The Enigma of Arrival: Time-Traveling from Lovecraft to La Jetée
In the same way that the heptapod language permits Louise to grasp the warp and weft of her world, the form of the heptapods taps into the once fringe and now venerable[…]
Category: Philosophy
“You’ve Gotta Do Something”: Cosmic Mobility and the Future of Mankind in Rebel Without a Cause
“Through the infinite reaches of space, the problems of man seem trivial and naïve indeed, and man existing alone seems himself an episode of little consequence … The Earth will[…]
Under the Sign of 39: The Case of the Curious Coincidence from Hitchcock to Antonioni and Beyond
In movieland, there is also the kind of coincidence where someone indeed has planned it, someone acting from behind the scene, manipulating appearances. In this case, a coincidence is a[…]
Drama · Memoir · Philosophy
After Love: Alan J. Pakula’s The Sterile Cuckoo
FROM CABIN C AT OUDIN’S COURT COTTAGES I just awoke, and wondered where you were. It was the strangest feeling, like I really expected you to be there. Eventually my[…]
“When Does a Difference-Engine Become a Search for Truth?” Cybernetic Platonism in Alex Proyas’ I, Robot (2004)
Sonny says that now that he has completed the mission for which he was created – to kill Dr. Lanning – he does not know what to do with himself,[…]
The Last Man on Earth: Drama of a Lifeless Ordinary
“… the living being is only a species of the dead.” – Nietzsche * * * Dead Man. Dead Man’s Curve. Dead Man on Campus. Dead Man Walking (1988). Dead[…]
A Good Game of Chess: Alex Garland’s Ex Machina (2015)
“Ava was a rat in a maze, and I gave her one way out. To escape, she’d have to use self-awareness, imagination, manipulation, sexuality, empathy, and she did.” * *[…]
The Horror of Depersonalisation: Lav Diaz’s Norte, Baudrillard, and the End of History
Fabian’s self-destructive peregrination, the ordeal he has imposed on himself through others – from the double murder, to the rape of his sister, to the slaying of his once beloved[…]
