accomplish this? Pope Francis identifies two critical elements to great art: humanness and harmony. He understands these almost as being in tension. Humanness is the messiness of lived existence in both its wretched weaknesses and redemptive triumphs.

He writes, “Often, as artists, you attempt to plumb the depths of the human condition, its dark abysses. We are not all light, and you remind us of this. At the same time, there is a need to let the light of hope shine in that darkness, in the midst of our selfishness and indifference. Help us to glimpse the light, the beauty that saves.”

Harmony, on the other hand, is a capacity for differentiating between a genuine and a false hope. He calls harmony “the operative virtue of beauty”. A common criticism of some Christian films is that they can rely on a false hope that feels disingenuous. A real hope is one rooted in humanness, but a humanness that can transcend itself through grace. The films of Terrence Malick are all incredible examples of real hope.

Harmony is also the possibility of unity within a rich multiplicity. It allows for the human person and even the world broadly to retain their individuality while participating in the true, the good, and the beautiful. No two saints are saints in quite the same way, after all. Catholics should not be afraid of understanding the world as it is experienced or encountered because we know that it will ultimately point to God. It is why I feel that horror can be an enriching genre when done correctly.

Harmony and humanness are in a reconciliable tension, one that is borne out many times over in art. If all the multiplicity of human experience did was to Balkanize the meaning of everything, then art would have no purpose. Why do we never tire of great love stories? Because the uniqueness of every person allows for indefinite manifestations of love that can all still point to love in its harmonious form. Art being an expression of human finitude is necessary for art to be open to the transcendent.

It would appear that audiences want their art to feel human. AI art has thus far not been successful and there has been a greater backlash to recent films that look especially fake. The biggest studios and brands are catching on. While Avengers: Doomsday still doesn’t look great, Spider-Man: Brand New Day is the most real-feeling entry in the franchise in a long time. Unlike No Way Home shot during the pandemic, the production team decided to shoot in real locations when possible. And as effects-heavy as it remains, the change makes a significant, qualitative difference. Other examples include the gap between the look and feel of the shot-on-location Andor and that of the other Star Wars shows. Looking forward, Black Panther III will be filmed in large format 70mm.

The important distinction, though, is not between practical or digital effects. It is between worlds that feel experienceable and those that do not. This is what I mean by “cinematic ecology” in the title. Pope Francis called this “cultural ecology” more broadly in Laudato Si’. To be human is to exist in a world whose meaning is structured and formed by human culture and the environment. Pope Francis writes in the encyclical, “Culture is more than what we have inherited from the past; it is also, and above all, a living, dynamic and participatory present reality, which cannot be excluded as we rethink the relationship between human beings and the environment.”

Cinematic ecology is the power of film to reflect how transcendent qualities are made manifest immanently through the being and relation of Creation participating in the grace of God. This power cannot be divorced most importantly from humanness and secondarily from the ecological environment that humans are embedded in.

AI “art” puts cinematic ecology and thus the reality of the unreal in jeopardy. This is not to say that AI is divorced from reality. It is quite the opposite: AI operates by collating all of human experience and knowledge into a flattened false unity.

The resurgence of physical film with formats like IMAX 70mm makes this philosophical or theological sense of art literal. As time goes on, film prints change and degrade, becoming increasingly unique substantiations of the film. The ecology of the filmic medium can inform, although not substitute for, the humanness of the content.

And this leads me to my final point: that authentic humanness in art points beyond the human to the environment and to God. Pope Francis quotes in Laudato Si’ Pope St. John Paul II who said in 1990 that “the relationship between a good aesthetic education and the maintenance of a healthy environment cannot be overlooked”. Earth is the (literal) ground of our experience. The philosopher Martin Heidegger wrote that “We seek the actuality of the artwork in order actually to find there the art prevailing within it.” The fiction of the artwork is derived from the reality of it. I believe it is no coincidence that arguably the two greatest Catholic filmmakers of all time Andrei Tarkovsky and Terrence Malick are especially good at capturing the natural world. Just as one can appreciate the transcendent and the possibility of human experience in a film, so too can one appreciate the grandeur and value of our environment.

This is our 500th post! We are truly grateful for the generous support of all our readers who have made this venture possible. What a journey it has been, from beginning with our foundational list of 100 movies in April 2023, to expanding into multiple series, a podcast, and a YouTube channel, to launching our sister publication, 100 Movies Every Family Should See, in June of this year and hosting our first in-person event. We cannot wait to see what the future holds!

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)

Directed by Justin K. Thompson, Kemp Powers and Joaquim Dos Santos.

By

The first critique that comes to mind on this is the one that Peter Griffin gives of The Godfather: “It insists on itself”. While I disagree with the sentiment of The Godfather and didn’t quite understand what he meant by it, after watching Across the Spider-Verse, I finally get it.

The film “insists” on its mind-numbing and sometimes incomprehensible style. The continuous flashing lights and colors mixed with never-consistent animation changes left me feeling like I was watching a Gaspar Noe film (which he prides himself on being nauseating). Sometimes styles would change multiple times within the same scene for no apparent reason other than to keep whatever would-be disruptive 6-year-old in their seat and staring at their screen longer. There would be no need for a child to watch Subway Surfers alongside this film because Across the Spider-Verse is about as overstimulating as a dubstep concert from 2010.

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Was the greatest movie of all time really Citizen Kane?

I’ve been collecting data from all of the previous polls and when I calculate how each film did based on different voter participation levels The Godfather stands currently as the greatest film ever made with 10.67% of you voting for that one for the 1970s poll. The original Star Wars comes close with 10.62% voting for it in that same poll. No other film so far has had more than 10% of the votes from a poll.

So, will it be Citizen Kane? Casablanca? Or something else?

Vote here to find out!

There’s a scene around the middle mark of Jurassic World (2015) where one of the two main kids, Gray (Ty Simpkins) randomly says to his brother:

GRAY: “If Mom and Dad get divorced, will one of us be with Mom and the other with Dad?”

The older brother, Zach (Nick Robinson) is skeptical, stating that his younger brother “hasn’t been around long enough” until Gray replies: “They get mail from two different lawyers”.

ZACH: “That doesn’t mean anything”

GRAY: “I Googled them. They’re divorce lawyers.”

This is never addressed in the film again.

(One comment on Reddit stated the reason the scene was included was so “all the kids in the audience with divorced parents are reminded that they could get double the movie merchandise.”)

But seriously, why include this scene?

Because, dear reader, adding a random divorce subplot is thought by many Hollywood writers to be the key to making a movie SPIELBERGIAN.

And boy, does The End of Oak Street want to be SPIELBERGIAN.

(Mild spoilers from here on out)

I will grant this movie that it at least has the courage to follow through on its commitment to a shoed-in divorce subplot.

The End of Oak Street follows Ewan McGregor and Anne Hathaway as hapless parents in the suburbs who are struggling to make ends meet for their two kids. One is a frustrated writer who secretly wishes for the career they never got to have and the other is a slightly stupid but loving parent and spouse who just wants to keep the family together.

It’s really funny because if this had come out in the 1980s when this takes place, Ewan would be playing the frustrated writer and Hathaway the lovable, hapless mother.

But because this movie thinks we are still in “Woke 1”, of course it is the opposite. Hathaway is the one who shoots dinosaurs with a shotgun, and McGregor is forced, Walter White style, to run around humiliated in his tightie-whities.

Because, as Paul McCartney said in his all-too prescient “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”:

Happy ever after in the marketplace
Molly lets the children lend a hand
Desmond stays at home and does his pretty face
And in the evening she's a singer with the band, yeah

I do need to backtrack a bit here: there are dinosaurs in this movie. I won’t exactly reveal how, because that is part of the fun, Twilight Zone nature of this film which I do appreciate. And not an ultra-serious, “save the poor dinosaurs” tone of the recent Jurassic movies, but a bona-fide Flintstones vibe complete with a smoking volcano looming in the background.

Ironically, in an age where movies tend to stick the first and third act more than they do the slogging second, the second act is where this movie shines, particularly due to the fact that it features a healthy amount of really well-done dinosaur action to balance out whatever writer/director David Robert Mitchell (It Follows) is trying to do with these characters.

And I should note, there is a touching personal element Mitchell brings to this that I won’t spoil that’s revealed at the end of the film, which makes the whole thing semi-autobiographical. But it ends up feeling half-baked, and ends up coming off as really poor feminist messaging even if that was not the director’s intention. (I should also note there’s probably one of the most forced “this character is actually gay” scenes I’ve ever seen in a movie. And I’ve seen The Rise of Skywalker!).

Jurassic Park expertly weaves its family drama subtly, with Dr. Grant going on an arc of learning what it means to be a father. It’s all portrayed in subtext, imagery, and clever dialogue (“Life finds a way”). You get so wrapped up in the plot (introducing the world and mechanics of Jurassic Park which set up the later action sequences) that you don’t even notice the story. That’s masterful storytelling.

I will say, this film does have one of the boldest, wack-o endings I’ve seen in a recent film so I will have to give it props. And the longer you think about it, the darker it gets.

But the whole thing just loses any credibility when it tries to make you care about the family. If this film had been directed by someone like Tim Burton1 or Sam Raimi in the late 80s/early 90s, the family would be hilariously, satirically unlikeable to begin with and the camp would be dialed to 11. It would’ve starred Bruce Campbell and Susan Sarandon as the parents and Winona Ryder and Johnny Depp as the kids, and the neighbor would have been Danny DeVito with wild hair and fifteen cats. The whole town would have memorable characters, some of whom you probably aren’t too sad to see get eaten.

But because we as a society have decidedly become allergic to camp, even silly movies like this one need “an emotional core”.

You made a movie about dinosaurs magically appearing in the suburbs! Have fun with it!

And if you think it’s cooler to emulate Spielberg by adding divorce subplots, remember that you’re trying to emulate the guy who remembered not to take himself too seriously with his dinosaur movies.2

(It’s insane how good this scene looks for 1997!)

My first exposure to Terrence Malick was rather unconventional. As a college freshman perusing my library’s DVD stacks, I still remember being intrigued by a brightly colored keep case featuring a guitar and one of my favorite actors – Ryan Gosling – on the cover. As soon as I put it into my portable player, I was immediately floored. I had never been to Texas before, but it looked breathtaking.

This was Song to Song, and it was my unconventional path to discovering one of my favorite directors.

Set in Austin, Song to Song is a time capsule of the contemporary music scene, both “do-it-yourself” indie musicians and polished record companies. Struggling independent songwriter Faye (Rooney Mara) is looking for her big break, and after meeting record producer Cook (Michael Fassbender), she hooks up with him under the illusion of stardom.

At the same time, she meets singer-songwriter B.V. (Gosling), one of Cook’s clients who becomes a genuine friend of hers. The central drama comes from this love triangle: while Faye and B.V. grow closer in pure romance, Cook keeps dangling the prize of fame and pushing her more in a secret relationship she clearly does not want. Things go from bad to worse as Cook hooks up with Rhonda (Natalie Portman), a waitress desperate for money, and Faye realizes that Cook was just using her. As Cook love-bombs Rhonda with illusions of true love, she begins to feel uncomfortable with his hard-partying lifestyle, and B.V. and Faye eventually reconnect and live simpler lives.

Malick’s command of parallel narratives help capture the spectrum of modern relationships. B.V. and Faye chase a high-energy romance typical of contemporary “young love” narrative, but Faye’s initial infidelity burns her out as she fails to see B.V.’s authenticity and honest commitment. Cook, by contrast, treats love and people as business deals he needs to “win,” projecting his lust and flaws onto others through coercive control. Rhonda’s grounded devotion is different from any other character in the film, and becomes the easiest character to root for when escaping Cook’s vicious cycle.

Unconventional yet rather masterful, this main love triangle illustrates the dizzying cycle of working in the music industry, or any field of cultural production. The Austin music scene forms a backdrop for the film that is as chaotic as the relationships it centers. B.V. feels like an outsider among the excess and power dynamics of the industry, as his musical style contrasts with the scene’s vision. Faye’s career anxiety swallows her whole as she falls into an abusive relationship. Cook doesn’t create music but considers himself a “visionary” who treats both talented musicians and romantic partners as assets to own and manipulate.

Every character’s search for a big break fuels their emotional instability, and the loud concerts and crowded greenrooms make it difficult for any intimate moments. Personal connections are warped by “grind culture” and shallow networking, and every single person brought into the scene becomes progressively lonelier. It is only by leaving this bohemian lifestyle that true freedom and happiness are found by BV and Faye, as their reconnection comes from both partners understanding and showing their true selves.

Roger Ebert writes that Malick’s films have a unifying theme: “Human lives diminish beneath the overarching majesty of the world.”

Song to Song’s sun-drenched Texas landscape is open and free, contrary to the trapped, shallow nature of the music industry that Malick is portraying. This “majesty,” however, also comes from the narrative’s explicit ties to Texas, evoking the literary technique of local color. The importance of genuine art and genuine relationships are deep concepts, but when intertwined with Austin bars, venues, and landmarks, the deep narrative stays grounded in reality.

Emmanuel Lubezki’s cinematography helps expand this “majesty” as well. Fresh off the high of two Oscar wins when he shot this, Lubezki’s camera work physically forces the audience into the disorientation that characters feel throughout the film. His close-up shots go right into actors’ faces, distorting the frame and making the whole world around them feel natural and unstable. But in the rare instances of a character being alone, the wide-angle shots make the city of Austin much larger, allowing a short period of meditation among the chaos. Viewers are reminded of the big picture as the scene slows down, as musicians being dwarfed shows how big the scene, and the world, is compared to their individual desires. They are isolated among the industry’s massive engines, and their loneliness in a big world becomes their solace.

But the most impressive use of Lubezki’s skills comes in how he embraces a hallmark of Malick’s work: natural lighting. Texas’s iconic “golden hours,” that brief scenic window where the sun hits at the right time, creates a soft and warm atmosphere that enhances the romantic or nostalgic scenes. The more intense moments have a sliver of light fading and leaving characters in the dark, creating a sense of fleeting beauty. Lubezki uses natural light as a countdown, where actors briefly chase it before it disappears – right as their characters’ temporary fame and superficial relationships crumble.

Malick’s deep personal ties to Austin are amplified with Lubezki’s mastery of lighting techniques, especially in an age where blockbusters are saturated with complicated visual effects. There’s no artificial overlighting here, and the naturally vibrant cities and landscapes anchor the film’s emotional core. Alongside the music scene chaos and local color, Lubezki’s natural light frames Song to Song as a “Texas story” that truly cannot be set anywhere else.

While critics may call Song to Song’s nonlinear storytelling and love triangles “shallow,” the film stands out among Malick’s modern work because of its reminder that good art comes from being your full self. A city with a vibrant music scene is the perfect place to explore spiritual redemption, as hedonism leaves characters feeling unfulfilled. B.V. and Faye face sufferings together at the hand of Cook, whose pride, greed, and corrupting influence call to mind the Devil. But rather than physical pain, their suffering is emotional – associated with broken trust, shallow desires, and empty pleasures, before finding a path towards becoming authentic artists and authentic people. The conclusion is a reconciliation, as Faye’s vulnerability and forgiveness offers her soul the healing it deserved.

B.V. and Faye’s exploitation becomes a catalyst for a simple truth: that making beautiful art, art that nourishes the soul, is a pathway to a better life. The music industry’s superficiality and exploitation, in the name of secular gods like “fame,” caused them to forget why they became artists. Remembering that art is a tool for beauty led them back to a righteous path, even if they were broken coming into it.

While it is a later and more experimental entry, Song to Song might be a perfect introduction to Terrence Malick for fans of contemporary cinema. Characters, plot points, and scenes fade away like they’re songs on an album, and the distinctly modern setting balances a timeless philosophy on creativity. While the central lovers’ actions are frustrating at times, the grand, stunning scenes serve as foreshadowing that everything will be okay once they escape.

Content warning: Song to Song is rated R for sexual scenes and strong language. There’s a lot of value to be found in this film, but some portrayals of sexual themes may be troubling. I recommend using DoesTheDogDie, VidAngel, or your good ol’ fast forward button if it gets uncomfortable.

For our latest reader poll, we asked you for your Top 10 films from the 1950s.

Here’s the results!

50. Alice in Wonderland (prod. Walt Disney)

49. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (dir. Richard Brooks)

48. The Big Country (dir. William Wyler)

47. Rashomon (dir. Akira Kurosawa)

“The innovative drama about a horrible crime told from multiple points of view. And yet, it believes in objective truth and the goodness of humanity.”

46. The African Queen (dir. John Huston)

45. Witness for the Prosecution (dir. Billy Wilder)

“Masterful cinematography and great performances make the material come to life as we, like the characters, sit in suspense, wondering what the outcome will be.”

44. Sweet Smell of Success (dir. Alexander Mackendrick)

43. Touch of Evil (dir. Orson Welles)

42. The War of the Worlds (dir. Byron Haskin)

41. La Strada (dir. Federico Fellini)

40. To Catch a Thief (dir. Alfred Hitchcock)

39. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (dir. Don Siegel)

38. The Caine Mutiny (dir. Edward Dmytryk)

37. The Day the Earth Stood Still (dir. Robert Wise)

36. Guys and Dolls (dir. Joseph L. Mankiewicz)

35. White Christmas (dir. Michael Curtiz)

34. Shane (dir. George Stevens)

33. Sabrina (dir. Billy Wilder)

32. Paths of Glory (dir. Stanley Kubrick)

31. The Court Jester (dir. Norman Panama and Melvin Frank)

“A musical satire of the adventure films of the era, the snappy wit of the film combined with fun action you'd expect in a period adventure film makes for a timeless experience that still works today. Danny Kaye as the hapless hero in over his head, Glynis Johns as the far more capable heroine, and Basil Rathbone as the delightful villain still charm audiences decades later.”

30. The Robe (dir. Henry Koster)

29. I Confess (dir. Alfred Hitchcock)

28. The Quiet Man (dir. John Ford)

27. Diary of a Country Priest (dir. Robert Bresson)

“What to say about this film. Enough to simply say that this is one of the greatest works of Catholic cinema (or cinema, period). Robert Bresson is one of the giants of spiritual film, and Diary might be his most important achievement. ‘All is grace.’”

26. Wild Strawberries (dir. Ingmar Bergman)

“Ingmar Bergman's penetrating examination of memory, age, and regret is just as thought-provoking now as it must have been in 1957.”

25. A Place in the Sun (dir. George Stevens)

“George Stevens’ adaptation of Theodore Dressier’s ‘An American Tragedy’ is undoubtedly the darkest melodrama to be made during Hollywood’s Golden Age, yet it is also one of its most profound morality tales. Tenderly romantic and tragically intense, the film remains an insightful portrait of an American Dream gone wrong through the seeds of ambition and deception.”

24. Ordet (dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer)

“Of all fictitious religious movies, Ordet is the most profound and powerful. It looks you straight in the eye and asks: ‘Do you believe in miracles? Do you really?’”

23. In a Lonely Place (dir. Nicholas Ray)

22. Some Like It Hot (dir. Billy Wilder)

21. High Noon (dir. Fred Zinneman)

“Few Westerns have ever come close to offering something insightful about the human condition, save for this simple morality play that touches upon the key principles which conserve a functioning society: courage, conscience, and sacrifice. As Marshal Will Kane, Gary Cooper gives his finest performance as the dutiful lawman who refuses to desert his hometown when facing an encroaching pack of murderous outlaws.”

20. Ikiru (dir. Akira Kurosawa)

“Ikiru means ‘to live.’ A dying man looks over his life and finally takes real action at his work. This exquisite film shows that it is never too late to make a positive impact that's worthy of remembrance.”

“One of Kurosawa's many masterpieces. An emotional and psychological powerhouse that forces you to look at your own life a little differently.”

19. Harvey (dir. Henry Koster)

“A truly moving, wonderful Jimmy Stewart performance and some absolutely gorgeous prose.”

18. Marty (dir. Delbert Mann)

“Marty Piletti is the film character that I most identify with. However, I saw parts of myself in the object of his affection, Clara Snyder, as well. This is a movie as sweet and down-to-earth as its protagonists.”

17. Seven Samurai (dir. Akira Kurosawa)

“Nothing meaningful to add for this one. Just go watch it, immediately.”

16. All About Eve (dir. Joseph L. Mankiewicz)

“In my mind, this is a perfect movie. The acting, the screenplay, the costumes, the story. It is one of the greatest movies ever made.”

15. Roman Holiday (dir. William Wyler)

“Favorite film of the 20th century and second favorite of all-time”

14. The Seventh Seal (dir. Ingmar Bergman)

“In the short span of roughly 90 minutes, Bergman tackles some of the most fundamental existential questions of death, God, and the purpose of life. And he somehow pulls it off, avoiding becoming mired in unnecessary detail and over-intellectualization.”

13. Sleeping Beauty (prod. Walt Disney)

“The best movie from Disney’s Golden Age by far!”

12. The Searchers (dir. John Ford)

“A fantastic film, a true American classic that I believe everyone should see in their lifetime.”

11. The Night of the Hunter (dir. Charles Laughton)

“A southern gothic noir, a fairy tale and ultimately a archetypical tale of good vs evil, its message of protecting children against dark forces masquerading as benevolent is searingly relevant today.”

10. The Ten Commandments (dir. Cecil B. DeMille)

“The quintessential swords-and-sandals Biblical epic: a grandiose adaptation of the book of Exodus supported by monumental music, larger-than-life performances, and extravagant art direction. At once, highly melodramatic and intensely reverent, it is one of the few Old Hollywood cinematic events that is worth revisiting throughout one’s lifetime.”

9. North by Northwest (dir. Alfred Hitchcock)

“One of the most thrilling, stylish and rewatchable thrillers out there.”

“One of the most iconic films of its era and possibly my favorite Hermann score to go along with it too.”

8. Sunset Boulevard (dir. Billy Wilder)

“Possibly the finest film about Hollywood ever made.”

“Perhaps one of the finest noirs and certainly sharpest screenplays. It’s a film that lives up to the hype.”

7. Vertigo (dir. Alfred Hitchcock)

“The most beautifully disturbing film the Master ever made, and in my opinion, his greatest film. A lingering, unsettling depiction of obsession that has lost none of its twisted power.”

6. On the Waterfront (dir. Elia Kazan)

“As Hollywood’s first kitchen-sink masterpiece, the film is a tour-de-force in acting, writing, and direction. As failed boxer Terry Malloy, Marlon Brando delivers an authentically raw, gutsy performance of a postwar everyman in search of spiritual renewal amidst a world defined by organized corruption and violence.”

5. Rear Window (dir. Alfred Hitchcock)

“The one thing I'll never understand is Jimmy Stewart not being all that interested in Grace Kelly.”

4. The Bridge on the River Kwai (dir. David Lean)

“Perhaps the greatest war epic of all time”

“The final line of Apocalypse Now: "The horror. The horror." The Bridge on the River Kwai: "Madness! Madness!" 22 years before Coppola's masterpiece, David Lean made this epic about war-time insanity. Alec Guinness gives his best performance, and that's really saying something!”

3. Singin’ in the Rain (dir. Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen)

“Name an iconic film filled with more joyful delight than this one. I dare you.”

“Hollywood's best musical, period; a true classic that's still surprisingly fresh and hilarious after 70 years.”

2. 12 Angry Men (dir. Sidney Lumet)

“There isn't a legal drama better than 12 Angry Men. The acting from everyone is top-notch and director Sidney Lumet, in his amazing debut, keeps it dynamic despite most of it taking place in a single room.”

“The film offers a universal lesson, to have an attitude of mercy. We should not rush to condemn someone in an emotional reaction to some compelling talking points alone.”

1. Ben-Hur (dir. William Wyler)

“Quite simply the greatest Biblical epic Hollywood has ever produced, both materially and spiritually”

“The chariot sequence remains unrivaled. The scale of this film is remarkable.”