Show Me Cinema

A Journey Through Cinema’s

PAST, PRESENT, and FUTURE

  • “Project Hail Mary” will Amaze! Amaze! Amaze!

    “Project Hail Mary” will Amaze! Amaze! Amaze!

    There’s a particular kind of science fiction that trusts you. Not the kind that stops the movie every twenty minutes to hand you a glossy explainer, but the kind that assumes you’re smart enough to sit with a problem, follow a mind at work, and feel the wonder of genuine discovery. Project Hail Mary, directed…

  • The Religion of Baseball in “Field of Dreams”

    The Religion of Baseball in “Field of Dreams”

    There is a moment near the end of Field of Dreams that undoes me completely, every single time. It is not the catch — though the catch will finish the job. It is Moonlight Graham walking off the field. Doc Graham has just stepped across the white chalk line to save young Karen Kinsella from…

  • The Academy’s Century: “Cimarron” (1931)

    The Academy’s Century: “Cimarron” (1931)

    In a year following All Quiet on the Western Front, it makes complete sense that Cimarron was the next Best Picture winner. Aside from some interesting performances, primarily by Richard Dix, and some truly remarkable riding and action sequences, I couldn’t help but feel that I was watching a prolonged episode of Bonanza. The story…

  • The Academy’s Century: “All Quiet on the Western Front” (1930)

    The Academy’s Century: “All Quiet on the Western Front” (1930)

    To understand what All Quiet on the Western Front meant in 1930 — and what it still means — you have to understand the climate in which it arrived. The Academy Awards were, at that point, barely more than a novelty. The third ceremony, honoring films from 1929 and 1930, was a different beast from…

  • “The Candidate” (1972) asks American audiences “What do we do now?”

    “The Candidate” (1972) asks American audiences “What do we do now?”

    There is a scene about two-thirds of the way through The Candidate in which Bill McKay, California senatorial hopeful and reluctant celebrity, sits alone in the back of a moving car and rehearses the stump speech he has given a thousand times. He recites his positions on housing, healthcare, and the environment the way a…

“Relating a person to the whole world: that is the power of cinema.”

Andrei Tarkovsky