A guest review by Eliza Dorst

*Includes spoilers!!!

What makes a good horror movie? I think a successful horror movie traps its audience into a fantastical scenario that feels scarily intimate, something a little too close for comfort. Good horror displays uncensored human instinct–both good and bad. Personally, horror is my favorite genre of movie because I enjoy how my adrenaline starts to pump and my brain somehow forgets I’m watching a screen. I believe good horror movies make you forget you’re watching a production and instead cause you to feel as if you are in a high-stakes situation along with the characters because you’re so entrenched. My top five horror movies all accomplish these goals.

5. Scream (1996)

Twist endings are my favorite endings. When they are done right, plot twists can make a movie more exciting, along with more meaningful. A lot of the movies on my list have twist endings and they’re all done magnificently. Scream is included on my list for many reasons, but it mostly stands out due to the beginning and ending sequences. With Drew Barrymore getting murdered right off the bat (at the height of her fame), the entire movie is set up to defy audience expectations. The dialogue shows how ironic the film is by discussing horror movie tropes. The movie also makes constant references to other horror films, not in a cheesy way, but to pay homage to them. And the last sequence is when the audience finds out who the killer… or killers– are. It’s truly terrifying because it makes you think about the people you surround yourself with, their secret lives, and the fact that most serial killers blend into society pretty well. 

I love the use of “rules” in the movie. If you don’t know what I’m referring to, there is a character in Scream who relays certain unspoken “rules” of the horror movie genre and these rules are what keep the characters alive or cause them to die. Then, throughout the actual film, the audience notices that almost all of these rules get broken. Scream is self-aware, as many horror movies are, yet is a breath of fresh air as it understands the sad, demoralizing history of female characters in the genre and other similar cliches. Scream doesn’t just reference and recreate tropes; it breathes life into the genre and its tropes by giving us new refreshing characters, along with amazing acting and creative dialogue. It’s can hard for a horror movie to strike a perfect balance of humor and horror, but Scream does it. And it’s not as if there is just one character to rely on for comedic relief, but rather multiple truly humorous characters that take the edge off. Scream is a re-watchable classic that opened up a whole new opportunity for horror movies.

4. Psycho (1960)

This classic Hitchcock thriller makes number 4 on my list for the way it changed cinema forever… More than 60 years ago Psycho was released and immediately gained traction for its outbursts of violence, sensuality, and twist ending. Adam Rosenberg writes, “On June 16, 1960, Psycho premiered in New York City. On that night, the world saw the birth of the slasher genre and one of the earliest examples of graphic violence in a film… There are many works of ‘classic cinema’ which, while important, seem unimpressive by today’s standards. Hitchcock stands apart; his work endures and his influence is still felt whenever a movie pushes you to the edge of your seat with tension.” Hitchcock’s stylistic choices and the dynamic characters helped create a phenomenal thriller that digs under the surface and reflects on mental illness.

3. Get Out (2017)

Can we take a moment to appreciate Jordan Peele? He came from a background in comedy acting, and then directed and released two fantastic horror movies in a span of two years. Comedy and horror have plenty of overlapping qualities, but it still always surprises me when someone can do both. His other film, Us, is one of my honorable mentions. But Get Out made it onto my top five for a couple of specific reasons. 

First, it shows the audience aspects of the Black experience, specifically the anxiety in an interracial relationship. I’ll give a summary of the movie: Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) and Rose (Allison Williams) are dating and Chris is going to meet Allison’s family for the first time. Allison’s family first welcomes Chris, who is Black. But as the visit progresses, the situation gets increasingly disturbing as truths are unveiled.As a white person, I come into this movie with a certain amount of ignorance to the fear a person of color would feel in situations such as this (meeting their white potential in-laws), but Jordan Peele makes it so easy for someone outside of the community to understand that terror. The brilliant twist ending causes us all to reflect on internal racism and microaggressions we may be participating in. Compared to Us, Get Out is less gory and is mostly a psychological terror. It’s a slow burn, and therefore I felt that the ending was more satisfying than in a typical horror movie where the thrills are scattered all over. Get Out is a lot more than just a horror movie; there’s social commentary and a focused narrative that gives the audience something more than just jump-scares. The film also has a structure and vibe similar to an episode of The Twilight Zone or Black Mirror due to its slow buildup and then extreme climax and “resolution.” This structure was brilliant and perfect for the story Peele wanted to tell.

2. The Shining (1980)

There is no doubt that The Shining is one of the greatest horror movies of all time. While the film received mixed reviews when it was released in 1980, it has since been reevaluated and is now critically acclaimed. Filmmakers such as Jordan Peele, Tim Burton, and David Lynch refer to this film as an inspiration for their work. Stanley Kubrick’s meticulous attention to detail, the score, and Jack Nicholson’s performance make this horror film the masterpiece it is and number two on my list.    

Every actor in this film does an amazing job. from Shelly Duvall playing a completely hysterical mother and wife to Danny Lloyd’s eight-year-old performance as an abused child with a strange sixth sense. But, for me, Jack Torrance is one of the scariest movie antagonists of all time. As the movie unfolds, the audience finds out that Mr. Torrance has had a past of alcoholism. I was rooting for Jack from the beginning, hoping that he would continue as a sober man and loving father and husband. My hope was in vain, as the Outlook Hotel slowly turns Jack into an evil murderer who hunts his own family. Jack Nicholson was perfect for this role and truly gave us a performance horror history will never forget. 

One thing that has always stood out to me about this film is the psychological terror. It’s slow-paced but perfectly executed through an eerie plot and character development. It doesn’t just outright surprise the audience, it takes its time building suspense, creating high stakes, and showing Jack’s loss of sanity over time. 

Stanley Kubrick is quoted saying, “The manuscript of the novel was sent to me by John Calley, of Warner Bros. I thought it was one of the most ingenious and exciting stories of the genre I had read. It seemed to strike an extraordinary balance between the psychological and the supernatural in such a way as to lead you to think that the supernatural would eventually be explained by the psychological: ‘Jack must be imagining these things because he’s crazy.’ This allowed you to suspend your doubt of the supernatural until you were so thoroughly into the story that you could accept it almost without noticing.” 

Although the movie is noticeably different from the original novel, Stanley Kubrick used his own vision to take a challenging manuscript and make it into something new.

1. Hereditary (2018)

Hereditary is my all-time favorite film, I’ve watched it about 6 times and it never fails to surprise me. I will try to summarize the film without giving away too much for those who need a bit of a refresher. Hereditary is about a family that has just lost their grandmother. Through her death, the family has unknowingly been sacrificed to a sinister cult the grandmother was a part of (although this fact is not apparent, or even very relevant until the last 15 minutes). The movie mostly focuses on the family, specifically the mother Annie (Toni Collette), after the tragic death of her daughter. As blame is shifted to different family members and parental trauma unfolds, all while a spiritual awakening is bubbling over, Hereditary is straight out of a terrible nightmare.

One great thing about this Ari Aster movie is that it doesn’t need gore or actual horror tactics to be a scary movie. It perfectly embodies realism, surrealism, and fantasy. The family dynamic alone is suspenseful enough. The plot is completely plausible, every character’s personality and response to each situation is completely believable. Honestly, up until the end, this movie could easily just be somebody’s unfortunate life. Aster said of the film: “I enjoy turning things on the audience. I like working in genre because people come into films with certain expectations. They know the tropes so well that, when you turn on those, it can be shocking because there’s a complacency that comes with watching those films.” He accomplished exactly this with Hereditary. I went into the movie expecting the cliche horror movie tropes, and he completely defied those expectations. Another aspect that gives this movie my number one spot is Toni Collette’s acting. Don’t get me wrong, I loved her in Muriel’s Wedding, but she gives a phenomenal performance in Hereditary that shows her true acting talent and range. All the acting is terrific, but for me, Toni Collette deserved an Oscar, no question. She plays a believable mother trying to cope with the traumatic death of her daughter, right after the death of her mother. As Annie, Collette perfectly encompasses the emotions a person in her shoes would be experiencing, and the movie just throws in a couple of supernatural experiences to push her over the edge. 

Honorary Mentions (not in any specific order): 

A Quiet Place 1&2 (2018 & 2021)

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) 

Saw (2004)

Us (2019)

The Haunting of Hill House (Season 1, 2018) -This is a Netflix series, but definitely worth the watch!!

A guest review by Jonathan Dorst

With the recent news of the Matt Damon film Stillwater (filmed in and around Stillwater, OK) getting a July release date, and the news that Martin Scorsese has begun filming Killers of the Flower Moon in the Pawhuska/Bartlesville area with Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert DeNiro, it got me thinking about movies that are about my adopted home state of Oklahoma. Oklahoma has had its share of well-known actors– including Alfre Woodard, Kristin Chenoweth, Megan Mullaly, James Marsden, James Garner, Jennifer Jones, Vera Miles, Van Heflin, Ron Howard, Bill Hader, Tim Blake Nelson, Tracy Letts, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Gary Busey, Wes Studi, and Will Rogers– but it has not had a plethora of movies made about it. The ones that have been made, however, include several that are fairly iconic, so it seems like a good time to rank the 20 best Oklahoma movies made so far. 

For starters, we’ll just consider feature films, not documentaries– apologies to Okie Noodling, Unlikely Family, and Tiger King. Also, movies simply filmed in Oklahoma (like UHF) or tangentially related (think Ruprecht yelling “Oh boy, Oklahoma, Oklahoma” in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels) don’t count if they’re not essentially about Oklahoma. There are still a number of stories that could, and should, be told on screen about Oklahoma, including Clara Luper and the Katz Department store lunch sit-ins, Stanley Draper and the expansion of Oklahoma City, Stillwater’s Farm and the birth of Red Dirt Music, and the 2012 OKC Thunder. But for now, check out the stories that have made it to the big screen.

20. Home, James (2014)– Native Oklahoman Jonathan Rossetti directs and stars in this story of 20-somethings in Tulsa (filmed in Tulsa) trying to figure out life together and by themselves. 

19. Mekko (2015)- Sterlin Harjo’s picture of homeless and vulnerable Native Americans. Much of it was shot in the block surrounding Tulsa’s historic Circle Cinema in the Kendall-Whittier district.

18. To the Stars (2019)- A thoughtful picture of 1960’s Oklahoma and outcast teenagers (and adults) trying to survive. Filmed in and around Oklahoma.

17. The Oklahoma Kid (1939)– James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart star in this story about the 1889 Land Run, outlaws, family, and the establishment of cities and order in the West. Shot in California.

16. Oklahoma (1965)- Probably the first thing people think about, after country music, when they think about entertainment coming from the 46^th state. Catchy songs but very strange in places. Shot in Arizona (why?).

15. Silkwood (1983)- Meryl Streep won an Oscar for her portrayal of Karen Silkwood in this true story. Filmed in Texas and New Mexico.

14. Where the Red Fern Grows (1974 & 2003)- The classic coming-of-age story of a boy who hunts raccoons better than anyone in Oklahoma, or Arkansas for that matter. The original (filmed in Vian and Talequah, OK) has a lot of country charm, the remake has Dave Matthews and a much bigger budget. 

13. Cimarron (1931 & 1960)- A Best Picture winner, this is the seminal movie about the Land Run. The 1960 remake might be an improvement, but it didn’t win Best Picture, so we’ll stick with the original (although neither was filmed in Oklahoma).

12. Far and Away (1992)- Ron Howard’s epic saga of Irish immigrants surviving the land rush has abundant Irish clichés and all the charisma of (then married) Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Most of the film was filmed in Ireland, with the land rush scenes filmed in Montana.

11. Twister (1996)– Filmed in Wakita and lots of other parts of Oklahoma, this 1996 movie is still a top-tier disaster movie with a great cast.

10. Rumble Fish (1983)- Coppola’s follow-up to The Outsiders, a grittier version of young adult life in Tulsa in the mid-20^th century based on the novel by SE Hinton. Filmed in, with tons of great footage of, Tulsa.

9. In Old Oklahoma (aka War of the Wildcats) (1943)- With John Wayne in a comedic role, this 1943 film imagined the feuds over oil, with a dash of romance. Filmed everywhere but Oklahoma.

8. Leaves of Grass (2009)- An hilarious tale written by Tulsa native Tim Blake Nelson about twin brothers from Oklahoma (both played by Edward Norton) who have taken very different paths in life but are brought back together near Tulsa for nefarious purposes. Filmed in Louisiana.

7. Hang ‘Em High (1968)– One of Clint Eastwood’s best Westerns, this is a meditation on revenge and the development of the justice system in the American West. Filmed in New Mexico and Arizona.

6. Oklahoma Crude (1973)- A similar premise to the Susan Hayward film Tulsa, but a more realistic (and cruder) vision of an independent woman, played by Faye Dunaway, trying to take on the big oil companies. Like many older films, this one was all filmed in California.

5. To the Wonder (2012)- Terrence Malick’s vision of cross-cultural romance, with Bartlesville, OK playing as big a role in Ben Affleck’s character’s love life as Paris, France. Some scenes were also shot in Pawhuska and Tulsa.

4. True Grit (1969 & 2010)- A classic Western about doing what’s right, no matter how hard. I prefer the Coen brothers version with Jeff Bridges (and the excellent Hailee Steinfeld) over the John Wayne version, even though none of it was filmed in Oklahoma.

3. August, Osage County (2013)- An all-star cast, including Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Chris Cooper, and Margo Martindale (and Ewan McGregor, and Benedict Cumberbatch, and Juliette Lewis…), anchors this funny and heartbreaking story that reminds us that we can’t choose our family, only how we treat them. Shot on location in Osage County, OK.

2. Grapes of Wrath (1940)- John Steinbeck’s iconic novel about the Dust Bowl and the Okie migration to California adapted in gorgeous black-and-white by John Ford with Henry Fonda. Some scenes were filmed in McAlester and Sayre, OK, but most of it was filmed in California.

1. The Outsiders (1983)- Francis Ford Coppola’s classic adaptation of Tulsan SE Hinton’s novel of greasers and socs. Filmed in Tulsa, it was a launching pad for a bunch of great young actors.

Honorable Mentions: Tex, Come Sunday, Return of the Bad Men, Four Sheets to the Wind, Where the Heart Is, Tulsa.

Others: Oklahoma Territory, Into the Storm, Thunderstruck, Home in Oklahoma, The Oklahoma Cyclone, Bringing Up Bobby, Barking Water, Keys to Tulsa (awful), Terror at Tenkiller (worse than awful).

A guest post by Jonathan Dorst

This past December, many of us watched a rare occurrence in the night sky- the ‘great conjunction’ of Jupiter and Saturn that some called the Christmas Star. As I look ahead to this year in movies, coming on the heels of Netflix’s announcement of their planned weekly movie release, I am wondering if there will be a great conjunction of films. With the many films that were held over from their original 2020 release dates combined with the normal slate of 2021 releases, will 2021 become the greatest year in movie history? To answer that question, we first need to ask three other questions.

The obvious first question is, When will people go back to theaters? Many people might not return in mass until the fall, or even into 2022 (and some people, having spent thousands of dollars on home theaters during quarantine, may never return to a traditional theater at all). But, with the news of Warner Brothers pictures now being released on HBO Max the same day as they premiere in theaters, it would seem that the streamers are winning the release war and will pick up the slack of theater revenue. Nevertheless, it’s possible that some of the big releases this year might get pushed back to 2022 by nervous studio executives, like Damien Chazelle’s upcoming Brad Pitt/Margot Robbie-starring film Babylon has already been.

The second question: What is coming up this year, and why should we expect a great year? To start with, let’s talk about the directors who have films slated to come out this year (how spoiled are we?): Steven Spielberg, Wes Anderson, Edgar Wright, Guillermo Del Toro, Steven Soderbergh, Taika Waititi, Paul Schrader, Kenneth Branagh, Peter Jackson, Denis Villeneuve, Ridley Scott, Sam Levinson, Cary Fukunaga, Adam McKay, Jane Campion, Tom McCarthy, Ramin Bahrani, and more. 

You’ve got lots of potential blockbusters: Top Gun: Maverick, Black Widow, No Time to Die (the new Bond film), Dune, Sherlock Holmes 3, The Matrix 4, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, F9, Cruella, Mortal Combat, A Quiet Place II, Godzilla Vs. Kong, Uncharted, Jungle Cruise, The Suicide Squad (not to be confused with 2016’s Suicide Squad), and Death On the Nile. 

You’ve got auteur-driven films: The Card Counter (Schrader), Last Night in SoHo (Wright), The Northman (Eggars), The White Tiger (Bahrani), No Sudden Moves (Soderbergh), Next Goal Wins (Waititi), Pinocchio (del Toro), and possibly Killers of the Flower Moon (Scorsese). 

You’ve got your musicals and musical biopics: In the Heights, Respect, and The Beatles: Get Back. You’ve got Tom Hanks in Bios and the Untitled Elvis Presley Project. You’ve got Pixar (Luca), Disney (lots of stuff, including many of the aforementioned blockbusters), DC (Morbius), Marvel (Black Widow and a new Spider-Man), and a long-awaited Space Jam sequel. Get your popcorn ready, there’s a lot coming this year.

The third question is, What’s the competition? Which years in movie history are the best up to this point? This, of course, is a matter of great debate, and is probably hopelessly subjective (unless you just go by box office receipts, in which case 2018 would be the champ). But, it seems that there are three years that are regularly considered by critics and film buffs as the greatest year in movie history: 1939, 1962, and 1999. 

1939 has the distinction of having the highest-grossing film of all time when adjusted for inflation: Gone With the Wind (which also won Best Picture). It was a time when the studio system was at its height, with great directors, stars, and producers cranking out movies for an audience hungry for entertainment. It also saw this murderer’s row of classics and very good films: The Wizard of Oz, John Ford’s Stagecoach (some believe to be the greatest Western of all time), Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, Gunga Din, George Cukor’s The Women, William Wyler’s Wuthering Heights, Howard Hawk’s Only Angels Have Wings, Ninotchka, Destry Rides Again, Love Affair, Kenji Mizoguchi’s The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum, and Jean Renoir’s Rules of the Game. 

1962 benefited from a historical oddity: many international films that were released in 1960 and 1961 were released in 1962 when distributors realized they could make money on these films. As the book Cinema ’62 notes, 1962 was a time when the studio system was changing greatly, a slew of great international directors- including Kurosawa (Sanjuro), Ozu (An Autumn Afternoon), Bergman (Through a Glass Darkly), Truffaut (Jules and Jim), Resnais (Last Year At Marienbad), Antonioni (La Notte and L’eclisse), Bunuel (Viridiana), Tarkovsky (My Name Is Ivan)– were at their prime, and subject matter began to evolve to include more of the human experience. The slate of American and English-language films released in ’62 is pretty good, too: Lawrence of Arabia (that year’s Best Picture and box office champ), To Kill a Mockingbird, Dr. No, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, The Manchurian Candidate, The Miracle Worker, The Music Man, The Longest Day, Gypsy, Sweet Bird of Youth, Cape Fear, Lolita (Kubrick), The Trial (Welles), How the West Was Won, Mutiny on the Bounty, and Days of Wine and Roses.

Economics played a part in 1999 being a great year: DVD sales were booming, which meant that studios could take a chance on films that could recoup box office losses in DVD revenue, and it was not yet the golden age of TV. ‘99’s box office champ and Best Picture winner are not very good: Star Wars: Episode 1- The Phantom Menace and American Beauty, respectively. The best films of that year, though, were made by a who’s who of the-newly-arrived great directors: Memento (Christopher Nolan’s best), Fight Club (David Fincher’s best), Hard Eight (Paul Thomas Anderson), Election (Alexander Payne), Titus (Julie Taymor), Three Kings (David O’Russell), and The Insider (Michael Mann), along with great and very good films like The Matrix, Being John Malkovich, The Iron Giant, Toy Story 2, Run Lola Run, Brokedown Palace, The Sixth Sense, Topsy-Turvy, 10 Things I Hate About You, Office Space, The Green Mile, The Hurricane, Man on the Moon, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Boys Don’t Cry, Eyes Wide Shut, The Straight Story, Bringing Out the Dead, Any Given Sunday, All About My Mother, Notting Hill, and The Talented Mr. Ripley.

A couple of runner-up years: 1946 saw a number of great films get released on the heels of WWII, including It’s a Wonderful Life, Notorious (Hitchcock), The Best Years Of Our Lives, Shoeshine (de Sica), Great Expectations (Lean), My Darling Clementine (Ford), The Big Sleep, Gilda, The Killers, The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Stranger, Henry V (Olivier), A Matter of Life and Death, Paisan (Rosselini), Children of Paradise, and Beauty and the Beast (Cocteau). 1974 is a strong representative of ‘70’s cinema (which some see as the highest film genre yet invented!): The Godfather II, The Conversation, Chinatown, Scenes From a Marriage, Amarcord, Blazing Saddles, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Murder on the Orient Express, The Front Page, The Great Gatsby, Lenny, The Parallax View, Sugarland Express, and A Woman Under the Influence. 1994 was influential in many ways: The Shawshank Redemption (the highest rated IMDb movie ever), The Lion King (maybe the greatest animated movie ever), Pulp Fiction, Forrest Gump, Hoops Dreams, Ed Wood, Quiz Show, Crooklyn, Reality Bites, Natural Born Killers, Dumb and Dumber, Speed, Little Women, and Legends of the Fall.

One could make an argument for 2007 as the greatest year of this century so far (There Will Be Blood, No Country For Old Men, The Lives of Others, Pan’s Labyrinth, The Counterfeiters, The Departed, The Queen, Dreamgirls, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, 4 Months 3 Weeks and 3 Days, Gone Baby Gone, La Vie en Rose, Away From Her, Juno, Into the Wild, Zodiac, Once, Ratatouille, Babel, I Am Legend, Michael Clayton, and Atonement). As to whether 2021 will become the greatest year in movies, if I were going by the one and only 2021 release I’ve seen so far, I would say: “Yes!” Amazon Studio’s Herself is an excellent indie from Ireland. Ultimately, however, my guess is that 2021 will not be the greatest movie year ever for the simple fact that so many productions were shut down in 2020 due to COVID. But, it’s easier now than ever to make a movie, and many productions have improvised and proceeded. We’ll just have to wait and see where the chips fall, and then argue about the merits of 2021 versus all the other great movie years for the next decade or so. Happy viewing!

You can read more of Jonathan’s reviews at:

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/chorusinthechaos/author/jonathandorst/

A guest review by Kevin McGuire

“To a world without Winden”

“Winden won’t give up that easily”

-Ulrich and Hannah, 1986 (Season 1, Episode 3)

Dark’s opening scene takes place thirty-three years after this exchange, where the small town of Winden is as rotten as ever. Jonas Kahnwald has just returned to school following his father’s suicide. The nuclear plant, long a source of civic pride and economic stability, is set to be decommissioned. Half the residents seem to be involved in extramarital affairs. The police department is investigating several cases of missing children. Entire flocks of birds drop dead from the skies with no apparent explanation. Created in 2017 by director Baran bo Odar and writer Jantje Friese, this German Netflix series centers on a handful of local families, and the dark secrets in the town’s past responsible for the current problems. Time travel quickly comes into play, and as various characters attempt to change the past to fix the present, it becomes apparent how deeply the roots of their modern pain lie in their actions and those of their ancestors.

In case you haven’t picked up by now, this is not a happy show. The New York Times described it as “the show for people who thought Stranger Things was just a little too much fun”. Dark is simultaneously a technical and narrative masterpiece and a difficult show to watch. In preparation for writing, Friese read over 100 books on quantum physics, psychology, philosophy, and theology – and it shows. Direct references are made to numerous scientific concepts by name, everyone in-universe is capable of directly quoting both Freud and the book of Psalms, and quotes from a range of continental philosophers provide prologue to many episodes. It is an incredibly dense show, unwilling to leave any scientific or relational worldbuilding unexplored.

Odar’s background as a painter infuses each scene with strikingly intentional composition. The camera is unblinking as the show moves at a slow, almost dreamlike pace, whether capturing sordid affairs, brutal murders, or exposition over the physics of black holes. Indebted to the grand myth building of shows like Lost and Twin Peaks, Dark takes lessons from their oft-criticized lack of payoff. A consistent atmosphere is maintained by a steady drip of the dreadful truth replacing each piece of the central mystery, with the endgame always in sight. The solution to the puzzle is revealed early on, but the journey to that point – and what it can reveal about the human experience – remains the greater story.

A Brand New, Broken World

Dark is, at its core, as much about philosophical conflict as it is time-travel and soapy drama. While questions of time, fate, and causality form the grand theater that the show plays in, the heart of the narrative is much more human. Ultimately, Dark is about the experience of navigating generational sin, how the misdeeds of the past can bring pain and suffering through lasting scars and continuing patterns of destruction. The town of Winden is the entire universe of the show, and the most enduring monument to the crimes committed by generations of inhabitants. Beneath the nuclear plant, a system of caves acts as both the catalyst for time travel and a physical manifestation of the town’s dark underbelly. Occasionally we meet characters who have just moved to Winden, but no one escapes. Midway through season one, Katarina, mother of one of the missing children calls into a radio show, her oracle against Winden playing over scenes of small-town life now seen through a newly darkened lens:

“I want people to completely understand what’s going on here. We’re all so blind about this. There’s a murderer here among us. No one actually dares to say it. But it’s the truth. We’re all clinging to the hope that it won’t happen to us. We all know one another. And we think we know those around us. But do we really? We live right next door to people we know nothing about, and behind one of those doors is my son. It could be anyone’s door. The man behind the cash register. Someone we invite for coffee and cake on Sundays, who plays with our children. But I don’t want to look away anymore. And you shouldn’t want to either. This whole town is sick. Winden is like a festering wound, and all of us are a part of it.”  

The sins of the past directly affect every aspect of life in Winden. Fractured relationships within families echo the abuse and addictions that have haunted them for generations, while externally individuals betray the children of those their parents betrayed. Nothing changes, in pattern or substance, even as one generation replaces the next. Institutions, whether educational, political, or clerical, provide no solace for the residents as they continue to be harnessed for selfish motive just as they have throughout Winden’s history. The thin veneer of camaraderie that unites the town decays on screen as the secrets of the past emerge from whispered rumor into the light, setting neighbor against neighbor, daughter against mother, and father against son. 

Dark illustrates two types of this generational sin, the show proudly wearing its existential heritage on its sleeve. Characters moving through time fall into one of two camps. The first, represented by those like Ulrich, travel to the past in attempts to prevent present tragedies. Upon arrival, they face the realization that generations of misdeeds, both theirs and their ancestors, cannot be erased and inevitably haunt their families’ emotional and physical security. Confronted with this absurd and transcendent reality, they shrink into impotence or madness.

The second is represented by the cult-like secret societies of Sic Mundus and Erit Lux that carry out a war waged beyond time. Their founders began on the same path as the others, but answered the absurd directly. Instead of heroic courage, their actions prove to be the inciting incidents behind much of the horror plaguing their modern world. Generational sin is now cast through the lens of eternal recurrence – essentially the concept that all events in history occur repeatedly, in the same sequence, through a never-ending series of cycles. Dark makes this literal, as all of the travelers find themselves fighting the same tragedies not just at different points of time, but failing again and again to change the past and seeing their family and friends torn apart repeatedly by their actions. Trapped in this unending knot, each character operating outside of their native timeline is faced with the disharmony that arises from the apparent meaninglessness of their existence and the futility of their actions, and together represent three unique philosophical responses.

Heroes of the Absurd

As leader of Sic Mundus (which is short for Sic Mundus creatus est, which means “Thus the world was created” in Latin), Adam represents a war against God and time, viewing both as ultimately non-existent concepts which must be dethroned from the human mind. He adopts the view of eternal recurrence advanced by Friedrich Nietzsche – that only through amor fati (love of fate) can the “horrifying and paralyzing” reality of what will happen be embraced, allowing escape through the “creation of novelty”. Corrupted both physically and spiritually by countless attempts to restore order through time travel (his scars serving to conveniently obscure his identity until late in season two), Adam is the embodiment of the Nietzschean “will to power”. In his eyes, only he is strong enough to bend the universe to his will. Winden is sick, and can only be cured through destruction. In the center of the Sic Mundus lodge hangs Peter Paul Ruben’s The Fall of the Damned, Adam viewing himself as the archangel Michael, casting the damned of Winden into the abyss they deserve. For any innocents in the town, non-existence is a more merciful fate than continuing to live in such a world. Judgement and salvation, carried out in the same motion.

Eva, the leader of the Erit Lux (“There will be light” in Latin), is chiefly opposed to Adam, and seeks a different path. Her encounter with the absurd leads her instead to embrace it. There is a radical value to mere existence, any harm from generational sin largely ignored. Chief among the artifacts adorning Erit Lux’s comparatively barren lodge is a detailed mapping carved into the floor of every individual’s role which must be sustained for the cycle to continue. Eva embraces the absurdism articulated by Albert Camus, presupposing a world in which God is already dead and nothing beyond the immanent matters. To Erit Lux, both history and hope represent false idols doomed to disappoint. In this weary world, nothing is promised beyond today, and even the freedom that comes from everyone’s self-determined path to destruction is preferable to the fantasy of salvation. 

There’s an interesting contrast between the absurdism of Camus and the 14^th century Christian mystic Julian of Norwich (bear with me for a second). In his essay The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus proclaims about the character that “he too concludes all is well”. This is a bitter statement acknowledging that the world has no master, and that Sisyphus must make his own meaning out of the boulder he eternally pushes. ‘All is well’ because nothing can be any different from how it currently stands. These words are a strange echo of Julian of Norwich’s famous recounting of her 13^th vision:

“In my folly, before this time I often wondered why, by the great foreseeing wisdom of God, the onset of sin was not prevented: for then, I thought, all should have been well. This impulse was much to be avoided, but nevertheless I mourned and sorrowed because of it, without reason and discretion. But Jesus, who in this vision informed me of all that is needed by me, answered with these words and said: ‘It was necessary that there should be sin; but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.’”

For Julian, all is not well. But it will be. She doesn’t know how or when or why, but Christ will make all things right, and that is enough for faith. Likewise in Dark, Claudia, the last of three travelers who is outside time, accepts that there might be hope outside the knot in which Winden is stuck. She only arrives at this point through desperation, unwilling to perpetuate the cycle of parents and children wronging one another. The same mechanism which brings suffering into the world is the only way to escape it. 

In The Concept of Anxiety, Søren Kierkegaard writes that anxiety is the amoral tension between all possible actions that predates even the knowledge of good and evil in human consciousness. Anxiety made possible Adam and Eva’s leap into their original sins, yet anxiety also makes Claudia’s leap into a faith in a better world possible. Like Nietzsche, Kierkegaard saw the tyranny of fate on human consciousness as a blight to be overcome. However, his solution lay in the ability of anxiety to prepare the human mind for faith “because the anxiety within him has already fashioned fate and has taken away from him absolutely all that any fate could take away”. Claudia’s recognition, that nothing she imagines can be worse than the present cycle imprisoning Winden, provides the catalyst for hope that unhitching from the origin can lead to a better world.

Out of the Caves

Three seasons of wallowing in suffering is draining. There’s a purpose to this pain though, as only in the absence of hope can the vastness of its joy be seen. In a recent interview, artist Elijah Tamu spoke about darkness as being a key to realizing spiritual transcendence, “white light is beautiful, but a world of only white light without differentiation would be no different from a world of darkness… Sometimes darkness is what makes it possible to appreciate and contemplate certain subtleties of light”. For example, the traditional candlelit tenebras service of Good Friday situates the beauty of Christ’s sacrifice alongside both spiritual and physical darkness, making a conscious attempt to draw the modern mundane into viewing a more sacred fullness. Unilluminated by the divine, the inherited suffering of this world can either lead to holding tight to past wrongs and perpetuating injustice on personal and systemic levels, or to redemptive release. 

While Dark cloyingly refuses to acknowledge whether any of the characters truly manage to outwit fate, Odar and Friese make clear that healing of even the deepest hurts begins with the extension of personal grace. Forgiveness of self and others, coupled with sacrifice, literally wipes away any trace of the show’s central sins. The generational patterns are coming undone. The final episode concludes with a dinner party, prior suspicion replaced by true community. As the guests eat by candlelight in a town without power, their final exchange illustrates a place still amid gloom, but no longer hopeless:

Regina: “If the world were to end today, and you only had one wish, what would you wish for?”

Katarina: “A world without Winden. Let’s drink to that.”

All: “A world without Winden.”

[The lights turn back on]

Peter: “Looks like Winden doesn’t want to just disappear.”

Woller: “Maybe it’s for the best.”

~

* “Dragging the Dead on Leashes” is the title of a song by Being As An Ocean. 

Kevin McGuire is currently a PhD student in the Price College of Business at the University of Oklahoma. In his free time, he enjoys both watching and playing basketball, spending too much time on Twitter, and continuing his quest to find the strangest music on the planet.

By Christopher Nolan

There was a time in my life in which I believed it mattered whether the miserable cretins who viewed my films understood what was happening. It was a dark time, reader. I struggled mightily to provide the ill-bred masses with the petty satisfactions they required, employing degrading techniques designed to explain my ingenious, chronologically non-linear plots to even the stupidest of dolts who consumed them.

Yes, reader, I engaged in shameful behavior, lowering my films to the tastes of their basest audiences. I used such abominable devices as “exposition” and “audible dialogue.” I even (forgive me) took the time to write coherent and explanatory endings, designed to fill in whatever points audiences may have missed in their feeble understanding of my sweeping artistic vision. NO MORE! My latest magnum opus, Tenet, is free from such demeaning restraints. 

No longer will I task my considerable genius with “accessibility” or “coherence.” My audiences are, plainly, dumb and worthless, and they will henceforth be treated as such. Of course their feeble minds don’t understand my breathtaking reflections on the nature of time itself, so why should I bother debasing my work for their sake? Don’t understand the intricate workings of Tenet’s time mechanics? Imbecile. Here are some buildings blowing up to satisfy your toddler-esque attention span. Unclear on who a particular character is or where they came from? Too bad, now they’re punching somebody else you’ve never seen before, does that satisfy your infantile lizard brain? Confused by the ending? Not my problem, focus on the big, shiny guns I put in just to entertain idiots like you. Enjoy the flashy lights and shut the hell up. This is cinema. There’s no time to accommodate the dimwits who can’t keep up, I’m making art here. If prolonged landscape shots, car chases of ambiguous purpose, and inexplicable gunfire don’t satisfy your shallow cravings for petty entertainment, I have nothing further to say to you. 

Christopher Nolan is a writer and director. His latest film, Tenet, is in theaters now. 

~

This piece of satire was guest-written by Sam Shideler. Sam is a sophomore at the University of Oklahoma, where his academic pursuits are best articulated as “reading, writing, and regarding STEM majors with contempt.” His hobbies include referring to movies as “films,” pretending to understand classical literature, and suffering at the hands of Oklahoma City Thunder basketball.

Guest Review by Jonathan Dorst

Many movie theaters are reopening today. For how long, nobody knows, but hopefully for good. I last saw a movie in a theater in early March, so I’m ready (I think) to go back to seeing new releases on the big screen. And there are a number of tantalizing films set to come out in the last four-plus months of this year, including The Personal History of David Copperfield (8/28), Christopher Nolan’s Tenet (9/3), Quiet Place Part II (9/4), I’m Thinking of Ending Things (Netflix 9/4), Antebellum (9/18), Sofia Coppola’s On the Rocks (October), David Fincher’s Mank (October), Wonder Woman 1984 (10/2), Trial of the Chicago 7 (10/16), Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch (10/16?), The Courier (10/16), Black Widow (11/6), Pixar’s Soul (11/20), Denis Villeneuve’s Dune (12/18), Coming 2 America (12/18), and Spielberg’s West Side Story (12/18).

But, if you think there haven’t been any good movies that have been released up to this point in 2020, you haven’t been paying attention. Some came out before the pandemic, some went to streamers or VOD when theaters were not an option, and some were released as planned through a streamer. One note: Although some multi-episode documentaries (like OJ: Made In America) have won Oscars and been considered a ‘feature,’ I chose not to include them on this list, so Tiger King and The Last Dance would be part of a top television list instead. One more note: As always, don’t take the inclusion of a film as a blanket endorsement of its content; you are responsible to research the content and determine if certain movies are appropriate for you.

20. Bad Education– Hugh Jackman shows off his versatility in this telling of a true story of embezzlement in the public school system.

19. Radioactive– A good biopic that makes the interesting decision to show the downside (in jarring flash-forwards) of the protagonist’s historical contribution.

18. Downhill– A not-as-good-as-the-original remake of a very good Danish film, still Will Farrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus give good performances in this serious comedy.

17. The Truth– A bit of a cliched premise about an actress mother and her flawed relationship with her daughter, but it’s Juliette Binoche and Catherine Denueve, so it’s a must see.

16. Tigertail– A thoughtful film that tells the story of an immigrant’s struggle to connect in his new land while reconciling what he’s lost back in his homeland.

15. The Vast of Night– An interesting, slow-burn of a film about strange happenings in the sky in New Mexico in the 50’s that I suspect will get better with repeated viewings.

14. Arkansas– A minor, but enjoyable entry in the ‘loveable loser drug dealer’ genre; Liam Hemsworth is terrific playing against type.

13. The Invisible Man– An effective thriller that is a not-too-subtle metaphor for the psychological oppression that powerful men can administer on women.

12. The Old Guard– A superhero film that takes consequences seriously.

11. Da 5 Bloods– Spike Lee’s exploration of the Vietnam War and its effects, as well as his continued exploration of America’s racial history- the acting is great, but the tone and pacing is all over the place.

10. Young Ahmed– The Dardenne brothers’ latest about a young teenaged boy being influenced by a radical Islamic imam.

9. To the Stars– A movie about small-town Oklahoma in the ‘50s that tells the age-old tale of the shy, bullied kid who gets courage from the extroverted, courageous friend, but with some twists that keep it fresh.

8. Ordinary Love– Two great actors (Lesley Manville and Liam Neeson) telling a slice-of-life story that made me want to watch more of their life together.

7. Palm Springs– A very funny take on the Groundhog Day premise that doesn’t quite earn its happy ending but is still very memorable and enjoyable.

6. Athlete A– The emotional story of how USA Gymnastics failed to protect its female gymnasts from predators like Larry Nassar.

5. The Assistant– A day in the life of an administrative assistant who serves her unnamed boss in a Weinstein-like film production company; we see how powerful men got away with so much for so long as we watch her try to raise a red flag in an atmosphere where no one is motivated to change anything.

4. The Trip To Greece– The 4^th film in the ‘Trip’ series, this is the most poignant as Rob and Steve follow in the footsteps of Odysseus and ponder their mortality. 

3. Driveways– A beautiful film about people in different stages of life connecting and making the best of their situation.

2. Sorry We Missed You- British filmmaker Ken Loach has been making great social commentary films for a long time, and this one takes aim at companies taking advantage of workers in this ‘gig economy’ while telling an affecting story of a family trying to thrive, or at least survive.

1. Hamilton– I know this really came out as a musical in 2015, but it’s not the first play to be filmed and released as a movie (consider Bergman’s The Magic Flute and Powell’s The Tales of Hoffman), and everything about this production is just. so. good.

Bonus: Worst Movie of the Year (so far, that I’ve seen)- Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey

By Jonathan Dorst

Holy Week is the highlight of the Christian calendar, the week when the church remembers and dramatizes the events between Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem (Palm Sunday) and His resurrection (Easter). In addition to the two Sundays, many churches celebrate Maundy-Thursday, the night when Jesus celebrated the Passover meal with His disciples (see John 13-17), and Good Friday, the day when Jesus was crucified and laid in the tomb.

2020 will be a year that will be remembered for many things, but one very sad thing we’ll remember is not being able to be together, as the church, during Holy Week. So, we’ll do the next best thing: worship together by ourselves or with our immediate families. Along with reading the Scriptures, watching worship livestreams, and singing worship songs together, allow me to recommend some movies for you to watch.

Some of these movies were made by Christians, and others were not. Some are direct dramatizations of the biblical events, while others are only symbolic of the events. But, all are worth pondering, I think. They’re listed in alphabetical order by event, three each.

Maundy-Thursday

Babette’s Feast (PG)- A beautiful story about a religious community that is brought together by a sacrificial, but extravagant, meal.

Chocolat (PG-13)- This one’s a little bit of a stretch, but part of Jesus’ message to His disciples at the Last Supper is “that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” While Juliette Binoche’s Vianne is not necessarily a Christian role model, she does bring joy and feasting to a legalistic, pharisaical town.

Jesus of Nazareth (PG)- The 1979 TV movie is a pretty faithful rendering of Jesus’ life, including a good scene of the Last Supper. You might need to make this a multi-night watch- it’s 6 hours and 22 minutes (or you could just watch the Last Supper scene on YouTube).

Good Friday

The Iron Giant (PG)- A visitor from out of this world sacrifices himself to make peace on earth.

The Passion of the Christ (R)- This movie does a good job of telling the story of the crucifixion in a visceral way, but what it doesn’t get (and maybe no movie could get) is that the hardest part of Jesus’ suffering was not the physical pain, but the spiritual pain that came from being separated by the Father and becoming sin for us.

War For the Planet of the Apes (PG-13)- The whole trilogy is a parallel to Moses’ story in Exodus, but this last movie casts Caesar as a Christ figure, sacrificing himself to bring his community to free his people.

Easter

The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe- I personally love the animated 1979 version (PG), as it is the most faithful to the book, but the 2005 version (PG) will do in a pinch.

Risen (PG-13)- The resurrection told through the eyes of a Roman solder tasked with investigating the case of a missing dead body.

The Tree of Life (PG-13)- As a meditation on the book of Job that is told mainly through visuals, we follow a family grieving the loss of a son/brother until, like Job prophesied (Job 19:25-26), they experience a bodily resurrection.

 

(Originally published at https://www.riveroakstulsa.com/blog/post/movies-for-holy-week)

By Jonathan Dorst

The decade spanning 2010-2019 was a great decade for film. It saw many new, ethnically diverse, voices behind the camera, such as Barry Jenkins, Ava DuVernay, Jordan Peele, Taika Waititi, Ryan Coogler, Asghar Farhadi, Alex Garland, and Damien Chazelle, as well as veteran directors like Terrence Malick, Christopher Nolan, Paul Thomas Anderson, Alexander Payne, and the Dardennes doing their thing. The rise of Netflix and Amazon gave a greenlight to many good films that would have never seen the light of day in a market increasingly intolerant to anything not franchise or horror-related. The rise of Movie Pass and other subscription services (I love being an AMC A-Lister, I have to say) proved that traditional theaters have a lot of avenues still to explore before ceding to the streaming services. Who knows what the upcoming 20’s will bring (hopefully not a stock market crash like the last century’s 20’s brought), but I can’t wait to see the stories that will be told on the big screen in the future.

Here is my list. It was very hard to whittle down to 40. If I’d kept going to 50, I would have included some combination of the following: In a Better World, Mud, Shoplifters, Beautiful Boy (2010), The Social Network, Birdman, Silence, The Lobster, The Salesman, The Big Short, The Mill and the Cross, Won’t You Be My Neighbor, Hugo, A Separation, 12 Years a Slave, The Witch, Eighth Grade, Take Shelter, Frances Ha, Arrival, and The Light Between Oceans.

1. The Tree of Life– a profound exploration of life and death, and the grace, pain, and beauty in between. More of my thoughts here.
2. Whiplash– an intoxicating look at the thin line between pushing someone towards greatness and pushing them too far.
3. Inception– a retelling of Theseus and the Minotaur, as well as a sly commentary on film creation, this movie has big ideas and still works as an action/heist film.
4. The Past (2013)- we may be through with the past, but the past is not through with us, and reliving it is sometimes as hard as seeing through a rain-splashed windshield.
5. Another Year– a touching, grounded look at the effect of a loving married couple and the normal, everyday kindness they show to those around them.
6. Ex Machina– a retelling of the creation story in Genesis mixed with the standard, but piercing, questions that good sci-fi asks about humanity and artificial intelligence.
7. Fences– a character drama that asks the questions, what is a life well-lived, and what do we owe one another in the midst of the struggles of life? Read more of what I thought here.
8. Parasite– one of the best commentaries on class that works on so many different levels.
9. The Kid With a Bike– I am just a sucker for the Dardenne Brothers’s style of storytelling- dropping you in the middle of a person’s life and giving you a compassionate view of their struggles without the paint-by-numbers plot or explanatory dialogue. This is one of their best films.
10. Manchester By the Sea– not all tragedies end in understanding, not all pain gets healed; life is more complex than that, and this movie gets that in a profound way.
11. Get Out– a tale about the commodification of black bodies and the fear implicit in finding out that even your allies don’t always have your best interest in mind.
12. Marriage Story– a truthful, though not unhopeful, story that reminds us that dissolving a marriage is like pulling off a band-aid and realizing there’s a gaping wound there.
13. Annihilation– a study in self-destruction with a great cast and solid sci-fi scenario.
14. August Osage County– I’ve known dysfunctional families, where sometimes the only reason they see each other is out of duty, and this film’s characters rang true.
15. Baby Driver– the best movie of one of our best working directors, Edgar Wright. You can read my thoughts on it here.
16. Hell or High Water– a dudes’ movie, eminently rewatchable, with a great relationship between the two brothers at its core.
17. L’Attesa– a film that boasts beautiful compositions and Juliette Binoche’s eyes which express so much grief and emotion. You can read what I wrote about it here.
18. The Unknown Girl– a compassionate look at the question of what responsibility we have towards our neighbors who might be strangers.
19. Us- a reminder that the line between the haves and have-nots is a lot thinner than most of us think.
20. A Hidden Life– you can read my thoughts on Malick’s second best film here.
21. Phantom Thread- a story about a controlling man changed by a woman is also a story about how love upsets our carefully laid plans, and is also a story about accepting death.
22. Her– the truth at the bottom of this tale is spot on- we lose a lot when we substitute disembodied relationships for real relationships.
23. The Immigrant– a criminally ignored work of art from the great James Gray; Marion Cottillard is brilliant.
24. Inside Out– Pixar is operating on a different level from any other animation studio, and this is my favorite Pixar; all parents & would-be parents need to see this.
25. Selma– a biopic that sidesteps the great-man-singlehandedly-changes-history fallacy and presents a rather balanced and insightful view of the period.
26. Certified Copy– one couple experiences their whole relationship in a day, is what I think happened in this mysterious, but thoughtful film.
27. Before Midnight– the realistic and hopeful conclusion to a wonderful trilogy about relationships; if Before Sunrise ponders what might be; Before Sunset, what could or should be; Before Midnight ponders what is.
28. Hunt for the Wilderpeople– a family favorite, maybe the most re-watchable movie on this list.
29. The Last Black Man in San Francisco– a mournful but playful look at gentrification, displacement, and the longing for home.
30. Brooklyn– Brooklyn- a more romantic view of immigration than The Immigrant, but a thoughtful story with wonderful performances, particularly by Saoirse Ronan.
31. Lady Bird– growing up is hard, and having your kid grow up is even harder.
32. Spotlight– a somber, piercing look at one of the worst systemic crimes and cover ups the world has ever seen.
33. Black Panther– if Wakanda is a stand-in for America, this is a thoughtful exploration of foreign policy with the background of America’s racial scars.
34. First Reformed– what does God want from us personally when it comes to global issues like environmental catastrophe?
35. The Act of Killing– a shocking documentary that reminds you that evil is banal and especially easy to encourage when a government sanctions it.
36. Nebraska– a film that makes more sense the older you get. Bruce Dern forever.
37. Ida– how much of your life is based on your parent’s religion and nationality, and how much would your life change if you found out those things were much different than you thought?
38. Moonlight– a very honest (and cinematic) look at what life might be like growing up without love.
39. Jiro Dreams of Sushi- a profound meditation on the beauty of work and the pursuit of excellence.
40. Avengers: Age of Ultron– my daughter (the Madeleine who loves movies) opened my eyes to all that Joss Whedon had going on under the surface in this film, even if much of it didn’t pay off with future directors veering from Whedon’s vision.

Check out more of Jonathan’s reviews at:

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/chorusinthechaos/author/jonathandorst/