At its center, The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) is a tale of days gone by, an era that has passed us. It is enjoyable because it is a glimpse into a stylized snapshot, potent with nostalgia and quirky eccentricity, a phrase I’m sure has been used to describe Wes Anderson’s films since Bottle Rocket.
There is an inherent property of water: once it is spilled, it cannot be un-spilled; there is no take backs, no true remedy to rectify the act of spilling. When there is no container, no shape to conform to, where can the water go, but outwards?
there was an old man
on the train from antwerp
no – sorry
brussels
and it had been raining
turning the fields to mud
“Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires.”
– “Publius”, James Madison
Federalist No. 10
Before we start, take a deep breath. In and out. The world will remain until tomorrow, and the next day, and probably the next after that. We won’t be falling out of orbit any time soon.
Deep breath. Let’s go.
Atlanta is a city of dichotomy: black and white, rich and poor, vice and virtue. There is nowhere else quite like it, and these are some of our stories — how we got here, what we fight for, who we are, who we will be.
Welcome to Snake Nation.
I. Proud Mary
The rain kings had left the city. The Chinese laborers did not bet on the monsoons anymore, nor the mango rains. The billboards for Alain Delon cigarettes tattered in the wind, sun-faded and old.
The Mousetrap: Play Within A Play
“Branagh’s Hamlet: Composition and Color Pt II” will be back tomorrow!
Hamlet can be played as a melodrama, or as a tragedy; the two are not entirely immiscible, but the grandiosity and the melancholy of one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays leaves it often to interpretation. There have been numerous film adaptations and adaptors: Laurence Olivier (1946), Grigori Kozintsev (1964), Tony Richardson (1969), Ethan Hawke (2000). The tale of the downfall of the prince of Denmark and his family contains the same classic messages and timeless themes that initially made it famous, and today we take a look at Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet (1996).
Alfred Hitchcock began before the talkies; his career in film started in 1919 as a card illustrator for silent pictures. As a consequence, his films pay special attention to their visual components, with the director once stating that he would create pictorial action to keep the audience invested, just in case the audio in the cinema went out.
