Stop Making Sense is a beautiful magic trick: show the stage for the hard concrete reality it is, then transform it into an island of motion and movement that’s unreal and exaggerated.
JoinedMay 28, 2017
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Sarah Welch-Larson lives in Chicago with her husband, their dog, and two dozen houseplants. She is the author of the book Becoming Alien: The Beginning and End of Evil in Science Fiction's Most Idiosyncratic Franchise, now available from Cascade Books. In her spare time she enjoys reading, knitting, and shouting about science fiction.
The Empire Strikes Back is about doing the work after all passion for that work is gone, about the slow, hard attempts to see a long-term plan through with no hope of success in sight.
The tension Michael Mann’s Collateral sustains is effective because the movie understands the unequal relationship between employer and employee, between driver and passenger.
In this single shot, The Hunt for Red October presents its stakes: the struggle between an individual and the vast and powerful forces that threaten to swallow him.
Alien: Resurrection swings the pendulum away from the dour grimness of its predecessor towards a sense of humor and ironic self-awareness; the result is an Alien eager to thumb its nose at its precursors. It doesn’t care if anyone who loves those earlier films gets caught in the crossfire, either.
Anxiety is Fury Road’s strongest throughline: the beating heart at its center.
It is the first day of summer 1962 in Paris, and it is a beautiful day, and for Cléo, everything is falling apart.
Tron: Legacy's lasting reputation is mostly that of a flashy action blockbuster, with plenty to show and little to say. But the film's unique visual aesthetic elevates it a level beyond similar films of its kind.
Only Lovers Left Alive is about marriage, and about weathering long dark nights of the soul just long enough to see the light again, taking each wave as it comes and then bracing for the next one.
The Return of the King is an object lesson in satisfying endings. Each one is necessary, a coda for an important story thread; each one folds in on the others like the pages of a book.
This scream is a scream of defiance.
In Howl’s Moving Castle, food is more than just a necessity—it sustains life, in every sense of the phrase: helping a body hold skin and sinew together, while acting as an expression of love and care.
