I thought about starting off the month with my usual dive into movies that made me who I am from the year 1991 and somehow find a way to tie this into black history month. Surprisingly it wasn’t all that hard, as some seminal movies […]
Author: Daniel.g.fleming
Quick Review: Wild at Heart
In the late 80’s and into early 90’s, director David Lynch turned television on it’s head with his brilliant cult series Twin Peaks. For two seasons he showed America what they had been missing by sleeping on his films such as Blue Velvet, Eraserhead, and […]
“Cause in the end, we all know what we’ve done.”: Flatliners and Post-traumatic Stress
Writing this blog is a risk. Talking about movies is easy and, as anyone who knows me can attest, keeping my mouth shut can be a problem. When it comes to talking about stuff that matters, the words often barricade themselves inside. In my mid-teens, […]
Redux or not to redux, that is the question of the Godfather Coda
When Francis Ford Coppola made changes to his war epic Apocalypse Now, the differences were evident. Missing scenes were included and others were extended, especially the French plantation scene which had gone unseen for over a decade. For myself, Apocalypse Now: Redux, as it was […]
Hope Springs Eternal: Five movies that will put you through the wringer then leave you smiling.
5. Hope Floats (1998) 4. Mr. Holland’s Opus (1995) 3. Groundhog Day (1993) 2. Jerry Maguire (1994) 1. The Shawshank Redemption (1994) “Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe even the best of things, and no good thing can ever die.”
Toxic Masculinity is a slippery little sucker: Reassessing Pretty Woman
We all know that 2020 was a bit of a hellish landscape, so on January 1st my fiancé and I decided to sit down with a feel-good film, and one of her personal favorites, Pretty Woman. Afterward, I had no plans on writing anything about […]
Quick Review: The Grifters
The Grifters Written by Donald E. Westlake Based on a novel by Jim Thompson Directed by Stephen Frears To know Lloyd Dobler is to love him. Diane Court is about to get to know Lloyd Dob…wait. Sorry, that’s the wrong film. But I don’t think you can blame […]
Talk hard: The importance of empathy in Pump Up the Volume
It’s difficult to talk about movies when it feels like the world is coming to an end. Damn how I wish that was hyperbole. You turn on the news and riots are breaking out in the capital and you have to wonder to yourself, do people really […]
Quick Review: Alive
We get more than enough snow days in Maine. Much like I did when I was a kid, my adult brain immediately goes to “snow day movie!” as soon as I see more than three inches of snow on the ground. Traditionally I watch one […]
Everyone needs a motto: Learning the wrong lessons from Goodfellas.
All my life, all I ever wanted to be was a gangster. Okay maybe not a gangster, but I at least wanted to be cool. At least cool enough to be able to tell someone “Fuck you. Pay me.” and get away with it. Those […]