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Goodfellas

- February 22, 2026

“As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster.” Introduction: The Seduction of Belonging Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas (1990) is not merely a gangster film; it is an anatomy of temptation. It dissects how power seduces, how loyalty corrodes, and how the American Dream mutates when filtered through crime. Unlike The Godfather , which mythologizes the Mafia through ritual, hierarchy, and tragic nobility, Goodfellas is vulgar, kinetic, and intimate. It is told from the inside, breathless and intoxicated, as if the viewer is not watching the life but living it. At its center is Henry Hill, not a don, not a strategist, not even fully Italian—but a witness and participant. Through Henry’s eyes, Scorsese shows us the psychological core of organized crime: the hunger to belong, the fear of insignificance, and the thrill of living outside the rules. Goodfellas is a story about power without illusion—and about the inevitable decay that follows unchecked appetite....

Taxi Driver

- February 21, 2026

Taxi Driver (1976): Alienation, Violence, and the False Messiah “Loneliness has followed me my whole life… There’s no escape.” Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver is not simply a portrait of a disturbed man; it is a mirror held up to a sick society, reflecting back the loneliness, moral decay, and spiritual exhaustion of post‑Vietnam America. Written by Paul Schrader and directed with surgical intensity by Scorsese, the film follows Travis Bickle , a nocturnal taxi driver drifting through New York City’s underbelly, searching for meaning in a world he perceives as irredeemably corrupt. What makes Taxi Driver enduring—and terrifying—is not merely Travis’s descent into violence, but the way his inner logic slowly begins to make sense. The film asks a profoundly uncomfortable question: What happens when a society creates men like Travis, and then rewards them? This essay explores Taxi Driver as a study of alienation, moral absolutism, sexual anxiety, false heroism, and the Americ...

An Ode to Motown

- February 20, 2026

An Ode to Motown There is something quietly thrilling about seeing performers outside the frame that first introduced them to you. It disrupts familiarity. It redraws the boundaries of expectation. Sitting inside the theatre for the final dress rehearsal of An Ode to Motown , that disruption came early — and it came powerfully. Lerato Mvelase was the first revelation. Known to many through the language of television — where her craft is contained within the borders of a camera lens — she arrived on stage as something altogether different. A vocalist. A narrator. A commanding presence. Her performance didn’t merely interpret the material; it carried it. She threaded the history of Motown through her voice with conviction and personality, revealing vocal depth and range that transformed surprise into admiration. On stage she expanded — larger, freer, and more electric — embodying the kind of theatrical vitality that only live performance can hold. ...

Silence

- February 20, 2026

Silence (2016): Faith at the Edge of God’s Absence What happens when belief costs everything—and God does not answer? Martin Scorsese’s Silence is not a story about martyrdom. It is a story about betrayal —and whether betrayal can coexist with faith. It is not a film about religious triumph. It is a meditation on the terror of unanswered prayer . Unlike conventional narratives of belief, Silence does not reassure. It wounds. At its center stands Father Sebastião Rodrigues, a Jesuit priest whose faith is not tested by temptation, comfort, or doubt—but by the suffering of others and the deafening quiet of God. This is a film where God does not speak. And where that silence becomes the central theological problem. I. The God Who Does Not Answer From the opening frames, Silence establishes its governing question: What if God does not intervene? The Japanese Christians are tortured not for renouncing belief privately, but for refusing to trample on the fumie —the...

The Last Temptation of Christ

- February 19, 2026

The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) "He was tempted in every way, just as we are—yet without sin." — Hebrews 4:15 Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ is not a film about blasphemy, heresy, or provocation—though it was received as all three. It is a film about the unbearable weight of divinity when placed upon a human psyche . More than a biblical epic, it is an existential tragedy in the classical sense: a story of a man called to become God while still trapped inside the limits of fear, desire, doubt, and pain. Where most religious cinema sanctifies Christ by removing his inner conflict, Scorsese does the opposite. He sanctifies Christ by intensifying the conflict . Jesus is not less divine because he trembles; he is more divine because he carries the full burden of choice. This film belongs less to Sunday school theology and more to the lineage of Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Jung —thinkers obsessed with the paradox of faith, freedom, a...

12 Rules for Life

- February 18, 2026

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” — Jeremiah 17:9 12 Rules for Life: Meaning in a World That Guarantees Suffering Introduction — The Problem the Book Refuses to Look Away From Jordan B. Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life begins from a premise most modern culture desperately tries to avoid: life is suffering . Not metaphorically. Not occasionally. Structurally. Pain, loss, betrayal, illness, aging, and death are not malfunctions of the system — they are the system. Most ideologies, self-help movements, and political programs promise escape. Peterson offers something far more unsettling and far more honest: the question is not how to avoid suffering, but whether your life is structured so that suffering is worth bearing . This is why the book does not read like a manual. It reads like a confession, a sermon, and a clinical report at once. Peterson circles the same themes obsessively — responsibility, truth, resentment, chaos, ...

Maps of Meaning: A Magnus Opus

- February 17, 2026

Maps of Meaning: Order, Chaos, and the Architecture of Belief A Magnum Opus on Myth, Meaning, and the Burden of Being Jordan B. Peterson’s Maps of Meaning is not simply a book—it is an intellectual ordeal. It is a work that demands something from the reader before it gives anything back. Written long before Peterson’s public rise, it stands as his most serious, uncompromising contribution: a vast synthesis of evolutionary biology, neuroscience, mythology, religion, literature, and depth psychology. Few modern thinkers have dared to attempt such integration. Fewer still have succeeded. At its deepest level, Maps of Meaning confronts the most ancient and terrifying human question: how should one live, given the inevitability of suffering, chaos, and death? Peterson’s answer is neither naïve optimism nor cynical despair. It is responsibility—radical, individual, existential responsibility—grounded in mythological structures that predate written history. This book does not e...

Game of Thrones: Power, Legitimacy and the illusion of control

- February 16, 2026

Game of Thrones: Power, Legitimacy, and the Illusion of Control Introduction: The Throne as a Lie Game of Thrones is not a story about heroes and villains. It is a meditation on power—how it is acquired, how it is maintained, and how it inevitably corrodes those who misunderstand its nature. The Iron Throne itself is the central symbol of this misunderstanding: sharp, uncomfortable, and forged from conquered enemies’ swords. It promises dominion but delivers instability. Those who chase it believe power is possession. Those who survive understand power is perception, timing, and restraint. Across Westeros and Essos, rulers rise and fall not according to virtue, birthright, or strength alone, but according to their grasp of human nature. Like the works we’ve explored before— The Godfather , The Sopranos , The Wire , Breaking Bad — Game of Thrones dismantles romantic notions of leadership. It aligns closely with the principles found in Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, and Robert Green...

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