Crimes of the Future (2022)
In Cronenberg's latest sci-fi nightmare, human bodies are evolving and surgeons are bringing brand new organs out into the spotlight... in public, as performance art. It's unsettling. It's meaningful. And it's hilarious.
0 Comments19 Minutes
Maverick (2022) (Part Two)
As an action movie, Top Gun: Maverick is compelling entertainment. As art, it exists more as a celebration of Tom Cruise, exalting a version of reckless masculinity and whiteness that I might have hoped we'd left behind.
1 Comment21 Minutes
Maverick (2022) (Part One)
Before diving fast and furious into a review of Top Gun: Maverick, I should probably provide some personal history about me and Maverick.
0 Comments15 Minutes
Weekender: New Twitter. Doctor Strange’s Multiverse. Faith in musicals. SDG on The Northman.
Looking Closer has a new Twitter account! Also: Here are my first impressions of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, a link to the latest Arts & Faith movie list, and one of the reviews of The Northman I've been most looking forward to.
1 Comment7 Minutes
Arcade Fire’s big noise is back, and so are the sermons
Arcade Fire's seven-track tapestry of anxiety, alienation, and disillusionment sounds epic, but it can be a bit disillusioning itself in its obvious sermonizing.
0 Comments13 Minutes
Petite Maman (2022)
Like Jacques Doillon's Ponette and John Sayles's The Secret of Roan Inish, Céline Sciamma's new film is about very young children living with loss and grief. And, like those films, it casts an unforgettable spell. Don't miss it!
1 Comment8 Minutes
The Northman (2022)
With full respect for arguments to the contrary, I'm of a mind to say that Robert Eggers's The Northman, while very clearly in the category of "Not My Kind of Movie," is a complex and meaningful film that deserves heavy cautions, the raising of certain concerns, and considerable praise. Viewer discretion is very forcefully advised.
0 Comments25 Minutes
Weekender: Allison Russell, Philip Yancey, and Enchanted Journey II: Ex-vangelical Boogaloo
In this edition of The Weekender, a miscellany of podcast highlights, insights on faith and race, a prayer worth memorizing, and a memorable TED Talk.
0 Comments11 Minutes
Memoria (2022)
The greatest films are becoming the most difficult to see in a theater. Memoria — the third transcendent cinematic experience I've enjoyed in 2022 — is, like the others, one that moviegoers will have to seek out on their own, and they're unlikely to ever see it on a big screen.
0 Comments15 Minutes
Jon Batiste’s “We Are” — a Looking Closer Top 20 of 2021 favorite — wins Album of the Year.
One of my favorite records of 2021 won the Album of the Year award: Jon Batiste's We Are.
0 Comments6 Minutes
Favorite Recordings of 2021: Part Three (#15–#1)
You are arriving at the summit of my 2021 Music Mountain. These are my fifteen favorite albums of 2021
0 Comments43 Minutes
Weekender: Fourth Weekend in January — Dark on Power of the Dog; Wilford on Licorice Pizza
After a few "Weekenders" away, here are a few highlights from the last few weeks.
0 Comments11 Minutes
Favorite Recordings of 2021: Part One (Honorable Mentions and #36–#26)
It has finally begun! On January 20, Looking Closer's look back at favorite recordings of 2021 has begun! Keep watch for Part Two and Part Three, coming soon.
2 Comments28 Minutes
Newsic: New song from Tom Skinner, Thom Yorke, and Johnny Greenwood
This isn't an easy song to sing along with. It shouldn't be. But it represents a meaningful anger, a broken heart, a soulful lament, a rage expressed in love for those who have been wronged.
0 Comments1 Minutes
The Tragedy of Macbeth (2022)
Did social distancing influence this Joel Coen production of the Scottish play? It has some great actors in it, but their performances seem strangely separate. And the film's striking images seem more like a gallery of evocative stills than immersive cinema.
1 Comment14 Minutes
Weekender: 2022 film calendar; Luci Shaw’s latest poems; C’mon C’mon; Azor; Licorice Pizza
This week: An astounding 2022 preview. The upcoming poetry of Luci Shaw. And some initial thoughts on C'mon C'mon, Azor and Licorice Pizza.
0 Comments24 Minutes
The Weekender: Christmas Edition 2021
This week: Malick's rollercoaster ride through the eons of history. Mia Hansen-Løve's film Bergman Island. All hail U2's The Edge!
1 Comment24 Minutes
Twenty years ago this weekend, a fellowship formed in Rivendell…
Twenty years ago this weekend, I joined a fellowship at the local cineplex to witness an event that would change the art of movies — for better and for worse — for decades to come.
0 Comments14 Minutes
The Weekender – Third Weekend of December 2021
Merry Christmas early! The Weekender will be a Surprise Box, an unpredictable newsletter, a bulletin board of things I'd like to share that I would have expanded into full, individual posts if life had afforded me the time.
0 Comments10 Minutes
Devi (1960)
During November's Barnes and Noble Criterion sale, I took a chance on a film I've never seen before. I am so glad that I did. It's one of the great films about the possibilities and the dangers of religious faith.
0 Comments5 Minutes
Passing (2021)
In a season of sprawling epics and extravagant spectacle, Rebecca Hall's directorial debut is one of the year's finest exceptions: a quiet, focused film that knows exactly what it wants to be and efficiently achieves it.
0 Comments18 Minutes
The French Dispatch (2021) (Part One)
Wes Anderson's devoting every resource at his disposal to realizing grander visions. The results are more like museums than paintings, more like restaurants than mere meals.
1 Comment14 Minutes
Looking Closer with Jeffrey Overstreet
(now the ears of my ears awake andnow the eyes of my eyes are opened)
– e. e. cummings, “i thank You God for most this amazing”