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The Courage To Teach

Elizabeth Cantwell·
Issue 142: Teachers
One could fairly criticize Reggie Dunlop (Paul Newman)—“player-coach” of the Charlestown Chiefs in George Roy Hill's chaotically raunchy Slap Shot—for a wide variety of character flaws and professional failings, but he is true to the letter of St. Francis de Sales’ wisdom: Be who you are and be that well.
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In Dreams: An Interview With Jonathan Rosenbaum

Frank Falisi·
Interviews
"It seems to me there’s a lot of mythologies that exist—mythological positions in film criticism—that I’m trying to combat. One of them is that you can say, in some kind of ultimate way, that one film is good or one film is bad. That’s ridiculous. It seems perfectly reasonable that a film that might be good for me might not be good for you. Therefore, if you say “I”, you’re being honest."
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One Foot in the Grave

Sarah Welch-Larson·
Issue 138: Best of 2024
An illustration of Ellen from Nosferatu in a bridal veil with blood streaming from her eyes and mouth.
The monsters are real, powerful, capable of exerting their wills on the world. Both Nosferatu and The Vourdalak abandon any pretense at knowing how this evil came to be; what’s scarier is that it exists already, that it’s caught the protagonists flat-footed, and that it’s potent.
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Pink Snowflakes & Red Lipstick: On Pedro Almodóvar’s Late Work

Helena Fitzgerald·
Issue 138: Best of 2024
A painting by Moses Lee based on the Pedro Almodóvar movie The Room Next Door
Taken together, Almodóvar’s last three films—Pain and Glory, Parallel Mothers, and now The Room Next Door—solve one another, forming a sort of triptych about what it means to make art at the end of a life. Each asks what we leave behind in the world, what lasts, what remains, and together they form an almost scandalously hopeful answer: art is enough, and equal to love, and no different from it.
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13 Ways of Looking at The Mothman Prophecies

Abigail Oswald·
Issue 137: Winter
The Mothman Prophecies illustrates anxiety’s steady build of dread. The deeper John tunnels into his investigation, the more he becomes convinced that some terrible event is fast approaching. He becomes consumed by the dream of knowing what will happen before it happens, the idea that if you simply knew the collision was coming, you could be the one to set the train on a different course.
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