The Wrestler

Aronofsky has a way with films. Dark, depressing films that is. You find yourself rooting for his tragic characters (Requiem for a Dream) who will usually never find happiness or redemption. If you add Mickey Rourke's outstanding performance, then you have a film like The Wrestler. There is a scene in which Rourke's character climbs to the top rope and stands victorious with lights shining behind him, it is the most moving shot in the entire film. It is ultimately a Pyrrhic victory, though.

The Reader

Wow. OK, so I don't really know where to begin with this film. I came into this film thinking that it took place during World War II and so I was very thrown off to begin with. But then, the film takes an incredible turn and I was unable to take my eyes off of Kate Winslet's character. The film is ultimately heartbreaking.

The Young Riders

This was a fantastic show from my childhood that I was able to get through Netflix. You'll also notice that it includes a very young Josh Brolin and Stephen Baldwin!

The Third Man

So good. This one is up there in my top five (maybe). Definitely top ten. The dialogue was incredible and set the pace for the whole film. The setting was perfect as it was supposed to be bombed-out Vienna and so they just went ahead and filmed it in bombed-out Vienna (the film came out is 1949!). I've included some of the iconic and most powerful images from the film as well. I find myself becoming more and more a fan of Orson Welles.

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The BEST superhero movie ever!

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

Apparently I now have to read Philosophical Investigations in order to fully understand Wittgenststein, but I think what I really need to do is go over my logic again to even understand this text. Yet, there is this gem:

"What can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence."
-Ludwig Wittgenstein

The Worlds Religions

"If one of the wisdom traditions claims us, we begin by listening to it. Not uncritically, for new occasions teach new duties and everything finite is flawed in some respects. Still, we listen to it expectantly, knowing that it houses more truth than can be encompassed in a single lifetime."
-Huston Smith

Texts of Terror

Wow. So this was a quick read of very heavy subjects. I will not be able to read the stories covered in this book again without being deeply moved by the intricacies that move the narration along. I was exposed to the Levite/Concubine story in Judges 19 once before but after this uncomfortably close reading, I am still struggling to put it all into the context of the greater canon of scripture.

The 400 Blows

Les Quatre Cents Coups, which actually refers to an expression that roughly translates to "raising hell", was a very interesting character study and period study of late 50's Paris. I found out after watching this film that it is the first of 5 in the Antoine Doinel (the main character) cycle that director Francois Truffaut has done all with the same actor that played Doinel in this film! It is also one of the first films of the French New Wave, a genre that I know next to nothing about.

Rachel Getting Married

Silence of the Lambs-great. Philadelphia-powerful. The Agronomist-amazing. Jonathan Demme has done amazing things and I can easily get lost in Anne Hathaway's eyes for days, but Rachel Getting Married struck me as nothing more than dysfunctional rich people "just trying to get by". Please. Don't get me wrong, Anne Hathaway did a great job but come on people. Seriously, you're stinking rich and everyone is messed up in one way or another, but I am not going to connect with whiny, hipster rich people that are trying with all their might to have some sort of multicultural wedding festival while dealing with family demons.