Filmland - The House at the End of the Street

If you liked this article, please like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter and please consider Donating to keep the blog going

This Friday marks the premiere of Darren Aronofsky’s latest opus to surrealist quasi-horror Mother!  The film promises to be another bizarre and terrifying offering from Aronofsky, who has built his career on similar works like Pi and Black Swan, but it also seems like something of a return piece for Jennifer Lawrence.  I’m hard-pressed to think of an actor that embodies the kind of rise and fall we only really see in New Hollywood like Lawrence.  

First emerging onto the critical radar in 2010 with Winter’s Bone she managed to claw her way into the realm of true movie star thanks to starring roles in X-Men: First Class and The Hunger Games.  However, her fame was not really to last as almost immediately after 2013 everyone started getting a lot sicker of her. 

Partly it was roles, I don’t think Silver Linings Playbook or American Hustle really did her any favors, also the Hunger Games series abruptly dropped in influence and importance after the second film.  Really though, it was Passengers that sapped the public interest in her, partially from the content but mostly it’s because this seems to be where we all soured on her projected persona as America’s platonic crush/bff.  

Since then she’s rolled back a ton on her public image and Mother! looks to be taking her style of films in a radically new direction…well, maybe not entirely new.  Yes, back in 2010 before anyone really knew who she was Jennifer Lawrence made another horror film and we’re going to look at it today with The House at the End of the Street. 

Static Thoughts - Who Shot Mr. Burns Retrospective

If you liked this article, please like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter and please consider Donating to keep the blog going

Tonight marks the return of Twin Peaks to our screens.  The original show and its question of “who killed Laura Palmer?” were some of the biggest TV mysteries of all time.  It’s approach to world building and blending high concept mysticism with potboiler mystery is still the gold standard all others strive for today.  Unfortunately, Twin Peaks is also one of those groundbreaking shows that’s already been dissected and explained to death, so instead I'm going to focus on one of its sister mysteries of TV, the Simpsons two-part episode “Who Shot Mister Burns?” 

Produced near the closing of the show’s so-called Golden Age, ‘Who Shot Mister Burns’ may be the largest the show ever loomed in the broad, pop-cultural eye and its approach to audience interaction and mystery has had almost as much impact on TV and movies as Twin Peaks or their shared predecessor Dallas.  I’m not at all kidding when I say ‘Who Shot Mr. Burns’ paved the way for modern cultural darlings like the Marvel Cinematic Universe and new classics of animation like Gravity Falls- let’s dive in.