Films and Feelings

    In the long, storied history of ghost movies, one must face the question of how to present said specter. Are they like Casper the Friendly Ghost, or are they more in the vein of the spirits from Poltergeist ? The best thing that can be said about Netflix's new film, We Have a Ghost , is that the spook at the center of an otherwise confused film is consistently endearing.      Ernest tries the more sinister act on the Presley family when they move in to his haunt of fifty years, but their youngest, Kevin, is non-plussed. "That probably worked on everyone else before," Kevin explains, "but my life is like 1,000 times scarier than this." We have no idea what he means when he says this, of course. Aside from some non-specific comments about the family having needed an undisclosed number of "fresh starts," we know nothing at this point about this mystery trauma plaguing Kevin. Even now I am struggling to remember. It may have had something to do with hi...

In a landscape where the court of public opinion is ruled by sensationalism, where there is a reward for snap judgments and “thumbs down” reactions, it is imperative that we continue to train ourselves in the art of nuance and ambiguity. Some things aren’t easily classified as one thing or another, as good or bad, and they reveal limitations within our individual and collective perspective. This life and its overlapping matrices create more pressure points and junctions than we can hope to avoid. We expose ourselves to contradictions not to desensitize ourselves or become permissive, but to add texture to our definitions.  Which brings me today’s subject,  Lamb, a 2015 independent film directed by Ross Partridge. Based on the novel by Bonnie Nadzam, the film finds a despondent 47-year-old man, David Lamb (played by Partridge himself), who strikes up a friendship with a neglected 11-year-old girl named Tommie (Oona Laurence). Their relationship is a sort of act of def...