Holy Unknown

Inside Out (2015)   is a nearly flawless animated journey directed by Pete Docter and written by Meg LeFauve and Josh Cooley. The film places us inside the mind of Riley, an eleven-year-old girl whose life is upended when her family moves from Minnesota to San Francisco. Inside her mind, five personified emotions—Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust, and Anger—manage her inner “Headquarters” as she wrestles with homesickness, change, and the confusing space between childhood and growing up. The film traces how those emotions shift and realign as Riley begins to understand that life is not only about feeling happy, but about learning how to feel everything and still move forward. Behind the imaginative visuals and playful humor lies a carefully researched psychological foundation. Pixar’s creative team consulted with emotion scientists to understand how memories form, fade, and sometimes reshape themselves, and used those ideas to design the mental landscapes inside Riley’s mind. The filmma...

Dave (1993)   is a charming political comedy-drama directed by Ivan Reitman and written by Gary Ross. The film follows Dave Kovic (Kevin Kline), a mild-mannered temp agency owner whose uncanny resemblance to the President of the United States leads to an unusual job offer. When the real President suffers a stroke during an affair, White House aides secretly enlist Dave to assume his duties, hoping to maintain control while concealing the truth from the country. As Dave begins navigating the rituals of power—and the moral bargains that underlie them—he chooses to lead with the decency his counterpart never showed, forcing Washington to reckon with what honest leadership might look like. Shot in Washington, D.C., the crew had unusual access to the White House grounds, and the production built an Oval Office set so detailed and convincing that it went on to appear in more than twenty-five other films and television shows, including The Pelican Brief, In the Line of Fire, and Absolute ...

Quiz Show (1994)   is an elegantly crafted historical drama directed by Robert Redford and written by Paul Attanasio. It follows congressional lawyer Richard Goodwin (Rob Morrow) as he investigates growing suspicions that NBC's quiz program Twenty-One is being staged rather than played. His search leads him to Charles Van Doren (Ralph Fiennes), an esteemed Columbia University professor whose charm and intellect make him the network’s newest sensation. As the inquiry unfolds, Goodwin uncovers how producers, sponsors, and contestants quietly conspired to shape the outcomes, revealing the corruption that thrived behind the glow of prime-time television. The film was shot in and around New York City and Washington D.C. Redford drew inspiration from archival footage of live television in the 1950s and had historian Dan Wakefield as a consultant to ensure the era’s tone felt accurate. To study his mannerisms, Ralph Fiennes drove to Van Doren’s Cornwall, Connecticut home and, posing as a...

The Lonely Guy (1984)  is a romantic comedy directed by Arthur Hiller and written by Ed. Weinberger and Stan Daniels, with an adaptation credited to Neil Simon. The film follows Larry Hubbard (Steve Martin), an affable greeting card writer living in New York City. Larry is instantly cast into the woeful ranks of the "lonely guys" after he finds his long-time girlfriend in bed with another man and is forced to begin a new single life. He befriends veteran lonely guy Warren Evans (Charles Grodin), who provides advice on navigating the isolating rituals of bachelorhood. In his despair, Larry writes a successful self-help book, A Guide for the Lonely Guy , which makes him rich and famous. This newfound status gives him access to the women he desires, but his fame complicates his genuine connection with Iris (Judith Ivey), who has her own history with "lonely guys." The film was shot in New York City. The screenplay was based on the 1978 book The Lonely Guy’s Book of Lif...