Documentary Review Holy Frit

Holy Frit (2023) 

Directed by Justin S. Monroe 

Written by Justin S. Monroe, Ryan M. Fritsche, Gillian Fritsche 

Starring Tim Carey, Narcissus Quagliata 

Release Date November 10th in Los Angeles, California 

Published October 28th, 2023 

"In your gut, how think the window is going to turn out?" the director asks artist Tim Cary. Cary responds "I don't really trust my gut about anything." And that's the arc of Tim Cary in Holy Frit, a man who will have to learn to trust his gut and make gut wrenching decisions about his art, his massive multi-million dollar stained glass piece, and the future of his career and family. None of these decisions has an obvious answer and Tim is going to be forced to trust his choices are right without knowing what the outcome will be, trusting the gut, the instinct, as he's not done before. 

What is Frit? That is probably the first question anyone would ask, based on the title of the documentary, but it's not that special, in and of itself and the answer is passed on to us in passing. Frit is very small pieces of broken glass. Frit is the innovation of an artist named Narcissus Quagliata, a larger than life personality who innovated in the world of glass art in a way that no one had before. I can't tell you exactly how Frit works, but when dusted onto other forms of stained glass, it creates a remarkably colorful design, unlike anything you've seen before. 

The fact that Tim Cary had never worked with Frit before when he pitched his employer, Judson Stained Glass, as the company to create a 4000 square foot stained glass window for a Kansas City Mega church is just one absurd fact about how this massive stained glass work of art came to be. Judson didn't have the technique, the staff, or the space to do a project as massive as a 4000 square foot stained glass window. Oh, and the design that Tim Cary pitched to the church, is the kind of design that, at the moment he pitched it, didn't appear to be possible. 

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Classic Movie Review After Hours

After Hours (1985) 

Directed by Martin Scorsese 

Written by Joseph Minion 

Starring Griffin Dunne, Rosanna Arquette, Teri Garr, Cheech and Chong 

Release Date September 13th, 1985

Published 

The tracking shot that opens Martin Scorsese's black comedy, After Hours, is relatively meaningless. It's just a neat visual way to end up with the camera pointing to our protagonist, Paul Hackett. This is a valid cinematic choice, no criticism there. That said, as a student of opening scenes, I am a little bummed out. In my last exploration of a Scorsese classic, The Age of Innocence, Scorsese's camera opened on flowers under the credits and in the opening moment, a flower given from a performer on stage to another. The flower imagery in The Age of Innocence was the underlying theme of the movie. 

Perhaps, the vacuousness of the tracking shot in After Hours is a reflection of Paul's own vacuousness. Under the credits, we're hearing Mozart's Symphony in D Major No. 45. The symphony has little to do with the story either but it is beautiful and Paul is a handsome guy so, if I am going to read too much into every second of After Hours, perhaps these two surface level observations combined with the meaningless tracking shot crashing on Paul's face, is all to add up to how empty the character of Paul is and how his descent into a world of madness will only underline how Paul prefers being an empty vessel of capitalist exploitation to the alternative of actually living a life, as messy and problematic as that can be. 

As Paul Hackett's (Griffin Dunne) co-worker, played in a brief cameo by Bronson Pinchot, prattles on about how he doesn't plan on doing this job that Paul is teaching him in this scene, Paul is struck by the co-worker's words. He stops listening almost immediately, this man having a plan and goals in life, has Paul searching the world around him for a meaning. As the co-worker goes on about getting into publishing, Paul's eyes fall on everyday office stuff before finally landing briefly on a shot of a birthday calendar, and a picture of a child on a co-worker's desk. The story of a person with a family, a life away from work, is what jars Paul back to reality and the reality that his new co-worker doesn't realize he's hurt Paul's feelings a little, just enough to make him not pay attention before awkwardly excusing himself. 

The deck is beginning to stack. The conversation with Paul's co-worker is underlying a theme that will become clear, Paul doesn't have a life outside of work. He has no family, no girlfriend, he doesn't even seem to have friends, or, at least, he doesn't make it plain that he has anyone he can call on a Friday night. As Paul leaves work, he's just another lonely face in the crowd, so insignificant that the gates closing his office nearly close on him, and he narrowly slips through as men are closing them. All the while, another, more melancholic classical music piece plays on the soundtrack. The giant golden gate doors close, and Paul is made smaller by their massive size in a striking visual. 

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Movie Review Killers of the Flower Moon

Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) 

Directed by Martin Scorsese 

Written by Martin Scorsese, Eric Roth

Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone, Robert De Niro

Release Date October 20th, 2023

Published October 20th, 2023 

To say that Martin Scorsese is a master of the cinematic form is an understatement. The man has directed epic master works; some of the most iconic works of cinema in last 50 years. He's the Pope of Hollywood, the director that other directors look to for guidance and inspiration. As years pass, Scorsese's mastery of form only seems to grow and gain depth. With age has come patience and maturity that has taken his work from some of the most gut-wrenching and visceral to some of the most thoughtful, elegant, and instructive films ever made. It's an evolution but not a particularly overt one. Scorsese is no longer a Hollywood rebel eager to shake up the world with his cynical vision of urban violence and gritty inter-personal connections. In place of rebellion, Scorsese has embraced his place as one of Hollywood's foremost thinkers, a conscei

For his latest film, Martin Scorsese is not taking it easy but his restraint, patience, and graceful, thoughtful direction is on full display. Taking on the case that provided the foundation of the modern FBI, Scorsese takes us to the heart of Osage Country in Oklahoma. Here, a group of Native Americans happened to strike oil and as the money flowed, the Osage thrived. Then came a group of leeches, con artists and hardened criminals with a taste for both blood and money. As much as racism has a major part to play in what came next, greed is also at the rotting, curdled core of what happened to the Osage people. 

We open on a ceremony. A group of Native Americans are in a tent and delivering exposition in a rather unique way. Via this ceremony, we are drawn into the time period, just after the discovery of oil rich land and just before murderers, thieves, and parasites came looking to rob the Osage people of their newfound wealth. In this ceremony, the elders share a peace pipe that they are laying to rest, it's taught them all it can teach and it is to be symbolically buried. This is at once a warning of the violence that is coming as well as a symbol of the end of the old ways and the birth of a new, unpredictable and reasonably frightening new way of life. 

It's a brilliant opening and it sets the stage for everything that we will see going forward in Killers of the Flower Moon. From there we leap ahead to a train where a man is coming home from the first world war. Ernest (Leonardo DiCaprio), could not possibly have a more appropriate name. With his lack of education and naïve willingness to take things at face value, Ernest is earnestness personified. Ernest has come to the Osage country on the invitation of his Uncle Bill (Robert De Niro, though he know him as King. Ernest's Uncle welcomes him with open arms and immediately sets about manipulating the simple young man in the ways of his con. 

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