December 2011
22 posts
STORM SYSTEMS OF GROUP SUFFERING: A 2011 YEAR END LIST AND CATCH-ALL OF THE ZEITGEIST USING EPISTOLARY FORMS
by Evan Scott Bryson
Of the two people I’ve ever loved—the one is in Afghanistan, and the other I dumped on Tuesday. I’m ready for 2012. I’m ready for anything.
—
5 December 2011
Hey Evan,
[…] also, mom said you got quite emotional on the phone last...
The Year in Review
2011 MOVIE CHARACTER FANTASY FOOTBALL DRAFT
by Chris & Elizabeth Cantwell
(with Special Guest Judge Brendan Joyce, Fantasy Football Expert)
We’ve watched a lot of movies this year. And as the NFL playoffs approach, what better way to take stock of those films than with a fantasy football matchup? We listed out all the major films to hit U.S. theaters in 2011, then went about a quick ...
4 tags
The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)
by Andrew Root
Jim Henson was dead, to begin with. A freak bout of pneumonia had taken away the man who was at the centre of countless projects and characters; the very voice of Kermit himself. Richard Hunt—who performed Beaker, Scooter, Sweetums, and Statler, among many others—had also died, and the number of beloved characters that had been shelved out of respect was ever growing. How could The...
4 tags
A Christmas Carol (1951)
I WEAR THE CHAINS I FORGED IN LIFE
by Letitia Trent
Unlike most kids between eight and twelve, I dreaded Christmas break more than I dreaded school, and I dreaded school almost every day to the level of sickness. Dread made my stomach churn while on the inevitably long bus rides (we always lived at least ten miles from town); dread made me plan exactly by which door I’d enter the school...
7 tags
White Christmas (1954)
WHITE CHRISTMAS, DECONSTRUCTED
by Elizabeth Cantwell
As most of my friends know, I tend to conceptualize movies in terms of brief, disconnected scenes that for whatever reason stuck in my mind. (So: “The Godfather is the movie where there’s a cat on Brando’s lap, and people are making some kind of red sauce, and Al Pacino is in the rain, and they shoot James Caan at a toll...
It's A Wonderful Life (1946)
IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE?
by Chad Perman
It’s easy to lose track of your life. All of us do it, in one way or another, locked up so tightly in our own heads - our own private little worlds - that we lose sight not only of The Big Picture, but of even our own smaller pictures: our families, our friends, the things we set in motion, the lives we impact and influence on a daily basis....
Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992)
AN INTERVIEW WITH KEVIN MCCALLISTER ON THE 20TH YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF HIS ABANDONMENT
by Bebe Ballroom
He is forty minutes late. The pigeons in Central Park have taken the seat on the bench next to me. His hot chocolate is cold chocolate now. My phone buzzes and sends the pigeons scattering. He has sent a text message. It reads:
Traffic! ={
He shows up twenty minutes later, walking briskly in...
4 tags
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989)
GETTING THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS RIGHT
by Erica U.
All month I’ve been contemplating which holiday movie I wanted to write about and I’m embarrassed to tell you how much time I spent googling “obscure Christmas film.”
It wasn’t that I wanted to put on airs of sophistication or intellectualism (I watched several seasons of The Hills and went to see Superbad the night it came out; No...
A Christmas Story (1983)
AMAZON REVIEWS AS WRITTEN BY THE CHARACTERS OF A CHRISTMAS STORY
by Michelle Said
Red Ryder Carbine-Action 200-Shot Range Model Air Rifle (Compass in the Stock)
The best present of all time!!!!!
by Ralphie (Hammond, Indiana)
This is my dream gun! I have wanted this BB gun for so long! It’s basically perfect in every way imaginable! Not only is it ideal for playing cowboys and indians but...
4 tags
Keanu Reeves Week: Thumbsucker (2005)
THUMBSUCKER, or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love Keanu Reeves
by Andrew Root
“Why are you talking like that?”
Pre-2005, Keanu Reeves was a joke to me. He was one of the only actors to whom I would not give a chance. I felt personally affronted when I found out that he had played Don John in 1993’s Much Ado About Nothing, a film based on a Shakespearean play, for god’s sake....
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Keanu Reeves Week: Johnny Mnemonic (1995)
HACK YOUR OWN BRAIN
by Elisabeth Geier
My brother was sitting in his usual seat. Glaring at his phone. I had a movie to watch. He had dibs on the living room.
“You wanna watch Johnny Mnemonic?” I asked.
“You wanna get stoned and watch Johnny Mnemonic?” he asked back.
I’m not one to get stoned and watch a thing, but I knew this movie sucked. Maybe it would suck less on drugs. Maybe...
5 tags
Keanu Reeves Week: The Matrix (1999)
I CAN ONLY SHOW YOU THE DOOR, YOU’RE THE ONE THAT HAS TO WALK THROUGH IT.
by Katie West
The other day I was watching Transformers: Dark of the Moon. (Don’t judge me.) At the beginning of that movie, there’s a depiction of the first moon landing. Sure, in the movie the entire reason for going to the moon was to discover the crash site of a robotic alien race, but it was still amazing. The...
6 tags
Keanu Reeves Week: Speed (1994)
IT’S JUST LIKE DRIVING A REALLY BIG PINTO.
by Liz Shannon Miller
In most major metropolitan areas around the world, taking the bus is a natural part of life, with no stigma attached. In Los Angeles, though, taking the bus is seen by many as weird and dangerous; a last resort for those struck by the tragedy of being carless. So of course a movie about a bus gone amuck is set in this...
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Keanu Reeves Week: The Lake House (2007)
THIS (TIME) MACHINE KILLS REALISTS
by Bebe Ballroom
I’ve been staying with my grandmother in a retirement community for the elderly and the disabled. I am neither elderly nor disabled and so I am not actually allowed to be here. It’s sort of like the ill-advised movie In Her Shoes starring Toni Collette and Cameron Diaz except that this is rural Missouri and I’m not Cameron Diaz. Many...
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Keanu Reeves Week: Point Break (1991)
by Edward Montgomery
“Metaphysics is a dark ocean without shores or lighthouse, strewn with many a philosophical wreck.”
-Immanuel Kant
The ocean only seems overt.
Though Heraclitus has been immortalized contemplating the quiet flux and power of a river over time, to me, the ocean still seems the bigger mystery. It is something that cannot truly be explored, regardless of our...
5 tags
Keanu Reeves Week: Bill &Ted’s Bogus Journey...
YOU MIGHT BE A KING OR A LITTLE STREET SWEEPER, BUT SOONER OR LATER YOU DANCE WITH THE REAPER
by Michelle Said
I assume that you are familiar with Bill S. Preston, Esquire and Ted Theodore Logan, they of metalheaded duncehood and the time-travelling phone booth. And I will assume that you may be in your 20s or 30s and you may have seen this movie and its predecessor as a child. I will assume it...
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Keanu Reeves Week: Parenthood (1989)
LIFE IS WHAT HAPPENS TO YOU WHILE YOU’RE BUSY MAKING OTHER PLANS.
by Brianna Ashby
I sat on the toilet for at least ten minutes, crossing and uncrossing my eyes, trying to make sure that the faint pink line that had appeared in the window wasn’t a figment of my imagination, or an optical illusion, or some strange shard of refracted pinkness that was magically hovering just over that...
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Keanu Reeves Week: River's Edge (1986)
TAKE ME TO THE RIVER.
by Letitia Trent
Keanu Reeves’ brand of blank-faced, affectless, trying really hard acting is easy to mock: you’ve probably intoned “I know Kung Fu” at least once since The Matrix came out. His presence as a pretty-but-not-terribly-talented actor can hide the fact that Keanu Reeves tackles challenging roles as often as he does mainstream ones. The most well-known...
5 tags
Hugo (2011)
LIFE IS BUT A DREAM.
by Chad Perman
I go to the movies because of movies like Hugo. I believe in movies because of movies like Hugo. And not to put too fine a point on it, but this entire site basically exists because of movies like Hugo.
Martin Scorsese’s first truly family friendly film (yes, really; Taxi Driver this ain’t) is a cinematic love letter to those of us who’ve...
