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

Comments

We're Back! a Dinosaur's Story - Getting Lost in the "Last Frontier of Imagination"

Last month, Variety ran a piece observing, “Hollywood Can’t Survive Without Animation. So Why Won’t the Industry Respect It?” by Clayton Davis, who reported , “In the nearly five decades that domestic grosses have been tracked, an animated film has finished the year as the No. 1 release just seven times, beginning with Disney’s 'Aladdin' in 1992. Now the medium is having an unprecedented run, with 'Inside Out 2' and 'Zootopia 2' topping the last two calendar years (a first for animated movies to lead the box office for two consecutive years) and the latter becoming the highest-grossing animated film ever domestically. 'The Super Mario Galaxy Movie' is leading 2026 so far and is the only film to cross $1 billion. Setting aside the 2020 and 2021 pandemic seasons, which emptied theaters of family films, animated features have made up about 20% of the year’s 10 top-grossing releases over the past decade. And yet, the artists who make these movies have rarely...

REVIEW: COYOTE VS. ACME

The secret weapon of The Looney Tunes has always been their natural eloquence with meta-textuality. Seriously. Go rewatch "Duck Amuck." It's high art. That trick isn't really new here in a landscape where "self-awareness" is just generally baked into the fabric of most millennial media. But Coyote vs Acme nonetheless feels cut from a very different cloth. I don't even know if that's from anything extra this film does so much as what it doesn't do. This movie never feels like it's trying to prove how much smarter it is than the audience. It doesn't feel smug or self-promoting. Like, it takes a different kind of self-awareness to look at how many times a certain Wile E. Coyote has tried to get his hands around a certain speeding bird and ask if maybe the poor guy, who has literally tried everything under the sun, has just had the odds stacked against him. It takes a certain kind of movie to decide that this dude just needs so...

REVIEW: Star Wars - The Mandalorian and Grogu

I haven't historically considered myself a "Star Wars" kid. And to be clear, I take no pride in saying that or anything. I respect the property and what it's given to pop culture. But I do feel like it's worth mentioning in this review that I didn't really go into Jon Favreu's The Mandalorian and Grogu thinking I had much of what I'd call nostalgia for this movie to exploit. And yet watching this movie, I found myself hearkening back to the things about Star Wars that caught my attention as a kid. For me, that was the gladiator-style match in "Attack of the Clones." This film offers quite a few roller-coasters along those lines. And as far as the creature designs go for the monsters in these arenas, they were quite good. I wasn't trying too hard to anticipate which were computer-generated and which were puppeted, but the aesthetics of both the Jim Henson era and the Spielberg era sat very well here in this vessel....

PROFESSOR'S PICKS: 10 Movie Theater Experiences That Changed Me

So, January 2012: Disney is rereleasing their 1991 animated masterpiece, Beauty and the Beast into theaters, and in 3D format, and I'm able to coerce a friend into seeing it with me. This was a big deal because, as with most of the Disney movies we'd call "classic," Beauty and the Beast had its day in theaters before my time, and this was an opportunity to experience the movie in its proper element, and maybe imagine what it would have been when the legendary tunes by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken graced the public for the first time. My larger circle was none-too-impressed with my choice. Didn't I know that the movie was already on DVD? That I could just watch it anytime in the comfort of my own home without having to pay for another ticket? How could I be so careless with my finances? (Incidentally, many of these same friends would pay top-dollar to see the Beauty and the Beast remake five years later on opening weekend ...) ...

Making Room for Classic Movies

Way back in my film school days, I had an interaction with a favorite cousin whom I had not seen in some time. This opportunity to reconnect saw our first interaction since I had been accepted as a film student, and so he asked me what basically everyone asks me right after I tell them I’m studying film, “So, like what’s your favorite movie, then?” When approached with this question, at least by associates who are not necessarily film buffs, my default response is usually something I know has been on Netflix in the last year. (Though if I had to pick an answer ... maybe Silver Linings Playbook .) I think this time I said James Cameron’s Titanic . He then had a sort of illuminated reaction and followed up with, “I see, so you like … old movies.” My response to this was something in the vein of, “Well, yes , but NOOOO …” Steven Spielberg being a 29-year-old on the set of Jaws In academic circles, t he demarcation between “c...

REVIEW: HOPPERS

In the 1950s under the threat of nuclear warfare, Hollywood premiered such exercises as The Day the Earth Stood Still or War of the Worlds where an alien power would pass judgment on humankind, holding its fate in its hands. Here in the 2020s under the shadow of such threats as climate change, Hollywood sends to be our judge ... beavers. Let me back up ... Daniel Chong's new film from Pixar Animation, Hoppers , sees Mabel (Piper Curda), a college student whose self-appointed mission is to preserve the glade where she used to find sanctuary with her now deceased grandmother. Her biggest opponent is hometown boy and beloved mayor, Jerry (Jon Hamm), who has designs to plow over the glade in order to open his new freeway--estimated to save travelers four whole minutes of commuting. Mabel gets her golden opportunity when she uncovers secret technology pioneered by her professor which allows a human to rem...

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: Do Clementine and Joel Stay Together or Not?

Maybe. The answer is maybe. Not wanting to be that guy who teases a definitive answer to a difficult question and forces you to read a ten-page essay only to cop-out with a non-committal excuse of an answer, I’m telling you up and front the answer is maybe. Though nations have long warred over this matter, the film itself does not answer once and for all whether or not Joel Barrish and Clementine Krychinzki find lasting happiness together at conclusion of the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Min d. I cannot give a definitive answer as to whether Joel and Clementine’s love will last until the stars turn cold or just through the weekend. This essay cannot do that. What this essay can do is explore the in-text evidence the film gives for either ...

REVIEW: Jungle Cruise

Disney has relied on branding for their box-office since Walt himself started using fairy-tales as a launching pad. Flash forward 80 years, and the branding wars have escalated not just within the Disney company, but the industry all around. Disney's Jungle Cruise walks the line between original and remix, and not just because it's adapted from a theme-park ride. This film, a pastiche of adventure flicks over the last 60 years, absorbs the best from its sources of inspiration but falls just short of congealing them into something truly groundbreaking. Tales a mythical tree of life have beckoned explorers since it bloomed into legend hundreds of years ago. This catches the interest of explorer Lily Houghton who makes it her mission to find the tree, first to distribute its gifts to the world and second to keep it from the hands of less benevolent seekers. Her success hinges on joining forces with the gruff Frank Wolff. He'll ferry Lily and her brother, McGregor, across th...

How Disney Liberated the Musical Genre

Anytime I’m getting ready for a new musical film, I generally try to put off listening to the soundtrack until after I’ve seen the movie. It’s just my way of ensuring that I experience the narrative in its full context upon its important premiere viewing. Most of the time I’m good about sticking to this, but nowhere is this feat harder than with the arrival of each new Disney musical. I tried really hard with Encanto , but with Lin-Manuel Miranda writing for Disney, what can I say (except "You're Welcome"...) So, why am I talking about Disney musicals? W hen I premiered my Jungle Book essay earlier this year, I decided that going forward I was ready to expand how I talked about Disney. Owing to Disney fans constantly having to justify their fandom, a lot of Disney discourse tends to be purely defensive. Disney fans only ever get to use their platform to try convincing the cool kids that--for the last time!--it's okay for adults without kids to go to...

Finding Nemo: The Thing About Film Criticism ...

Film is a mysterious thing. It triggers emotional responses in the audience that are as surprising as they are all-encompassing. As a medium, film is capable of painting stunning vistas that feel like they could only come to life behind the silver screen, but many of the most arresting displays on film arise from scenes that are familiar, perhaps even mundanely so. It’s an artform built on rules and guidelines–young film students are probably familiar with principles like the rule of thirds or the Kuleshov effect–but someone tell me the rule that explains why a line like “We’ll always have Paris,” just levels you. There are parts of the film discussion that cannot be anticipated by a formula or a rulebook, and for that we should be grateful. Arrival (2016) But the thing about film–and especially film criticism–is that film critics are not soothsayers. Their means of divining the artis...

Films and Feelings

Search This Blog