Early in Los Angeles Plays Itself, Thom Anderson’s amazing film about the city that never sleeps because we’re always dreaming about it, the narrator, who is supposed to be Anderson but is also something like God, says one of those things that is so obviously true that the hearer may have the paradoxical experience of satisfaction at an epiphany of something we already knew colliding with the surprise that we hadn’t figured it out before: ’If we can appreciate documentary films for their dramatic qualities, perhaps we can appreciate fiction films for their documentary revelations’. This is certainly the case when it comes to emotional truth (Braveheartwas shot partly in Ireland, but still quickens the hearts of Scots; so was Saving Private Ryan for that matter, but it inspired mass catharsis among veterans of the Normandy landings); but it’s unquestionably profound for films actually made in places we know. I have a theory about this.

Read more at Reel Spirituality.

Movies blend into each other. They always have. And in a world where the experience of movie-going has been standardized more than ever (compare the $20 two-Cokes-and-popcorn identikit shopping mall mulitplex combo with the rough-hewn character of the downtown theaters that some of us grew up with), movies blend even more. It’s getting harder to remember where we saw them and which is which. When I look back on the 2014 movie year, I’m more captivated by moments than by individual films (there’s really only one new movie I saw this year that I felt had it all - we’ll get to that later).

THIRTY-NINE OR MORE FAVORITE FILMS (AND NOT) OF 2014 LATE 2013 RELEASES THAT I ONLY SAW THIS YEAR BUT ARE REALLY QUITE SOMETHING:

I'm hosting a festival called MOVIES AND MEANING, next May. It's for everyone who loves stories and light. It's going to be magical.