One of my most vivid memories from elementary school was one of those letdowns that seems like a world-ending tragedy at the time. I had plans to go to the movies with my friend Ryan to see Rookie of the Year, a story about a boy who becomes a pitcher for the Chicago Cubs after a freak accident gives him a superpowered throwing arm. But I was delayed when my dad’s softball game went long, and I missed the showtime. Ryan went without me.
All this to say: I’ve always loved movies. But I’ve never had a personal connection to one until this year. My step-dad’s uncle Marty wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning book that served as the basis for the motion picture Oppenheimer. I loved the movie—and I really appreciate this reflection from poet and essayist Kathleen Norris, who was transported by the film back to a terrifying night in 1962. As it happens, we have two other new pieces about movies: Philip Jenkins’s overview of the folk horror genre and Marc Roscoe Loustau’s analysis of the Romanian film R.M.N.
Plus more great content below!
Email me: What movie has most influenced your outlook on life?
“Watching Christopher Nolan’s film Oppenheimer this summer, I was surprised to find myself weeping and gasping for breath during the scene depicting the Trinity test blast of 1945. This was something I had seen before.”
“Folk horror is a strategy by which societies confront and exorcise their (literally) buried histories as they force their way back into contemporary spiritual consciousness.”
Host Grace Ji-Sun Kim talks with Jones, author of The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy, about the Doctrine of Discovery, racism, US history, and much more.
“Raúl Zegarra analyzes each of five intellectual luminaries with care and dexterity in support of his main thesis: that liberation theology articulates and expands our best hopes for a democratic future.”
