Jeeze, what a way to follow up “Get Out” and “A Man Escaped.” The former of those two, in which a young Black man is lured to the home of a wealthy white couple under false pretenses with horrific results, is a commentary on the fraught racial politics of its time. The latter is a…
Sight & Sound Challenge #95 (tie): “A Man Escaped” (1956)
Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. John 3:7–8 (KJV) Each of these moments reflects a shattering…
Sight & Sound Challenge #95 (tie): “Get Out” (2017)
I hadn’t seen Jordan Peele’s “Get Out” before I watched it a couple of nights ago, and part of me was concerned that my enjoyment would suffer for it. Even though I hadn’t actually sat down to watch the movie, I figured I might have absorbed enough of it through cultural osmosis to demystify and…
Sight & Sound Challenge #95 (tie): “The General” (1926)
For the first film in my personal Sight & Sound “Greatest of All Time” challenge, I watched Buster Keaton’s “The General.” It’s not my first time visiting the silent film era — my wife and I are both big fans of Charlie Chaplin — but it’s my first time seeing a Keaton flick. And wouldn’t…
Introducing my personal “Sight and Sound” greatest films challenge
Last year, the British Film Institute released its decennial list of The Greatest Films of All Time, as decided by a survey of over 1,600 critics and scholars. This year, as something of a New Years Resolution, I’m going to try to watch all 100 of these movies, and write a little bit about each…