I want to start off this essay by talking about one of my go-to movie stars, Chris Pratt. My first exposure to him was at the end of my freshmen summer term when he landed as Peter Quill/Star Lord in Guardians of the Galaxy , a film I very much enjoyed, as you all know. (I would also see The Lego Movie for the first time around here). And by the time he was up for Jurassic World the next summer, I was up to date with my Parks and Recreation viewing, and the world had accepted him as a household name. Like a lot of celebrities who came into prominence in the wake of social media, part of Pratt’s strengths lies in his supreme accessibility. But where someone like Ryan Reynolds found his market as being this cynical son-of-a-gun, Pratt’s appeal was his complete lack of pretense. His sincerity. Whe...
“But isn’t it time we stopped accepting in film criticism an anti-emotional, phony rationalism which we know to be not just harmful, but absurd, in any other context? Isn’t it time we plucked up our courage and allowed our hearts as well as our heads to go the pictures?” Raymond Durgnat (Films and Feelings) 1971