Pain is not required to create art, nor does all pain result in art. But there is an in between – a Middle Earth? – where imagination distilled through pain yields a hard-earned magic. J.R.R. Tolkien was able to somehow filter boyhood fantasy through the gruesomeness of war to create one of the most memorable series of fantasy stories ever written. “Tolkien” (2019) imagines us back through that process, and in so doing becomes a bit of poetry in and of itself. While its told-in-flashback style is becoming overused by filmmakers these days, Tolkien’s personal story is well worth hearing and seeing.
Archives for posts with tag: Colm Meaney
If you skip your daughter’s cello recital to do big-time lawyer stuff, some CIA-trained psychopath is going to kill half of Philadelphia. That is the main lesson to be learned from “Law Abiding Citizen”(2009), in which Jamie Foxx is the big-time lawyer and Gerard Butler is the CIA-trained psychopath. I might be oversimplifying. I was too caught up in all the big, sloppy revenge Butler was taking on an American legal system that promotes expediency over justice (I am a long-time fan of big, sloppy revenge). If the sloppiness makes you feel guilty, the ending will bail you out.
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