Posts tagged "Steven Spielberg"
PZ’s Podcast, 84-89: Yvette Vickers, Protestant Episcopal SuperMarionation I&II, Bette Davis Eyes, Tana and Tahrir, and Pacific Overtures
Church / Fashion / Film / Humor / Politics / Religion / Suffering

PZ’s Podcast, 84-89: Yvette Vickers, Protestant Episcopal SuperMarionation I&II, Bette Davis Eyes, Tana and Tahrir, and Pacific Overtures

by Mockingbird on Jan 23, 2012 • 1 Comment

Thanks again for your patience with us this past week. As you’ll see, while the site slept, some of us were busy!

Episode 84: Yvette Vickers (f. 4.27.11)

Newspapers and blogs seem to settle for the categorical in reporting such events as the discovery, on April 27, 2011, of the body of Yvette Vickers in her house in Benedict Canyon.

Yvette Vickers’s death becomes a “bizarre” event, and gets linked to the Gothic, even, as it applies to the kinds of movies in which she appeared. (She gave knockout performances, by the way, in her two “legacy” films: Attack of the 50…

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Super 8: Control, Consequences, and Monster Makeup (Spoiler Warning)
Film / Forgiveness / Grace in Practice / Reviews / Suffering

Super 8: Control, Consequences, and Monster Makeup (Spoiler Warning)

by WB on Jun 22, 2011 • 5 Comments

“Rabbi, who sinned–this space alien or his captors–that he was marooned on Earth and had assimilation issues?”

Some version of this classic biblical question lies at the core of Steven Spielberg’s and J.J. Abrams’s incredible new film, Super 8. If you haven’t seen it, I can’t recommend it highly enough—and this is also the place to stop reading: major spoiler warning. The questions of guilt and fault form the thematic scaffolding of the film. Super 8’s universe adopts the default worldview that life is a closed system of human actions and their natural consequences, and Spielberg and Abrams spend the majority…

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Mockingbird at the Movies: Fantasy, Dreamlife, and Childhood
Children / Film / Poetry

Mockingbird at the Movies: Fantasy, Dreamlife, and Childhood

by Stampdawg on Jul 24, 2009 • 10 Comments

Come away O human childTo the waters and the wildWith a fairy hand in handFor the world’s more full of weepingThan you can understand.— W.B. Yeats, by way of Steven Spielberg’s AI

“…if we’re to be helped, it’s got to be by magic.”– Woody Allen, by way of Mockingbird (7/21/09)

This week I’d like to talk about five movies where fantasy and dream and magic and childhood meet: Coraline, Paperhouse, The Innocents, The Red Balloon, and AI.

Coraline

This movie was just released this week on DVD. Very worth seeing.

Check out R-J’s great review of it five months ago. Now that I…

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Mockingbird at the Movies: Saving Private Ryan
Film / Theology

Mockingbird at the Movies: Saving Private Ryan

by Nick Lannon on Apr 3, 2009 • 29 Comments

James Ryan walks through the American Cemetery in Normandy, an old man. He stops at a headstone, and falls to his knees, tears in his eyes. The headstone reads: John Miller. As Ryan’s wife comes to his side, he says through his tears, “Have I been a good man? Tell me I’ve lived a good life.” Moved, his wife assures Ryan that he has. Yet the tears don’t abate. James Ryan can’t be sure if he’s been good enough.

In Saving Private Ryan, Steven Spielberg marshals a wonderful ensemble cast to tell a…

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