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Reel 76: The Gangster Film as Allegory
This episode and the previous episode have something in common, besides the word “allegory”. All of these films are specifically anti-Capitalism allegories based in genre films. Last week it was Westerns; this week it’s Gangster films. And the only reason I didn’t put that in the episode title is because that’s a LOT of words…
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R.I.P., Robert Towne
As those who have suffered through a broadcast of an Academy Awards ceremony know, the acceptance speeches can all sound the same, with people thanking, in no particular order, the people who worked on the film with them, their families, God, and so on. However, every once in a while, you get an unexpected element…
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Getting Social
Sean usually rattles off where we can be found on the Social Media, but I thought it’d be helpful to get it all into one place. You can email us here. The show is on the Book of Face here. The show’s Instagram feed. The show’s Xitter feed (yeah, we still post there, mostly announcements…
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Reel 75: The Western as Allegory
Webster’s (online) Dictionary defines allegory as “the expression by means of fictional figures and actions of truths or generalizations about human existence.” How’s THAT for an eye-opener? Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking “Wait, isn’t that a metaphor?” No. A metaphor, in its broadest sense, is a symbolic representation of a concept. So while…
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R.I.P., Donald Sutherland
The following is an updated and expanded version of a post I wrote nearly 10 years ago for an “O Canada” blogathon. Nearly an hour into The Dirty Dozen, Robert Aldrich’s WWII movie about the title group – American army prisoners, on death row or with long sentences – and how they’re trained for a mission…
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There Will Be Blood (2007) – Review
When he was promoting his solo album Nothing Like the Sun, Sting gave an interview to Rolling Stone. One of the questions he was asked was why he had turned away from the type of music he had made with The Police, and instead towards what the interviewer seemed to criticize as “art rock”, to…









