Paul Schrader presents us with a rare gift: a film that is equally serious about its material and its storytelling craft. Grappling with his faith, Rev. Toller’s (Ethan Hawke) existence becomes unhinged when the husband of a parishioner (Amanda Seyfried) commits suicide. Buoyed by strong performances—including Cedric the Entertainer as the head of an evangelical megachurch—First Reformed is Schrader’s strongest treatise on faith in film. Alternately introspective, shocking, and frank, it still retains a glimmer of hope. The film reminds us that doubt plays a certain role in faith and that even in the midst of despair, grace reveals itself.
Can someone love a serial killer? On a sequestered island community, a young woman (Jessie Buckley) with a dark past and a domineering mother (Geraldine James) falls for a mysterious man (Johnny Flynn) suspected of committing a series of child murders. While Beast is cleverly written and directed with gorgeous cinematography, its intricacies weigh it down. But with actors so committed to their craft, you nearly forget these things as the narrative unveils its multitude of lurid surprises. When the film ends, you’ll feel like your body was exhumed from damp earth and is in need of a cold shower.
Sean Woodard explores the religious themes of film in his new series Finding the Sacred Among the Profane. First up: The Strangers franchise.
PODCASTOrdinary GraceSusan Pierce
An interview with Susan Pierce, English professor at Los Angeles Valley College, about the hollowing effect of advertising and consumer culture, as well as Tibetan Buddhist loving-kindness practice and the power of giving.
But then again, I have big hands.
So I go for the little things,
so I can love a lot of things.
& isn't that the trouble with boys
like us we keep our love trapped in
our mouths everything was full
to bursting your left hand my right
hand blissfully glutted with lambs
He loved the stars: he would speak endlessly about Orion the Hunter, Hercules, Corona Borealis, Sagittarius. If we were outside at night he would point out their locations and recite the myths and stories surrounding the flickering of those magical lights in the sky.
the floors of memory are glass, which means
the medicine isn’t working, which means
i am back on the floor, which means
it is july, which means
the cherries are in bloom
last night
before sleep
she drew pictures on my back
with her fingers
a test of my spacial recognition
I got into the liquor business at a young age, and despite what anybody might have you believe, I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. My knack for logistics was something I discovered along the way. It’s funny how successful folks like to hide a thousand mistakes behind one big breakthrough. And let me tell you, I made plenty of mistakes.
Gabriel Ricard with reviews of Deadpool 2 and films by Richard Linklater and John G. Avildsen.
My sister called me that night. I sat on my bed, with the lights off, as she talked. If I couldn’t see anything of my room, I could imagine I was home and she was talking to me from across the bedroom we’d shared all through our childhood. I could imagine she was telling me secrets about the boys she had crushes on and the teachers she hated.
Something stops you now. You said too much
& it got you into trouble. The shadow & old pain
that kept you awake shelter your feelings
of revenge.
And the black sugar
We call also ash
And the outline of stone
We say is another
Kind of desire
I can fall asleep to
the rattling of windows,
the collection of sirens growing
in Yorùbá, a father is a name &
the left hand is taboo. one cannot offer
water with the left hand or sleep
facing upward. at night, a witch
will sit on your chest. a knife tearing
into a knife.
and she wonders
if they’ve said all the words
in thirty years together
She was on her mother’s boat, wearing a floppy hat that let her long blonde hair have just enough freedom to appear wild and refined at the same time. As I grew to know her, I learned that she was exactly that: the perfect balance of wild and refined.
When we returned for breakfast, she watched with surprising disinterest as dog food bowls were filled on the counter. I guess she’d never been fed from a bowl. But when it was her turn to eat, she devoured it as though she’d never been fed at all. I noticed when we were outside that she ate dirt, and wondered if this is how she’d been surviving. “What a life,” I told Bill. He just stared quietly.