More Than One Lesson

There has long been a debate about whether Trekkie or Trekker is the proper name to describe Star Trek fanatics. Whichever one it is, I can’t claim to be one. I’ve always been a casual Star Trek fan. I have seen every movie but only a handful of episodes from the original series and The Next Generation. So it may come as a surprise that Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is one of my favorite movies of all-time.

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In this episode, Tyler and Reed discuss Derek Cianfrance’s The Place Beyond the Pines and John Sayles’ Lone Star.

EPISODE BREAKDOWN
00:00:50- Intro, International Christian Film Festival, Digisciple Me
00:02:55- The Place Beyond the Pines
00:41:55- Lone Star
01:12:30- Episode wrap-up

In this episode, Reed and Nathan discuss M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village.

It’s Monday night of the 2017 South by Southwest Festival. All of the big premieres—anticipated movies by important directors (Malick, Wright, Franco!)—have come and gone. Yet my three friends and I, the only ones currently in the general admission line, are here for the shoot-‘em-up movie boasting a cast known by face if not by name. This isn’t even a premiere in the pure sense; it’s just the stateside debut. By all the above accounts, Ben Wheatley’s film should be a severely mediocre night at the movies—a merely fine film.

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Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain is a mess of mythical proportions, literally and figuratively. A jumbled, uneven blend of sci-fi, historical fantasy, and romance, it was commercially ignored and critically snubbed upon its release in 2006. But since then, it’s gained a cult following. Stylistically, it’s a visual tone poem in the mold of Stanley Kubrick or Terrence Malick, impressively created with mostly practical effects. Like The Tree of Life, it aspires to be a story on a universal scale that remains rooted in the intimately particular sorrows of everyday human existence. This is encapsulated in one of the film’s earliest images, when we are introduced to a futuristic astronaut named Tom. The floating biosphere he inhabits, nearly taken up by an immense tree, seems like it couldn’t be more unmoored from reality. But when he turns, a vision comes to him: a young woman with close-cropped hair, lying asleep on a hospital bed.

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In this episode, Tyler and Josh discuss Jon Gunn’s The Case for Christ and Sidney Lumet’s 12 Angry Men.

EPISODE BREAKDOWN
00:00:50- Intro, Worth Watching
00:02:40- Logan article, Bob’s baseball article, Thimblerig’s Ark, Digisciple Me
00:08:15- The Case for Christ
00:47:30- 12 Angry Men
01:21:30- Episode wrap-up

In this episode, Reed and Nathan discuss M. Night Shyamalan’s The Visit.

James Mangold’s Logan is not the first film to market itself as an “adult” superhero story. It’s just the first to actually tell one. Set aside, for a moment, the slashing (sometimes necessary, sometimes gratuitous) and the swearing (sometimes amusing, sometimes gratuitous). These are secondary to the fact that no superhero film has ever offered such a devastatingly poignant portrayal of what age does to a man’s body and soul.

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In this episode, Tyler and Reed discuss Mel Gibson’s Hacksaw Ridge and Hugh Hudson’s Chariots of Fire.

EPISODE BREAKDOWN
00:00:50- Intro, Worth Watching, Digisciple Me
00:04:15- Hacksaw Ridge
00:41:50- Chariots of Fire
01:15:30- Episode wrap-up

In this episode, Reed and Nathan discuss M. Night Shyamalan’s Split.