Film Torments: Ben-Hur (2016)
THIS WEEK on Torments, Dan looks at a surprisingly interesting bomb. Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ was a staggeringly popular novel at the turn of the 20th Century. Set in the time of...
Tagged: 2016
Review: Silence – Catholic guilt, the movie
AS AN ATHEIST who was raised as a practising Catholic, Martin Scorsese’s Silence strikes two very raw nerves with me as a film that examines both the best and worst aspects of religious faith and...
Review: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them – A flawed but fun opening for the Potterverse’s new series
J.K. ROWLING, for many in my generation, is pretty much the British writer of the epoch of the mid 90s – mid 00s or, as they’re now often affectionately dubbed, the Blair years [assuming...
Daniel Joseph Buck Presents: TV In 2016 – An Examination of Coping Strategies
Take a tally of how many articles you have read recently that opened with the cheery missive ‘2016 has been a garbage fire of a year.’ If your reading habits are anything like mine,...
SCM Music’s Top 51 Albums of 2016
YOU DON’T need me to tell you that 2016 had been a pretty horrible year. I’m almost sure that by the time this article goes up, another beloved celebrity will have passed away, another...
Review: Rogue One – A galaxy treads water
PREQUELS, by their very station in an overarching narrative, face a conundrum: They’re moving toward a foregone conclusion. Star Wars knows this better than most franchises, having crafted an entire trilogy of the things...
Review: Doctor Strange-ly forgettable
DOCTOR STRANGE is the latest offering from the factory of slick itself, Marvel Studios. It is the story of Stephen Strange, a high-flying surgeon and general shitty guy, played by Benedict Cumberbatch (who I’ve heard...
Review: Jason Bourne – Diminishing returns for the superspy
I KNOW his name, but I don’t know much about him. Having never seen the preceding entries in the espionage saga, Jason Bourne was something of an unknown entity to me. By the end of...
Review: The Neon Demon – An uncompromising take on the ugliness of beauty
I NEVER thought I’d be able to take The Neon Demon seriously. It’s a film (ostensibly) about fashion in a post-Zoolander world, which helped personify and expose the vapid absurdity of an entire industry. A...
Review: Kubo and the Two Strings – A masterpiece of animation
PLEASE watch Kubo and the Two Strings. If you read only one sentence of this review, please let it be that one. This is one of the most beautifully shot films I’ve seen in a while,...
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