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chicagoindiecritics · 4 years ago

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New from Kevin Wozniak on Kevflix: What’s Streaming This Month? – August

Here are my picks for the best movies coming to Netflix, Prime Video, Hulu, Disney+, Criterion Channel, and HBOMax in August. This month offers up some great options, including Oscar winners, indie gems, and Hollywood classics.

NETFLIX

Full list of everything coming to Netflix in August can be found here.

THE ADDAMS FAMILY (Barry Sonnenfeld, 1991)

A perfect adaptation of the classic show about the creepy, kooky, mysterious, and spooky family.

AN EDUCATION (Lone Scherfig, 2009)

Carey Mulligan’s breakout performance leads Lone Scherfig’s coming-of-age drama.

BEING JOHN MALKOVICH (Spike Jonez, 1999)

One of two Charlie Kaufman-written movies coming to Netflix this month. This one looks at a group of people who find a tunnel that puts them inside the mind of actor John Malkovich. It’s an incredible film.

CASINO ROYALE/QUANTUM OF SOLACE (Martin Campbell/Marc Forster, 2006/2008)

Though Quantum of Solace is a bit of a dud, Casino Royale is my favorite James Bond movie and ushered in Daniel Craig as one of our best Bond’s.

ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND (Michel Gondry, 2004)

The other Charlie Kaufman-written film is his strongest screenplay to date and one of the most original movies of the 21st century.

JURASSIC PARK TRILOGY (Steven Spielberg/Joe Johnston, 1994/1998/2001)

Lost World and Jurassic Park III may not live up to the first film (not many films do), but this is a fun trilogy of dinosaur chaos and mayhem.

MR. DEEDS (Steven Brill, 2002)

One of the last great Adam Sandler vehicles. This movie never fails to make me laugh.

NIGHTCRAWLER (Dan Gilroy, 2014)

One of Jake Gyllenhaal’s best performances came in Dan Gilroy’s thriller about a man obsessed with breaking into the world of crime journalism.

OCEAN’S 12 & OCEAN’S 13 (Steven Soderbergh, 2004, 2007)

It’s kind of annoying they don’t have the whole trilogy on here (more on Ocean’s 11 later in this list) but these are fun, cool, twisty, weird movies with stellar casts that are endlessly rewatchable.

SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED (Colin Tervorrow, 2012)

The only good movie Colin Trevorrow has made is a unique take on the time travel movie.

AMAZON PRIME VIDEO

Full list of everything coming to Amazon Prime Video in August can be found here.

3:10 TO YUMA (James Mangold, 2007)

James Mangold’s underrated Western remake features dynamite performances from Russell Crowe, Christian Bale, and Ben Foster.

INCEPTION (Christopher Nolan, 2010)

One of the best movies of 2010’s is as bold as any blockbuster film ever made.

MARGIN CALL (JC Chandor, 2011)

JC Chandor’s debut is a tightly strung, expertly acted look at the 2008 financial crash.

TOP GUN (Tony Scott, 1986)

An 80’s classic.

DORA AND THE LOST CITY OF GOLD (James Bobin, 2019)

This adaptation of the Nickelodeon children’s show is an exciting and fun adventure film.

THE PEANUT BUTTER FALCON (Tyler Nilson, Michael Schwartz, 2019)

Led by the terrific performances by Shia LeBeouf and Zack Gottsagen, this is sweet, funny, heartwarming road movie that will melt your heart.

HULU

Full list of everything coming to Hulu in August can be found here.

AUSTRALIA (Baz Luhrman, 2008)

Baz Luhrmann’s bold romance staring Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman.

THE BROTHERS MCMULLEN (Edward Burns, 1995)

Edward Burns won the top prize at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival for his film about three Irish Catholic brothers from Long Island who struggle to deal with love, marriage, and infidelity.

MASTER AND COMMANDER: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD (Peter Weir, 2003)

An epic sea adventure from the great Peter Weir.

RAIN MAN (Barry Levinson, 1988)

Barry Levinson’s Best Picture winner features a pair of excellent performances from Best Actor winner Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise.

STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE/STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN/STAR TREK III: THE SEARCH OF SPOCK/STAR TREK V: THE FINAL FRONTIER/STAR TREK: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY/STAR TREK: INSURRECTION (Robert Wise/Nicholas Meyer/Leonard Nimoy/William Shatner/Nicholas Meyer/Jonathon Franks, 1979/1982/1984/1989/1991/1998)

Being more of a Star Wars person my entire life I did not watch a lot of Star Trek, so I’m excited and intrigued to check these films out.

UP IN THE AIR (Jason Reitman, 2009)

George Clooney is sensational in Jason Reitman’s look at a man who makes a living firing people.

DISNEY+

Full list of everything coming to Disney+ in August can be found here.

ANT-MAN AND THE WASP (Peyton Reed, 2018)

One of the most underrated movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

THE PEANUTS MOVIE (Steve Martino, 2015)

A funny, sweet, beautifully animated adaptation of the Charles Schwartz creation.

X-MEN (Bryan Singer, 2000)

One of the most important comic book movies ever made.

CRITERION CHANNEL

Full list of everything coming to Criterion Channel in August can be found here.

*The Criterion Channel does things a little differently than every other streaming service. The Criterion Channel, a wonderful streaming service that focuses on independent, foreign, and under-appreciates movies, doesn’t just throw a bunch of random movies to stream. They get more creative, by having categories like “DOUBLE FEATURES” or “FILMS FROM…”, giving us curated lists of films that somehow blend together or feature a specific artist.*

AUSTRALIAN NEW WAVE

A look at the films that changed Australian cinema forever in the 1970’s and early 80’s.

Walkabout (Nicolas Roeg, 1971)

The Cars That Ate Paris (Peter Weir, 1974)

Picnic at Hanging Rock (Peter Weir, 1975)

Sunday Too Far Away (Ken Hannam, 1975)

The Devil’s Playground (Fred Schepisi, 1976)

Don’s Party (Bruce Beresford, 1976)

Storm Boy (Henri Safran, 1976)

The Getting of Wisdom (Bruce Beresford, 1977)

The Last Wave (Peter Weir, 1977)

The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (Fred Schepisi, 1978)

Long Weekend (Colin Eggleston, 1978)

Money Movers (Bruce Beresford, 1978)

Newsfront (Phillip Noyce, 1978)

Mad Max (George Miller, 1979)

My Brilliant Career (Gillian Armstrong, 1979)

The Plumber (Peter Weir, 1979)

Breaker Morant Bruce Beresford, (1980)

Gallipoli (Peter Weir, 1981)

Puberty Blues (Bruce Beresford, 1981)

Starstruck (Gillian Armstrong, 1982)

The Year of Living Dangerously (Peter Weir, 1982)

DIRECTED BY WIM WENDERS

Dabbling in both narrative and documentary films, this group of films from director Wim Wenders showcases one of Hollywood’s most diverse filmmakers.

Alice in the Cities, 1974

Wrong Move, 1975

Kings of the Road, 1976

The American Friend, 1977

Paris, Texas, 1984

Tokyo-ga, 1985

Wings of Desire, 1987

Until the End of the World, 1991

Palermo Shooting, 2008

Pina, 2011

DOUBLE FEATURE: THE DECLINE OF MIDWESTERN CIVILIZATION

THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS (Orson Welles, 1942)

KINGS ROW (Sam Wood, 1942)

Two 1942 films that focus on the trials and tribulations of people living in turn-of-the-century Midwest towns.

DOUBLE FEATURE: BEHIND THE SCENES

HOLLYWOOD SHUFFLE

THE PLAYER (Robert Altman, 1992)

Two wonderful, darkly funny looks at working in Hollywood.

BRAZIL (Terry Gillian, 1985)

Terry Gilliam’s insane dystopian film is another one I have been dying to revisit.

BACURAU (Juliano Dornelles, Kleber Mendonça Filho, 2020)

One of the most critically acclaimed movies of 2020 focuses on sinister events in a Brazilian village.

RAFIKI (Wanuri Kahiu, 2018)

A bright, colorful love story about forbidden love in Kenya.

HBOMAX

Full list of everything coming to HBOMax in August can be found here

ALL THE PRESIDENTS MEN (Alan J. Pakula, 1976)

The greatest film about journalism ever made and a true American masterpiece.

BATMAN/BATMAN RETURNS/BATMAN FOREVER/BATMAN BEGINS/THE DARK KNIGHT (Tim Burton/Joel Schumacher/Christopher Nolan, 1989/1992/1995/2005/2008)

Need a Batman fix? HBO has your back.

BEFORE SUNRISE/BEFORE SUNSET (Richard Linklater, 1995/2004)

Really mad Before Midnight isn’t on here, but the Before Trilogy is the greatest trilogy in all of cinema and each film offers up something special.

THE FUGITIVE (Andrew Davis, 1992)

A thrilling and entertaining Best Picture nominee.

IDIOCRACY (Mike Judge, 2006)

A political satire that feels all too real now.

JOJO RABBIT (Taika Waititi, 20190

Taika Waititi won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay in this comedic World War II film about a child who’s imaginary friend is Adolf Hitler.

OCEAN’S 11 (Steven Soderbergh, 2001)

Arguably the coolest heist movie ever made.

AN AMERICAN PICKLE (Brandon Trost, 2020)

An immigrant worker at a pickle factory is accidentally preserved for 100 years and wakes up in modern day Brooklyn. Seth Rogen plays the immigrant worker and his great grandson.

BIRDS OF PREY (AND THE FANTABULOUS EMANCIPATION OF ONE HARLEY QUINN) (Cathy Yan, 2020)

Though I wasn’t the biggest fan of this when I first saw it, Margot Robbie is an absolute delight to watch as Harley Quinn.

THE WAY BACK (Gavin O’Connor, 2020)

Ben Affleck gives the best performance of his career in Gavin O’Connor’s drama about a man trying to turn his life around.

Follow Kevflix on Twitter and Instagram, @kevflix, and on Facebook by searching Kevflix.

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jwillia1961 · 7 years ago

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Best-Teacher Awards Are Bunk

They distract us from colleges’ systemic failures.

By Jacques Berlinerblau AUGUST 21, 2017 Chronicle of Higher Education PREMIUM

Each year, the journal The Literary Review bestows the Bad Sex in Fiction Award upon an author who produces coital-themed prose of exceptionally poor quality. I’d like to rejigger the prize for the professoriate and honor the Most Unrealistic Depiction of a College Class in American Cinema. My nomination, hands down, goes to the 2003 film Mona Lisa Smile, starring Julia Roberts. The actress plays Professor Katherine Ann Watson, an art-history instructor teaching on a one-year contract at Wellesley College in 1953.

There is so much askew in Mona Lisa Smile’s classroom scenes that I don’t even know where to start. How do we account for students who have memorized the entire textbook by the first day of class? How could a bunch of 20-year-olds know enough about scholarly mores to throw shade at Ms. Watson for not yet having her doctorate? I’m also confused as to why, by semester’s end, each student presents the professor with a well-executed painting of flowers. I mean, I get the allusion to their burgeoning, agentive, feminist consciousness and all. But when did "History of Art 100" become a studio class?

Not everyone at Wellesley offers heartfelt gifts to the freewheelin’ Professor Watson. The administration renews her contract only on the condition that she tone down all the liberal stuff in her lectures (and personal life). Professor Watson refuses to compromise her integrity. Upon her bittersweet departure, crestfallen students escort her taxi past the campus gate on their bicycles. As they complete their rolling salute to pedagogical greatness, they tear up over the loss of an Instructor Who Makes Us Think. And Love.

The question for me is not why a Hollywood depiction of college life is so off the mark. We humanists — who’d struggle to properly position and align our pipe cleaners in a shoebox diorama — ought not cast aspersions on the artists who produced a movie as pretty as Mona Lisa Smile. No, the question for me is why narratives about great teachers abound in hype and sentimentality.

Students have a lot going on in their lives -- and not much of it has to do with us.

This tendency is certainly not restricted to cinema. Even serious academic studies of pedagogy traffic in this sort of hyperbole. I think of Ken Bain’s 2004 book, What the Best College Teachers Do (Harvard University Press). This thorough and well-intentioned study set out "to capture the collective scholarship of some of the best teachers in the United States, to record not just what they do but also how they think, and most of all, to begin to conceptualize their practices."

Bain admirably deploys multiple metrics to identify his best teachers. His research abides by rules of rigorous scholarly inquiry. Yet even this trained academic can’t avoid excessive praise. "How does Ann Woodworth, a professor of theater at Northwestern University," he asks, "lift her acting students to heights of thespian brilliance?"

The Harvard professor Michael Sandel, teaching a class of 700 students (!), is commended extensively. According to Bain, Sandel helps undergraduates become "good political philosophers" by asking them to imagine "fundamental issues of justice and understand their own thinking." Bain is equally unconcerned about massified classes when he lauds another best teacher for asking pre-class questions of his 200 registered students.

Although Bain concedes that even the best instructors have bad days, his analysis loses sight of that truth. The educators he writes about appear to consistently elicit epiphanies in their young charges. The scholars are rarely shown to stumble during lectures. They never arrive late for class or lose their tempers with insolent seniors. Grade disputes, a fact of life for any college teacher doing his or her own marking, are nonexistent. The students themselves play but a supporting role in Bain’s analysis. They exist as fans. An audience. Reaction shots.

This sentimentalization of Best College Teachers strikes me as misguided and even a bit sinister. It fails to take into consideration how undergraduates today typically interact with their professors — just as it turns our attention away from those obvious structural factors that make it so hard for scholars to actually focus on their students.

Abook that helps us pump the brakes on over-the-top depictions of inspired college teaching is the 2005 My Freshman Year: What a Professor Learned by Becoming a Student (Cornell University Press). This eye-opening study was published by an anthropologist, Cathy A. Small, a professor at Northern Arizona University, writing under the pen name Rebekah Nathan. For any scholar, the premise of My Freshman Year is the stuff of night terrors. The author, a tenured ethnographer, matriculates (undercover) at the age of 52 as a student in the college at which she teaches. She even takes up residence in the dorms. This feat of derring-do reminds us that anthropologists are the professoriate’s last remaining daredevils, stuntpersons who will launch themselves off a 13,000-foot cliff in a wingsuit in quest of knowledge(s).

Small provides a sobering counterpoint to the treacly narrative of inspirational college teachers. "Most professors and administrators," she writes, "overestimate the role that academics plays in student culture, and as a result they magnify the impact of teachers and classes on student life and decisions." One reason undergraduates are impervious to our influence is that they’re incredibly busy. They are cross-pressured by jobs, club activities, internships, romance, social obligations, and other classes. Put simply, students have a lot going on in their lives — and not much of it has to do with us.

A recent analysis obliquely buttresses this point. It argues that college students spend significantly less time studying than do high-school students (10.9 fewer hours per week). They show roughly equal commitment to educational and work-related activities. If we look at 50-year trends, full-time students are spending less and less of their day preparing for class.

Reflecting on her own discoveries in the field, Small raises a concern that speaks to the reality of contemporary scholar/undergraduate relations. "As an anthropologist," she laments, "I was humbled to see how little I, as a professor, knew of my students’ academic world." I think the converse of Small’s observation is equally true: Students have no idea who we are. They have no clear sense of how or why we became professors. They know little of what our job entails outside of the sessions we spend with them. They couldn’t distinguish a provost from a postdoc.

Prizes draw attention away from the fact that educating an undergraduate is a collective, not an individual, enterprise.

The bitter and undeniable truth is that most professors and students in 21st-century America are cordially estranged. The two groups lead parallel lives on campus, their only point of intersection being the occasional classroom spaces they happen to inhabit concurrently. As far as a professor is concerned, the students arrayed in front of him or her could just as well be a flash mob that assembles twice a week and takes notes as part of its performance. Professors and students do not necessarily think ill of each other. The truth is that they hardly think of each other at all.

The developments that resulted in this cordial estrangement are complex, and I certainly can’t expound upon them here. My best guess is that things started shifting in the 1980s. Maybe it was the increased emphasis on research that drove scholars away from the more avuncular relations they may have maintained with students in earlier generations. Maybe housing prices rose and it became more difficult for professors to purchase properties near campus. Maybe the spread of contingency made it hard for underpaid and undervalued academics to concentrate on mentoring. Maybe it was the expansion of the administrative class that inserted itself as a firewall between professors and students. Maybe economic trends forced more kids out of their study carrels and into low-paying jobs. Or maybe a growing awareness of sexual harassment in the 1980s had the positive effect of neutralizing campus predators, and the negative one of giving nonpredatory professors reason to distance themselves from undergrads — all the better to focus on research!

No matter what the reasons, the consequences are dismal. What has been lost, in both theory and practice, is the idea of meaningful and sustained relations between faculty members and those they teach. The student-professor encounter has become increasingly transactional. Office hours are perfunctory; students who do attend come only to discuss finals or to offer excuses for late papers. Mentoring has become a lost art, like the mid-range jump shot or album-cover design. That some schools advertise their "experiential learning" or "student-professor research initiatives" as perks and selling points indicates how rare these types of interactions have become.

Finding exemplary instructors in this context is at once hard and easy. Hard because we care so little about training and cultivating skilled teachers. Easy because the field is not exceedingly competitive; few scholars are actually vying for this honor.

Can I be perfectly frank with you? The whole discourse of Best College Teachers strikes me as bunk. Whether it’s Baylor University’s Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teaching (with a cash prize of $250,000), or those "Faculty of the Year" honors that are dispensed at every college according to a body of work that is, literally, inscrutable — it all seems off to me. I don’t doubt that there are some truly phenomenal instructors out there who have deserved these accolades (just as I don’t doubt that some duds have received them as well). Yet this system of tribute undermines a lot of what we aim for as educators.

Let me first say a word about inscrutability. How does any professor, let alone a panel of judges, really know what goes on in another professor’s class? Longstanding academic convention dictates that we rarely cross the threshold of a colleague’s classroom. We are seldom invited to one another’s lectures and seminars. It goes without saying that an unannounced "pop in" is strictly out of the question.

The door to a lecture hall could just as well be a police sawhorse — if that sawhorse stood behind a moat and was outfitted with a gun turret. Herein lies an unrecognized truth about American higher education: The inner workings of college teaching spaces are more or less unknown. Outside of that 60-minute theatrical set piece known as a "peer observation," and the metric anarchy of a SET, or "student evaluation of teaching," how does any nonregistered citizen know anything about what transpires in any college class? What goes on in there? Line dancing? Capoeira? Face painting? With the exception of a matriculated undergrad, nobody is in a good position to witness the commitment, or excellence, or inspiration of a college teacher.

Then again, even if we possessed high-def video of every college lecture ever given since the foundation of the University of Heidelberg, how would we achieve any consensus about what constitutes teaching excellence? Ronald Berk, in his inimitable Thirteen Strategies to Measure College Teaching (Stylus, 2006), identified, yes, 13 rather distinct instruments currently used to draw conclusions about a professor’s effectiveness. What I find fascinating about the tools that Berk elucidates for us is how so many of these indices are likely to yield radically different conclusions about who excels. One measurement is based on a professor’s self-assessment of his/her work in a class. One relies on student evaluations. Still others turn to external evaluators. Those could be very different from a metric that looks at, say, how much students learn across a semester or perhaps through the length of their college stay.

Which brings us to another problem with Best Teacher rhetoric: These types of prizes draw attention away from the fact that educating an undergraduate is a collective, not an individual, enterprise. The type of knowledge we impart in college is sequential. It is pointless to take a specialized course on "The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu" before you’ve taken "Introduction to Sociology," "Social Theory," "Stratification," and maybe "Cultural Sociology." The concept of an academic major implies the existence of a reasonably well-ordered curriculum. One great teacher cannot teach an entire curriculum. That takes a team.

I once had a colleague who taught a 200-level class. She loathed the fellow who taught the 100-level that was a prerequisite for her own. The latter was a campus legend. He was a flamboyant character who gyrated and twerked as he lectured. By the time his students cycled into her class, they knew exceedingly little about the subject matter. Her 200 regressed into a 100, because the guy in the 100 was teaching — well, she had no idea what he was teaching. He did win many Faculty of the Year awards, though.

The team metaphor reminds me of another thing that irks me about Best Teacher banter. Individuals on teams have different skills and strengths. Yet conversations about great instructors never seem to recognize that professors are better at some things than others. It’s as if great college teachers are always exemplary on all levels. You just rush them into any auditorium on a palanquin, press the start button, and they’ll start dishing wisdom around the class like an NBA point guard.

I sincerely doubt this is the case. Not all schools, classes, and learning contexts are the same. I don’t know if a popular professor at Yale would necessarily be a hit at quirky Marlboro College, in Vermont, or vice versa. I am a capable undergraduate teacher, but graduate students don’t dig the cut of my jib. Some professors have a knack for working with freshmen. Some don’t. This is actually a really important thing for a college to know about its faculty, because first-year students are at higher risk for adversity, like depression and dropping out.

Best Teacher awards ask us to gawk at those who somehow overcame immense, and correctable, structural obstacles.

If we thought seriously about teaching, we’d pay more attention to putting scholars in positions where they excel. We’d assess who was good at what. We’d know who works well with at-risk students or kids with learning disabilities, and we’d staff our departments accordingly. We are, I regret to say, a million, billion eons away from even starting a conversation of this nature.

But the most insidious thing about Best Teacher talk is that it conveniently distracts us from what truly ails American higher education: We have a lot of scholars who are too poorly prepared, poorly motivated, and/or poorly paid to properly educate undergraduates. This is a structural problem. Graduate schools fail to provide the necessary training in pedagogy. Administrations subject tenure-line faculty members to promotion criteria that render undergraduates an afterthought. Exploited, overworked contingent professors are forced to teach ginormous classes.

The likelihood of great college teaching actually happening on your campus is infinitely lower than the likelihood of great research being produced. This has much to do with the fact that administrations won’t make the financial investments required to facilitate good teaching. A report by Steven Shulman, of Colorado State University’s Center for the Study of Academic Labor, echoes those sentiments, arguing that universities "do not seem to care about anything other than driving faculty costs to the lowest possible level."

Seen in this light, Best Teacher chatter assumes a more sinister countenance. It asks us to gawk at those who somehow overcame immense, and correctable, structural obstacles. It turns our attention away from the manner in which contingent instructors are treated. A Faculty of the Year award is a laurel wreath that a college places on its own flaxen hair. Christening a Best Teacher is like a lily-white company congratulating itself on its diversity after hiring one African-American executive VP. It’s like a catastrophe-inducing oil conglomerate releasing an ad about how it installed a dozen wind turbines in the name of sustainability.

Tributes to Best College Teachers do to professors what high fashion does to women — enslaves them to preposterous and unhealthy expectations of what constitutes the beautiful in pedagogy. I still don’t have an answer as to why conversations about best teachers trigger exaggeration and confetti drops. That sort of hyperbole, in any case, is inimical to the type of balanced analysis that educators value and impart. I, for my part, could just as well do away with the entire vainglorious discourse. Less noise about best teachers might let us finally concentrate on the challenge of producing lots of good ones.

But let me be clear about something: On every campus in America, you will find good teachers. These are contingent or tenure-line professors who are skilled, inspired, and committed educators. What is my metric for gauging their quality? First and foremost, I look for scholars who actually want to be in a classroom with undergraduates. That noble impulse is mercilessly assailed, and usually ruthlessly expunged, after a decade of graduate school. I’m always intrigued by a scholar who could endure that experience — which does everything it can to assassinate one’s passion to educate — and emerge with their love of pedagogy intact.

Good teaching, however, is not like religion; it takes more than faith. Solid instructors are individuals who (somehow) develop real pedagogical skills. And I’m talking about banal stuff: crafting a smart, challenging, ideologically balanced syllabus; sticking to that syllabus; always being on time (a perennial challenge); pacing a class session properly; developing that weird teacherly inner siren that starts blaring when your students (1) have no idea what you’re talking about and/or (2) have not really done the reading.

The teachers I admire render really complex ideas with clarity — that right there is the heavy lift of college instruction. They find pedagogically sound ways to piss off their students. And one other thing: They inspire thoughtfulness. They actually manage to get otherwise distracted 18- to 24-year-olds to think about matters they’d never have thought about otherwise. Good teachers aggressively infiltrate young minds. The trespass extends for years, and not necessarily in ways that those infiltrated minds find pleasant. That’s my preferred "learning outcome."

I’m sure I could conjure up a dozen other attributes, but then I’d end up mimicking the florid cadences of the folks I am criticizing. So let me just add that good college teachers endure semesters in which everything inexplicably and catastrophically goes wrong. Having stuff go up in flames — all good college teachers experience, and even solicit, conflagration.

In any case, for now I’ll repeat that scholars such as the ones I am describing may be in the minority, but they really do exist. They exist in spite of the absurdities of the tenure system. They exist in spite of the collapsed job market. They exist in spite of thoughtless and frugal college administrations. These people share one psychosocial characteristic: They exist in a tensile relationship with their own profession. They do not share the priorities of their research-obsessed colleagues and managers. Good college teachers, then, don’t necessarily do what is in their own professional interest. They do what’s in the interest of their students. That, at least, is something Mona Lisa Smile intuited accurately.

Jacques Berlinerblau directs the Center for Jewish Civilization at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. This essay is adapted from his new book, Campus Confidential: How College Works, or Doesn’t, for Professors, Parents, and Students (Melville House).

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chicagoindiecritics · 4 years ago

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New from Kevin Wozniak on Kevflix: What’s Streaming This Month? – August

NETFLIX

Full list of everything coming to Netflix in August can be found here.

THE ADDAMS FAMILY (Barry Sonnenfeld, 1991)

A perfect adaptation of the classic show about the creepy, kooky, mysterious, and spooky family.

AN EDUCATION (Lone Scherfig, 2009)

Carey Mulligan’s breakout performance leads Lone Scherfig’s coming-of-age drama.

BEING JOHN MALKOVICH (Spike Jonez, 1999)

CASINO ROYALE/QUANTUM OF SOLACE (Martin Campbell/Marc Forster, 2006/2008)

Though Quantum of Solace is a bit of a dud, Casino Royale is my favorite James Bond movie and ushered in Daniel Craig as one of our best Bond’s.

ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND (Michel Gondry, 2004)

The other Charlie Kaufman-written film is his strongest screenplay to date and one of the most original movies of the 21st century.

JURASSIC PARK TRILOGY (Steven Spielberg/Joe Johnston, 1994/1998/2001)

Lost World and Jurassic Park III may not live up to the first film (not many films do), but this is a fun trilogy of dinosaur chaos and mayhem.

MR. DEEDS (Steven Brill, 2002)

One of the last great Adam Sandler vehicles. This movie never fails to make me laugh.

NIGHTCRAWLER (Dan Gilroy, 2014)

One of Jake Gyllenhaal’s best performances came in Dan Gilroy’s thriller about a man obsessed with breaking into the world of crime journalism.

OCEAN’S 12 & OCEAN’S 13 (Steven Soderbergh, 2004, 2007)

SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED (Colin Tervorrow, 2012)

The only good movie Colin Trevorrow has made is a unique take on the time travel movie.

AMAZON PRIME VIDEO

Full list of everything coming to Amazon Prime Video in August can be found here.

3:10 TO YUMA (James Mangold, 2007)

James Mangold’s underrated Western remake features dynamite performances from Russell Crowe, Christian Bale, and Ben Foster.

INCEPTION (Christopher Nolan, 2010)

One of the best movies of 2010’s is as bold as any blockbuster film ever made.

MARGIN CALL (JC Chandor, 2011)

JC Chandor’s debut is a tightly strung, expertly acted look at the 2008 financial crash.

TOP GUN (Tony Scott, 1986)

An 80’s classic.

DORA AND THE LOST CITY OF GOLD (James Bobin, 2019)

This adaptation of the Nickelodeon children’s show is an exciting and fun adventure film.

THE PEANUT BUTTER FALCON (Tyler Nilson, Michael Schwartz, 2019)

Led by the terrific performances by Shia LeBeouf and Zack Gottsagen, this is sweet, funny, heartwarming road movie that will melt your heart.

HULU

Full list of everything coming to Hulu in August can be found here.

AUSTRALIA (Baz Luhrman, 2008)

Baz Luhrmann’s bold romance staring Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman.

THE BROTHERS MCMULLEN (Edward Burns, 1995)

Edward Burns won the top prize at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival for his film about three Irish Catholic brothers from Long Island who struggle to deal with love, marriage, and infidelity.

MASTER AND COMMANDER: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD (Peter Weir, 2003)

An epic sea adventure from the great Peter Weir.

RAIN MAN (Barry Levinson, 1988)

Barry Levinson’s Best Picture winner features a pair of excellent performances from Best Actor winner Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise.

Being more of a Star Wars person my entire life I did not watch a lot of Star Trek, so I’m excited and intrigued to check these films out.

UP IN THE AIR (Jason Reitman, 2009)

George Clooney is sensational in Jason Reitman’s look at a man who makes a living firing people.

DISNEY+

Full list of everything coming to Disney+ in August can be found here.

ANT-MAN AND THE WASP (Peyton Reed, 2018)

One of the most underrated movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

THE PEANUTS MOVIE (Steve Martino, 2015)

A funny, sweet, beautifully animated adaptation of the Charles Schwartz creation.

X-MEN (Bryan Singer, 2000)

One of the most important comic book movies ever made.

CRITERION CHANNEL

Full list of everything coming to Criterion Channel in August can be found here.

AUSTRALIAN NEW WAVE

A look at the films that changed Australian cinema forever in the 1970’s and early 80’s.

Walkabout (Nicolas Roeg, 1971)

The Cars That Ate Paris (Peter Weir, 1974)

Picnic at Hanging Rock (Peter Weir, 1975)

Sunday Too Far Away (Ken Hannam, 1975)

The Devil’s Playground (Fred Schepisi, 1976)

Don’s Party (Bruce Beresford, 1976)

Storm Boy (Henri Safran, 1976)

The Getting of Wisdom (Bruce Beresford, 1977)

The Last Wave (Peter Weir, 1977)

The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (Fred Schepisi, 1978)

Long Weekend (Colin Eggleston, 1978)

Money Movers (Bruce Beresford, 1978)

Newsfront (Phillip Noyce, 1978)

Mad Max (George Miller, 1979)

My Brilliant Career (Gillian Armstrong, 1979)

The Plumber (Peter Weir, 1979)

Breaker Morant Bruce Beresford, (1980)

Gallipoli (Peter Weir, 1981)

Puberty Blues (Bruce Beresford, 1981)

Starstruck (Gillian Armstrong, 1982)

The Year of Living Dangerously (Peter Weir, 1982)

DIRECTED BY WIM WENDERS

Dabbling in both narrative and documentary films, this group of films from director Wim Wenders showcases one of Hollywood’s most diverse filmmakers.

Alice in the Cities, 1974

Wrong Move, 1975

Kings of the Road, 1976

The American Friend, 1977

Paris, Texas, 1984

Tokyo-ga, 1985

Wings of Desire, 1987

Until the End of the World, 1991

Palermo Shooting, 2008

Pina, 2011

DOUBLE FEATURE: THE DECLINE OF MIDWESTERN CIVILIZATION

THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS (Orson Welles, 1942)

KINGS ROW (Sam Wood, 1942)

Two 1942 films that focus on the trials and tribulations of people living in turn-of-the-century Midwest towns.

DOUBLE FEATURE: BEHIND THE SCENES

HOLLYWOOD SHUFFLE

THE PLAYER (Robert Altman, 1992)

Two wonderful, darkly funny looks at working in Hollywood.

BRAZIL (Terry Gillian, 1985)

Terry Gilliam’s insane dystopian film is another one I have been dying to revisit.

BACURAU (Juliano Dornelles, Kleber Mendonça Filho, 2020)

One of the most critically acclaimed movies of 2020 focuses on sinister events in a Brazilian village.

RAFIKI (Wanuri Kahiu, 2018)

A bright, colorful love story about forbidden love in Kenya.

HBOMAX

Full list of everything coming to HBOMax in August can be found here

ALL THE PRESIDENTS MEN (Alan J. Pakula, 1976)

The greatest film about journalism ever made and a true American masterpiece.

BATMAN/BATMAN RETURNS/BATMAN FOREVER/BATMAN BEGINS/THE DARK KNIGHT (Tim Burton/Joel Schumacher/Christopher Nolan, 1989/1992/1995/2005/2008)

Need a Batman fix? HBO has your back.

BEFORE SUNRISE/BEFORE SUNSET (Richard Linklater, 1995/2004)

Really mad Before Midnight isn’t on here, but the Before Trilogy is the greatest trilogy in all of cinema and each film offers up something special.

THE FUGITIVE (Andrew Davis, 1992)

A thrilling and entertaining Best Picture nominee.

IDIOCRACY (Mike Judge, 2006)

A political satire that feels all too real now.

JOJO RABBIT (Taika Waititi, 20190

Taika Waititi won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay in this comedic World War II film about a child who’s imaginary friend is Adolf Hitler.

OCEAN’S 11 (Steven Soderbergh, 2001)

Arguably the coolest heist movie ever made.

AN AMERICAN PICKLE (Brandon Trost, 2020)

An immigrant worker at a pickle factory is accidentally preserved for 100 years and wakes up in modern day Brooklyn. Seth Rogen plays the immigrant worker and his great grandson.

BIRDS OF PREY (AND THE FANTABULOUS EMANCIPATION OF ONE HARLEY QUINN) (Cathy Yan, 2020)

Though I wasn’t the biggest fan of this when I first saw it, Margot Robbie is an absolute delight to watch as Harley Quinn.

THE WAY BACK (Gavin O’Connor, 2020)

Ben Affleck gives the best performance of his career in Gavin O’Connor’s drama about a man trying to turn his life around.

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