Review: The Devil All The Time

by Juan Carlos

“Delusions.” 

 That is probably what you would say when you see people calling themselves Christians while raising half a million dollars for a domestic terrorist. Or when they continue to support a president that has no respect for human rights unless the human being in question is straight and white and male.

That is also Robert Pattinson’s most memorable line delivery in The Devil All The Time, a recently debuting Netflix original. Telling the sprawling story of religiosity and violence set in post-WWII and pre-Vietnam War America, the film attempts to trace a chain of events which branch out into several storylines which ultimately merge in tragic ways...

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The New Classics: First Reformed

Michael Cusumano here with the most recent film I've yet to induct into this series. Despite its newness, it's one of the titles I'm most confident will earn the label of classic in the course of time.

Can you pinpoint the moment someone crosses the line between faith and fanaticism? Is it even possible to fully define the boundaries between the two? Most reasonable people would agree it’s around the moment someone commits an act of violence in the name of God, but an individual crosses that boundary internally long before he straps on a suicide vest. 

That elusive moment of radicalization exists somewhere in the vast gray silences of Paul Schrader’s First Reformed. It passes by so quietly that it is possible to be late into the film and have no inkling of the wild-eyed zealot Ethan Hawke’s Reverend Toller will become in the film’s shocking final movement...

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Silence vs Silence

by Cláudio Alves

At times Martin Scorsese's filmography looks like a string of projects that took decades before they saw the light of day. These monstrous productions include films like the bloody epic Gangs of New York and last year's mob drama The Irishman, and the 17th century set religious historical drama Silence (2016). 

Silence is near the top of my own list of favourite Scorsese films. There are many reasons for that, not least of which is the fact the original novel, by Japanese author Shûsaku Endô,  is one of my favorite books and it focuses on Portuguese characters. Consider also the empathy Scorsese shows towards every character, along with the willingness to pursuit complex ideas and murky morality when a straightforward approach would have been easier to follow. These qualities are especially evident in Silence (2016) because we can compare Scorsese's adaptation to that of another world-renowned director…

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Almost There: Cary Grant in "The Bishop's Wife"

by Cláudio Alves

Movie stars are not like us. Most people look perfectly banal when observed through camera lenses, but the stars are ravishing. When one appears, all eyes go to them, as if their mere presence is a gravitational hold. They are glamourous and awe-inspiring, terminally charming, and even more alluring. Idealized beyond humanity, those icons of the silver screen are the green light for which Jay Gatsby reached.

No matter the other sins of Old Hollywood, they were an exemplary movie star factory. The studios often knew just how to showcase the great stars to maximize their appeal. Or at least the finished product often suggests so. For a fascinating example of all of this look no further than Cary Grant in the 1947 Best Picture-nominee The Bishop's Wife…

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1947: Kathleen Byron in "Black Narcissus"

by Nick Taylor

Ah, 1947. Back when the Golden Globes only announced their winners and neither NYFCC (age 12) nor NBR (age 2) had supporting acting categories. Searching for alternatives to Oscar’s lineup -- as we like to do when approaching a new Smackdown --  is appealingly open-ended. There are ways to find other options without awards bodies, though. The simplest is to call upon decades of film history to see which of any year’s most durable films have noteworthy female performances. For instance, has any other 1947 film so formidably established itself in the canon as Powell & Pressburger’s Black Narcissus... particularly as an offering of great actressing?

Centered on a group of Anglican nuns instructed to open a school on a Himalayan mountainside already infamous for scaring off other settlers, the film maintains the directors’ penchant for overripe atmosphere and jaw-dropping spectacle... 

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