If happiness depends on external causes and conditions, then removing those causes and conditions makes happiness impossible. If happiness does not depend on external causes and conditions, then happiness is possible in any circumstance. Probably somewhere in the middle is true: a certain threshold of tolerability in external circumstance is necessary for happiness, but theContinue reading “Causes and Conditions”
Category Archives: Blog
Coming Around
Another hectic morning, another quick post composed on the phone while I’m making coffee. Here’s a quick list of things I used to dislike but that I’ve come around on: hair metal/80s alternative, corn tortillas, unflavored seltzer, Dunkin Donuts iced coffee, parades.
Top 5 Films 2022: Mid-Year Report
It’s over halfway through 2022, so what are my top five films released this year? Let’s start at five and count up: 5. THE NORTHMAN — Robert Eggers has delivered some stunning historical hallucinatory horror with THE WITCH (2015) and THE LIGHTHOUSE (2019). In THE NORTHMAN, Eggers offers the same attention to historical detail, similarContinue reading “Top 5 Films 2022: Mid-Year Report”
Missed the Bus
It’s been a weird morning. I overslept, there is no coffee in the house, and my spouse is traveling for work. I am extremely disoriented. I feel like I missed the bus. If anything, this is driving home how important my morning routines have been to me. I had some substantive things planned for writingContinue reading “Missed the Bus”
Magick, Mayhem, and Little Rubber Monsters
Last night I got to go to “Magick, Mayhem, and Little Rubber Monsters,” a double-feature put on by the podcast Movie Dumpster at the Colonial Theater. Both films were presented on 35mm, and let me tell you, it was a treat. I have lots of thoughts on both films, but for now, the thing thatContinue reading “Magick, Mayhem, and Little Rubber Monsters”
Gateways to the Weird
I can generally find something to appreciate about any film. There are, of course, exceptions. LA LA LAND, for example, left me really bored and miffed, as did AVATAR (please, don’t make me sit through three more of these). But, generally, I have fairly eclectic taste. I love the arthouse and the grindhouse about equally.Continue reading “Gateways to the Weird”
Friday Roundup (#3)
It’s Friday (queue Rebecca Black), so I have a few things I’ve discovered this week. Movie: CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD (1980). The Italian title, Paura nella città dei morti viventi, translates literally to “Fear in the City of the Living Dead,” and it was released in the US in 1983 as THE GATES OFContinue reading “Friday Roundup (#3)”
Trashing the Academy (part 2)
In “Trashing the Academy,” Jeffrey Sconce argues that the subculture devoted to paracinema possesses a similar level of sophistication and cultural capital to “elite cineastes.” He writes, The discourses characteristically employed by paracinematic culture in its valorization of ‘low-brow’ artefacts indicate that this audience, like the film elite (academics, aesthetes, critics), is particularly rich withContinue reading “Trashing the Academy (part 2)”
Ideas
Ideas are not totally ours, but they’re not not ours either. They don’t depend on us to create them. I don’t set out to build an idea from scratch. They also don’t appear on their own. Who would they appear to? Rather, they occur in us. We are a necessary but not sufficient condition forContinue reading “Ideas”
Jeffrey Sconce, Trashing the Academy (part 1)
These are some initial thoughts on Jeffrey Sconce’s “Trashing the Academy: Taste, Excess, and an Emerging Politics of Cinematic Style,” published in Screen in 1995. The most I could manage with my time this morning was a few short paragraphs, but I look forward to expanding them. In his 1995 essay “Trashing the Academy,” JeffreyContinue reading “Jeffrey Sconce, Trashing the Academy (part 1)”
Jacob N. Given 