In short, this movie is about two super-people who hate each other because they misunderstand each other. I urge viewers to look beyond the city ruins, the black sky that unleashes sheets of rain, and that abominable monster reborn from the corpse of Superman’s nemesis from Man of Steel, General Zod (Michael Shannon). At the heart of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,you’ll find a message of hope. A few frames near the end of the film are the keys: thousands of citizens crowd around a monument to Superman, which consists simply of his iconic “S” chiseled in the pavement. But the dedicatory statue is absent. Below the “S,” a message is chalked: “If you look for his monument, just look around you.” I can’t explain this anecdote better than by quoting the Bowie song “Heroes”: “We can be heroes, just for one day / We can be us, just for one day.”Continue reading Hope v. Nihilism, or, Finding the Soul of the Superhero→
This week we tragically lost one of our own: Cara McCollum, ’15, former editor and writer for the Princeton Buffer. In addition to writing sharp and hilarious reviews, Cara served as our social media guru who, even after graduating last June and becoming a SNJ Today news anchor, continued to share with us her on again/off again romance with film and television. Cara’s final Instagram wished us all a Happy Valentine’s Day. In return, we would like to celebrate our sharp-witted, talented, and generous colleague and friend by inviting everyone to revisit her memorable work for the blog. Click here to learn more about Cara’s rejection of Prince Farming, her seven-year relationship with True Blood, her conviction that even Stephen Hawking deserves a great love story, and her instant infatuation with “everyone’s favorite bongo-banging babe” Matthew McConaughey.
Recently the Princeton Buffer editors sat down with A. O. Scott, co-chief film critic (along with Manohla Dargis) at The New York Times. We asked him what it’s like at the Times, what a film critic does for fun, and what the future holds for him. Along the way we also discovered why our favorite movie reviewer prefers Spock to Kirk and why he thinks the job of a film critic is to be wrong.
In Part One of our interview, Scott talks about why he left graduate school, why he became a film critic, and why a new generation of film reviewers has given the profession new life. In Part Two Scott shares his personal likes and dislikes, his appreciation of cinema as a window on the world, and his secret to Better Living Through Criticism—the title of his new book coming out in February 2016.
In Part 2 of our interview with The New York Times film critic A. O. Scott, he answers some quick “lightening round” questions on his favorite (and not so favorite) characters and movies, before sharing with us his thoughts on the art of criticism. For more of our conversation, see Interview with A. O. Scott: Part 1.
