About Films and Feelings

The quote by Raymond Durgnat atop this page comes from his 1977 book, Films and Feelings. I came across this book while I was working toward my bachelor's degree in Media Arts, and it profoundly influenced how I viewed film criticism.

Titanic (1997)

Maybe your mental image of "film criticism" mostly consists of some obnoxious internet character and his or her hoard of YouTube videos like "87 Reasons Why the Harry Potter Movies Failed Us" or "The Lion King Makes No Sense!" That was my perception of the film critic world for a long time. Imagine my relief when I learned that the real film critics of the world, those who actually know film, aren't content to just give something a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down."

In this age of the internet, we tend to view "smartness" as being able to point out what's wrong with something, and I want to provide an alternative. That doesn't mean everything gets a pass, but informed film discussion, the kind of film discussion that matters, doesn't seek to tear down. Informed film discussion uplifts and edifies. It's more interested in understanding something than just deciding how many stars a thing deserves. It knows that there can be a lot of right ways to do approach a subject. Indeed, if more people understood just how little "hating" there actually is in proper film criticism, we'd see far fewer imitators.

Pan's Labyrinth (2006)

I started this blog hoping to counteract some of negative associations connected to film criticism. I don't pretend to be the first of my kind--there are many voices in film criticism doing their part to keep the discussion edifying--but I hope to bring my own spin with this blog.

I'm not trying to convert the entire internet to any specific schools of thought or Top 10 Movies lists. But I hope that through these writings my readers will acquire the tools to expand the range of films they view, learn to detect and interrogate the implicit ideologies that films communicate, and add texture to their feelings for the films they already enjoy. You don't have to agree with all my conclusions, but I hope you'll at least consider them.

It's a Wonderful Life (1946)

I have been known to dabble in film reviews occasionally, but the majority of the content here will be essays. We'll take a film, or sometimes a group of films, and read it through various academic lenses to discern meaning. In the spirit of Durgnat's wise words, these essays will study films with both the heart and the head. We'll look at some old films, some new films, some popular films, and some obscure films. The essays here are all written by me unless otherwise specified. I publish a new essay every . . . every time I finish one. Let's say once a month?

Let it be known that these essays are not meant to be hard-to-read, and you need not be academically versed in film studies to join here at Films and Feelings. Any theories or historical perspectives used will be thoroughly and easily explained. Dare I say, I hope that our friends from other fields and careers who still have an interest in film will find this site enjoyable. Consider this blog to be your Film Studies 101 class, and me your Professor.

If this sort of thing interests you, come back and check in on this site every so often and give some of these pieces a glance. Feel free also to subscribe to this blog and "follow" under the drop down menu. You can also follow this site through its Facebook page for updates including interesting articles from around the web as well as teases for future posts.

Stand By Me (1986)

So everyone, bring your hearts, bring your heads, and let's talk about some movies.

--The Professor

To contact The Professor, shoot an email at filmsandfeelings19@gmail.com

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The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of Clash of the Titans

Anyone else remember the year we spent wondering if we would ever again see a movie that wasn't coming out in 3D? T hat surge in 3D films in the early months of 2010 led to a number of questionable executive decisions. We saw a lot of films envisioned as standard film experiences refitted into the 3D format at the eleventh hour. In the ten years since, 3D stopped being profitable because audiences quickly learned the difference between a film that was designed with the 3D experience in mind and the brazen imitators . Perhaps the most notorious victim of this trend was the 2010 remake of Clash of the Titans . Why am I suddenly so obsessed with the fallout of a film gone from the public consciousness ten years now? Maybe it's me recently finishing the first season of Blood of Zeus on Netflix and seeing so clearly what Clash of the Titans very nearly was. Maybe it's my evolving thoughts on the Percy Jackson movies and the forthcoming Disney+ series inevit

REVIEW: ONWARD

The Walt Disney Company as a whole seems to be in constant danger of being overtaken by its own cannibalistic tendency--cashing in on the successes of their past hits at the expense of creating the kinds of stories that merited these reimaginings to begin with. Pixar, coming fresh off a decade marked by a deluge of sequels, is certainly susceptible to this pattern as well. Though movies like Inside Out and Coco have helped breathe necessary life into the studio, audiences invested in the creative lifeblood of the studio should take note when an opportunity comes for either Disney or Pixar animation to flex their creative muscles. This year we'll have three such opportunities between the two studios. [EDIT: Okay, maybe not. Thanks, Corona.] The first of these, ONWARD directed by Dan Scanlon, opens this weekend and paints a hopeful picture of a future where Pixar allows empathetic and novel storytelling to guide its output. The film imagines a world where fantasy creatur

REVIEW: WISH

Walt Disney was famous for his philosophy of making films not just for children, but for the child in all of us. It's a nice tagline, for sure, but for long-time lovers of the Disney mythos, this isn't just a marketing tool. It is the dividing line between that commercial-fare that oversaturates animation as an artform and the legendary storytelling that Disney has come to define itself by. And it is the measurement against which all Disney enthusiasts weigh each new offering from the sorcerer's workshop. Yet Disney's newest offering, which presents itself as a tribute to the studio's 100 year legacy, plays more like a film made for children. The film is not without magic or wisdom, I would be remiss to not acknowledge that I did tear up no less than three times, but for Walt Disney Animation's centennial capstone, viewers would be better directed to something like their short, Once Upon a Studio , which traffics in similar Disney-specific shorthand yet ach

The Great Movie Conquest of 2022 - January

This fool's errand is the fruition of an idea I've wanted to try out for years now but have always talked myself out of. Watching a new movie a day for one full year is a bit of a challenge for a number of reasons, not in the least of which being that I'm the kind of guy who likes to revisit favorites. As a film lover, I'm prone to expanding my circle and watching films I haven't seen before, I've just never watched a new film every day for a year. So why am I going to attempt to pull that off at all, and why am I going to attempt it now? I've put off a yearlong commitment because it just felt like too much to bite off. One such time, actually, was right when I first premiered this blog. You know ... the start of 2020? The year where we had nothing to do but watch Netflix all day? Time makes fools of us all, I guess. I doubt it's ever going to be easier to pull off such a feat, so why not now? Mostly, though, I really just want to help enliven my

The Banshees of Inisherin: The Death Knell of Male Friendship

I’m going to go out on a limb today and put out the idea that our society is kind of obsessed with romance. Annie Hall (1977) In popular storytelling, t he topic has two whole genres to itself (romantic-comedy, romantic-drama), which gives it a huge slice of the media pie. Yet even in narratives where romance is not the focus, it still has this standing invitation to weave itself onto basically any kind of story. It’s almost more worth remarking upon when a story doesn’t feature some subplot with the main character getting the guy or the girl. And it’s also not just the romantic happy ending that we’re obsessed with. Some of the most cathartic stories of romance see the main couple breaking up or falling apart, and there’s something to be gained from seeing that playing out on screen as well. But what’s interesting is that it is assumed that a person has a singular “one and only” romantic partner. By contrast, a functioning adult has the capacity to enjoy many platonic f

Changing Film History With a Smile--and Perhaps, a Tear: Charlie Chaplin's The Kid

Film has this weird thing called “emotionality” that sees itself at the center of a lot of haranguing in the critical discourse. There is a sort of classism in dialogue that privileges film as a purely cerebral space, detached from all things base and emotional, and if your concerns in film tend to err on the side of sentiment or emotions, you have probably been on the receiving end of patronizing glances from those who consider themselves more discerning because their favorite movie is 2001: A Space Odyssey . Tyler Sage, another freelance film critic I follow, said it best when he described emotionality’s close cousin, “sentimentality " and the way it is generally discussed in the public sphere : The Godfather (1972) “These days, if you are one of these types who likes to opine knowingly in the public sphere – say, a highfalutin film critic – it's one of the most powerful aspersions there is. ‘I just found it so sentimental ,’ … [and] you can be certain no one will contrad

Do You Hear the People Sing?: "Les Miserables" and the Untrained Singer

Perhaps no film genre is as neglected in the 21 st century as the musical. With rare exception, the o nly offerings we get are the occasional Disney film, the occasional remake of a Disney film, and adaptations of Broadway stage shows. When we are graced with a proper musical film, the demand is high among musical fans for optimum musical performance, and when a musical film doesn’t deliver this, these fans are unforgiving. From the moment talking was introduced in cinema, the musical film has been a gathering place where vocal demigods assemble in kaleidoscopic dance numbers in a whirl of cinematic ecstasy too fantastical for this world. What motivation, then, could Tom Hooper possibly have for tethering this landmark of modern musical fandom in grounded, dirty reality? This movie’s claim to fame is the use of completely live-singing, detailed in this featurette, something no previous movie musical had attempted to this scale. The pay-off, Hooper claims, was

REVIEW: In The Heights

I can pinpoint the exact moment in the theater I was certain I was going to like In the Heights after all. There's a specific shot in the opening number, I believe it even features in one of the trailers, that has lead character Usnavi staring out the window of his shop observing the folks of his hometown carried away in dance. The reflection of this display of kinetic dreaming is imposed on the window over Usnavi's own yearnful expression as he admires from behind the glass plane. He's at once a part of the magic, yet totally separate from it. The effect has an oddly fantastical feel to it, yet it's achieved through the most rudimentary of filming tricks. This is but one of many instances in which director Jon M. Chu finds music and light in the most mundane of corners. Viewers won't have to work so hard to find the magic with In the Heights. The film is anchored in the life of storeowner, Usnavi, as he comes to a crossroads. For as long as he's run his

Everybody's Got a Wolf Man

The late 19 th and early 20 th century brought about a newfound interest in human nature within the field of psychology. Of particular note from this era was the development of Sigmund Freud's theory about the human subconscious. This surge in interest in human nature overlapped with another leap forward for mankind, this one of the technological sort, that of moving pictures, and it wasn’t long until the two converged. Film theorists have long typed the medium as a sort of glimpse into the human subconscious, displaying human desires and fears through code in a form that almost resembles a dream. In December 1941, Universal released one of the most striking blendings of psychology and film: part boogeyman bedtime story, part Shakespearean tragedy, Universal Studios introduced “The Wolf Man.” In this film, Lawrence “Larry” Talbot returns to the house of his father, Sir John Talbot, for the first time in years. He quickly becomes smitten with local antique shop owner, Gwen Co

My Criminal Father Surrogate: Masculinity in A Perfect World

I've been wanting to tackle the subject of "masculinity" in film for quite some time now, but I hadn't quite known how best to do that. There's a certain buzzword, "toxic masculinity," that especially elicits a lot of strong feelings from a lot of different angles. While a post-#MeToo world has exposed some very disturbing truths about the way masculinity has historically performed, I'm not here to roast 50% of the world population. Actually, I really want to talk about a man's capacity for good. Ted Lasso (2020) There’s a lot of discussion to be had for newer media celebrating men for possessing attributes not historically coded as "manly." But what's even more fascinating to me are the attempts to bridge the gap between traditional masculinity and new age expectations--to reframe an older vision of manhood in a way that feels true to what we know about how it functions today. Take Clint Eastwood’s 1993 film, A Perfect Wo

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