Arts & Culture
Nostalgia is a Curse
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“I would warn you that there will be spoilers,” writes Meg Elison in her review of the new film Practical Magic 2, “but there doesn’t seem to be much point as the sequel retells the same story as the original.”
Arts & Culture
“Beneath the Trees” (2019): folk horror made with ten tropes and zero soul
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As the sage Lil Wayne once said, there are two ways to make art: be good or be good at it. A film does not have to be innovative or even have anything new to say for audiences to respond. This film is neither good nor good at it. I didn’t want to sing along, so here I am to heckle.
Arts & Culture
Folk Magic and Hermeticism in “Nosferatu”
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With its right hand Eggers’s Nosferatu points at all the sex it can, but its left invokes the imagery and the uncanny nature of folk magic.
Arts & Culture
Review: Gladiator II and the chaos at the heart of empire
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“Nearly everyone in this film is obsessed with the Rome that was, where the emperor was a scholar instead of a syphilitic club kid in a toga,” writes Meg Elison in her review of Ridley Scott’s new film. “It is much easier to complain about a bad government than to build one that works. See Virgil for more on this. See Hannah Arendt. See Marija Gimbutas. See all of human history. See the news.”
Arts & Culture
Calamities in Pagan Cinema: “The Covenant” (2006)
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“The Covenant” seemed like it was made to be the boys’ own answer to “The Craft.” But the film is too caught up in its own broken masculinity to begin to offer a coherent vision of magic – much less a coherent film.