Celebrating Bethlehem's Southside Culture
Lady Bird is a film which should be seen by anybody who has a complicated relationship with their parents/children, which includes almost everybody. At its heart is the troubled relationship between Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson (Saoirse Ronan) and her mother, Marion McPherson (Laurie Metcalf). Despite this filial relationship, it’s probably best to understand this film…
A Wrinkle in Time is visually stunning, but it’s not going to be remembered based on its visuals alone. Though the graphics were stunning, they cannot compensate for the story. A Wrinkle in Time follows Meg Murray (Storm Reid), her brother, Charles Wallace (Deric McCabe), and their friend, Calvin (Levi Miller), as they search for…
Phantom Thread has garnered a litany of awards and nominations in the time it has been out, and, perhaps, that’s enough of a reason to see it. It certainly is a richly crafted movie, but you may leave the theater troubled and perplexed. Daniel Day-Lewis’ character, Reynolds Woodcock, plays the lead in what turns out…
The Shape of Water seems prophetically appropriate for our era. While watching the film, I couldn’t help but see the main antagonist, Colonel Richard Strickland (Michael Shannon), in the context of the Parkland school shooting of February 14th. Truth be told, I’ve been binging my way through New York Times, Washington Post, Huffington Post, and…
Professor Marston and the Wonder Women opens with a few teenagers spending the day collecting Wonder Woman comics and piling them into a red wagon. In the evening, these comics are brought to a bonfire because of the comics’ feminist and BDSM portrayals. William Marston (Luke Evans), the creator of Wonder Woman, watches the spectacle….
As a cinema host and as a fan of the romantic comedy genre, I’d been looking forward to The Big Sick for months. The star and co-writer (with Emily V. Gordon) of the film, Kumail Nanjiani, has frequently remarked on his fondness for Hugh Grant’s romantic comedies. I hoped that Nanjiani’s clear passion for such…
NOTE: The discussion of Colossal below contains some plot spoilers. Literature and film have always been, for me and for so many others, training in empathy. We learn to walk in the shoes of those we’ve never met, to feel as they might feel. But part of that training is to read the signs of human…
NOTE: The discussion of Norman below contains some plot spoilers. Joseph Cedar’s Norman, the Israeli director’s first American production, is a film that can easily take you by surprise. Its trailer suggests a playful look at a charming conniver who is out of his depth. Although there is truth to that description, it doesn’t quite encompass…
I’ve enjoyed leading discussions of so many brilliant and entertaining films at the Frank Banko Alehouse Cinemas through the years, but the anticipation for the May 16th screening of Jordan Peele’s horror film Get Out was positively electric. It’s not that the crowd was particularly large, not for a film that was one week away…
Whenever I introduce my undergraduate students to the classic maternal melodrama, Stella Dallas, I always feel a little sad that they don’t like the protagonist as much as I do. Stella, played by the brilliant Barbara Stanwyck, is a young, working-class woman, who marries a much wealthier man named Stephen after some practical, strategic wooing….