Christine Kelley

Apr 22, 2024 | eruditorumpress.com | Christine Kelley

Alex Garland, Civil War, Photojournalism, War correspondent If Civil War is Alex Garland’s last movie as a solo director, his body of work is going to last a while. There are images in Civil War that will haunt me for years. And it’s not always a haunting I’ll applaud.

Jul 18, 2023 | eruditorumpress.com | Christine Kelley

Indiana Jones, Lucasfilm, The Dial of DestinyIt’s a tragedy that when given a choice between The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi as models for blockbuster storytelling, Hollywood chose The Force Awakens. That choice became horribly clear when The Rise of Skywalker took The Force Awakens’ deference to nostalgia, quick and easy monomyth stories, and low-key conservatism to a whole new level of self-sabotage. To an extent, this was inevitable.

Jul 14, 2023 | eruditorumpress.com | Christine Kelley

I wrote this a couple weeks ago, when Milan Kundera was still alive. I’m posting it unedited as tribute. Soon I’ll post another tribute to Kundera. Few names loom as large in Czech literature as Milan Kundera (pronounced MEE-lahn KOON-dair-ah). At the age of 94, Kundera is undoubtedly the foremost living Czech novelist, although given his ban from Czechoslovakia and his long-term residence in France, he prefers to be known as a French author.

Jun 9, 2023 | eruditorumpress.com | Christine Kelley

CW: the HolocaustLong before he became a director, Juraj Herz turned ten years old in a concentration camp. The Slovak Jew and his immediate family were among the not-even-3,500 survivors of Ravensbrück. Roughly 60 of Herz’s extended family members never left Hitler’s camps alive. Herz had just turned four when Germany annexed Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia’s borders, essentially absorbing Czechoslovak industries and military strongholds.

Jun 2, 2023 | eruditorumpress.com | Christine Kelley

An American's Guide to Czech Movies, Animation, Jiří Trnka, Stop motion, The HandIn a sane and just world, Jiří Trnka would be a bigger household name than Walt Disney. Instead, Disney has taken over the world and Trnka is best known for his influence on Rebecca Sugar and other animators. Such is the toll of monopolistic capitalism on media culture. There’s no such thing as a national filmmaker, or one whose work sums up the culture of their home country.