essays

[Our Sunday Visitor, September 14, 2003]
The Magdalene Sisters

You know how, when you're changing channels and land on an old movie, you can guess when it was made? Cinematic "looks" change with fashion, and it's easy to tell opulent, color-drenched early-60's style from the sparer 70's or smoky 40's. In "The Magdalene Sisters," a film about the "Magdalene asylums" operated by the Irish Catholic church, director Peter Mullan displays his genius for capturing the look that today's moviegoers crave-one that proclaims authenticity.

Click to read more ...

[Our Sunday Visitor, August 17, 2003]

Seabiscuit

"Seabiscuit" is the best big-story, big-heart movie of the summer. You know the type: it has underdogs, or rather an underhorse, and three men drawn to him by a common dream. Strings and cymbals crowd the soundtrack to the point of bumping elbows, and the action goes to slo-mo, then to black-and-white. An unseen narrator solemnly drops stones into the pond: "It was the beginning and the end of imagination at the same time," and the middle too, I'll bet. Later, the Works Project Administration is described as "showing somebody really cared," which must be how it won the Strawberry Shortcake award.

Click to read more ...