Episode 24: Life, Death, and All that Jazz

We get a bit pretentious and talk about how society justifies the value of human life apart from the imago Dei, human exceptionalism, joy, sehnsucht, the Patriarch's rap career, and how That Hideous Strength is coming true.

High Noon - Movie Review

Until recently, I thought all Westerns consisted of a simple, boring formula - a man, a gun, a frontier. I was wrong. All Westerns do consist of a simple formula - a man, a gun, a frontier - but it's far from boring. Like the murder mystery (a genre of which I am a devotee), the formula has been buffed and polished till it nearly loses its originality, but given the clearly defined parameters, it can be spun into infinite varieties.

For instance, you have The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance which is a Western - but with ideas and a cameo from George Bailey. You have The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, which is a Western - but with black humor, eccentric music, and an edgy moral ambiguity setting it apart from the more stolid John Wayne fare. You have The Man From Snowy River which is a Western - but in Australia. You have Life on Mars which is a Western - but in 1980s Manchester. The formula is effective, but far more flexible than I imagined.

Our Mutual Friend (1998) - Review

“I was just playing a part.”

G.K. Chesterton once said that Charles Dickens was the poet of the fog. Nowhere is it more evident than in Our Mutual Friend, a massive, rambling tale of money, and murder amid the murky mists of the Thames. 

It's about honesty, and true love. But also, it's mostly about stalkers (there are seven). And not only dudes obsessed with beautiful women, but greedy rogues tracking down any embarrassing secrets in the lives of rich public figures, or jealous rivals shadowing their opponents.

Dickens was already fascinated by the idea that we cannot really know what goes on inside the hearts of our fellow men, and Our Mutual Friend further complicates this theme by incorporating the devious facades of high society and its occupants.