What if your job had you on the road 322 days a year…traveling alone? What if you spent most of those days firing people? Starting with this bleak relational backdrop, Up in the Air explores hope, stability, …more »»
Film Talks: Most Recent
February 17, 2010 by Randy Heffner Before viewing
Three quite different men; three different experiences of war. The Hurt Locker takes us inside a fictional Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) team — a bomb squad — in Iraq. I can understand complaints from …more »»
February 16, 2010 by Randy Heffner Before viewing
Engaging, heart-wrenching, real, and strong, Precious delves deeply into dark places where our need for love collides with poverty — poverty of money, of spirit, of love, and of character. In the midst of the collision …more »»
February 8, 2010 by Randy Heffner Before viewing
Funny, clever, poignant, painful, and redemptive, An Education puts us in the position of a teenage British school girl finding direction in life. If being serious about life is important, where is the place …more »»
January 20, 2010 by Randy Heffner Before viewing
Set in a bleak and barren post-apocalyptic world, The Road intensely and insightfully explores the nature of goodness, hope, and love. How dark can your world get before you lose hope? At what point …more »»
January 20, 2010 by Randy Heffner Before viewing
The Lovely Bones is a murder non-mystery. By telling us at the start that Susie Salmon was murdered and near the start who did it, the film turns the focus to the lives and relationships …more »»
January 17, 2010 by Randy Heffner Before viewing // After viewing
Batman Begins is an superb example of what excellent screenwriting and directing can do for a familiar story. Batman can easily be (and has been) produced with simple action and black-and-white morality. Christopher Nolan …more »»
January 15, 2010 by Randy Heffner Before viewing
To a large degree, the environmental morality play contained in Avatar is painted in broad and simple strokes. Still, there is something compelling in the film’s embodiment of connection to and respect for the land. …more »»
December 3, 2009 by Randy Heffner Before viewing
Hotel Rwanda asks whether we will do what we can to address the darkness around us. For 100 days in 1994, the world watched the horror of the Rwandan genocide and took no action. Through the eyes of a hotel manager …more »»
November 12, 2009 by Randy Heffner Before viewing
The ending of The Ice Storm is an impactful moment of character development, and the rest of the film contributes much toward that moment’s impact. However, there is much in the film’s path of exploration that tends to dwell on relational dysfunction in a …more »»
November 8, 2009 by Randy Heffner Before viewing
The Savages is an unvarnished exploration of family dysfunction and reunion between a father, a brother, and a sister. There are many insightful moments that well capture tenderness, animosity, mistrust, self-hiding, caring, …more »»
November 6, 2009 by Randy Heffner Before viewing // After viewing
The simple title Doubt captures the film’s exploration well. The story deals with certainty and doubt around certain events, but the film evokes an exploration of doubt that runs deeper than the story. But, whether one engages at the story level or …more »»
October 31, 2009 by Randy Heffner Before viewing
Perhaps it is well-worn to say that a person coming out of prison has paid their debt to society, yet how do we really know that their character is changed? How should we behave until we do know? The Spitfire Grill starts with such questions, but …more »»
October 31, 2009 by Randy Heffner Before viewing
The Adventures of Milo and Otus is a delightfully narrated, live-action animal flick — and clever enough to be worth adults’ time, not just children. In the film’s friendship between a cat and a dog, we see …more »»
October 14, 2009 by Randy Heffner Before viewing
Rachel Getting Married is in many ways a hard film to watch because of the numerous angles on family and personal dysfunction that it explores. The film has a unedited-home-video style and meditative tone that one must go with or the film will feel overly long. Still, for …more »»
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