Review: In Need of a Good Eye Roll? ‘The Turning’ Has You Covered

Exposure therapy is a method of treatment targeted toward anxiety disorders. It works by exposing the patient to the source of their anxiety in a non-threatening environment in order to desensitize them to it. This is exactly what has happened to ghost movies over the past few decades. There are tropes that define nearly every entry in the genre and cause them to all be nearly identical save for a different mentally perturbed damsel in distress. Some of these tropes include, but are not limited to; prolonged silences filled with swelling string music as the protagonist wanders through a dark room, footprints appearing on the floor without any corporeal form attached to them, children talking to ghosts, children drawing disturbing pictures of themselves and said ghosts, and certain areas of creepy old houses being off limits to the protagonist. The Turning falls victim to all of these tropes and then some.

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Review: ‘The Goldfinch’ is All Smoke and Mirrors

There are several factors filmmakers take into consideration when creating a movie with an adapted screenplay, some of which being faithfulness to page, accurate casting, and more. These kinds of movies can be a tricky thing for filmmakers to navigate, and sometimes it’s a select few factors that make the difference between a really great and a really bad film. Unfortunately, The Goldfinch falls into the category of the latter. Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name written by Donna Tarrt, The Goldfinch is a wannabe film that leads you on a confusing journey with ultimately no payoff.

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UW Film Club Podcast #49 – It

“Okay, so let me get this straight. It comes out, from wherever, to record podcasts for, like, a year, and then what? It just goes into hibernation?”

Here on the UW Film Club Podcast, we’ve managed to do something completely unheard of: cover a relevant movie in the same week it’s relevant! This time, we’ve decided to reflect on the 2017 horror flick It, just in time for the release of It: Chapter Two! Although only one of us have seen the sequel so far, we talk about how the two compare, we praise the stellar cast and performances, and ponder over whether its blend of horror and comedy is as sharp and well-balanced as was initially perceived. It’s time to float on the 49th episode of the UW Film Club Podcast! Tune in now!

On this episode: Jim Saunders and Cynthia Li.

You can find us on Facebook at /UWFilmClub, and on Twitter and Instagram @FilmClubUW. Make sure to rate, comment, and subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify, and Google Play, and tune in every Monday for a new episode of the UW Film Club Podcast!