Dickinson, Empathy, and Anachronistic Adaptations
The show is Coen-esque in its metatextual acknowledgement: Dickinson is a bare semblance of a true story, and in lieu of details which have been lost to time, anyways, it serves us a fantastical recounting of oral traditions, staticked with age of generations, coloured with time and our own biases.
A Tale of Two Macbeths
Justin Kurzel’s gritty, saturated, PTSD-riddled character study keeps a few stage conventions but mostly leans into its more filmic aspects, where Joel Coen’s hazy, black-and-white, machination-laden adaptation neatly splits the difference between stage and screen.
On Midnight Mass and Genre Expectations
The first problem with Midnight Mass is it doesn’t deliver on its promises. That’s not a problem with the show, but happens because its promises are wholly inaccurate. This is becoming a universal problem, exacerbated by handing all advertising responsibilities to detached departments wholly interested (and job-dependent) in getting people to watch a film, rather than … Continue reading
Elementary: Quick Thoughts
I’ve been an impassioned follower of the BBC’s Sherlock, and before that, a lover of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes books. Cue ads for CBS’s Elementary. I was understandably wary, but, roommates. Initial Reactions Huzzah, no over-the-top gory body discovery to test the boundaries of the extra-of-the-week’s shrieking and sputtering abilities. An addition of an extra layer of … Continue reading
Little Women, Empathy, and Anime
People tell me I read “a lot.” Truth is, I read far less than I would like, and much, much less than I did through my elementary and high school years. When the librarians know you by name; when you are an exception to the San Francisco Library System’s limit on number of books allowed … Continue reading
Mel Killingsworth - Film and TV blog 