I pick this monologue to make a point about the differences between a monologue that has a strong theme or central idea and a monologue that, well, does anything else. And this is one of those tricky ones that you can’t really tell but, ultimately, does not have a strong central idea. If you’re not… Read More Thoughts on the “NSA Monologue” from Good Will Hunting

There’s something almost offensively obvious about the 80s nostalgia strangling director Jesse Zwick’s 2014 debut indie film, About Alex. Indeed, in his review for Variety, film critic Justin Chang identifies this very nostalgia as the film’s double-edged sword: Explicitly acknowledging a debt to over-recycled source material is a bold move, and one perhaps suited to… Read More Textual Anxiety, Straight Talk, and the Millennial Advantage: A Critical Reading of Nostalgia in the Film “About Alex”