Nonetheless, this is not the time to be cynical. Rather, we have all the more reason to forge ahead with perseverance and innovation, and to recognize and celebrate achievements whenever praise is due. Of all the films I saw in 2010, the following are my favorites…
+ More
We are given a verse, and then the first image we see is a cross, shining through the blackness, out of focus but shining nonetheless…
+ More
A proposal for four marks of communities participating in “Emergent Worship.”
+ More
I hope I am becoming more translucent, more rested, more me. I hope I allow some passions to outgrow me, and then to turn and let them remind me who I am, all over again. Rainer Maria Rilke’s “To Music” does just that.
+ More
Films about the British royal family always carry an air of inaccessibility, but it is that very air that makes them engrossing. The best British royal films always show the royals to be just like the rest of us albeit a bit more concerned about decorum. This is okay too though, because they are, after all, not allowed to be themselves, but carriers of an identity hundreds of years old…
+ More
What exactly is emergent/altworship?
+ More
The film’s visuals are stunning and unlike anything else audiences have ever seen, but somehow nothing in the movies makes sense. If you can turn off your mind and enjoy the show, you’ll have a great time…
+ More
“When we can play with the unself-conscious concentration of a child this is: art: prayer: love.” -A Circle of Quiet, chapter 1
+ More
In a society as highly mobile as North America and with churchgoers dispersed among a multiplicity of denominations, new networks and stand-alone congregations it is perplexing trying to keep track of churchgoers. What percentage of switching churches as against those who are leaving?
+ More
Like an artful sermon, Beauty acknowledges evil, but also offers legitimate hope. Ricky explains the ultimate meaning of the film’s title. He talks about a homeless woman, frozen to death, that he captured on video. “When you see something like that, it’s just like God is looking right at you, just for a second. And if you’re careful, you can look right back.”
+ More
Watching Marcus wear down Will is just one of the many humorous pleasures of the film. Eventually, but kicking and screaming most of the way, Will sees that life without another is meaningless, and that “once you open your heart to one person, you open it to others.” About a Boy is sweet, but also often bittersweet, for it deals with the human condition in a realistic way. Both comedy and drama come from the characters and their situations, for such is life…
+ More
Our experiences in a movie theater can range from pure entertainment to art to a divine moment. Rob has shared how the film Beckett became an experience of hearing God’s call to ministry. The Year of Living Dangerously became a moment of “conversion” in my life…
+ More
The Coens have often been accused by detractors as cold, analytical misanthropes, but whether or not their new film’s pessimism is an epistemologically warranted position, or merely another case of personal neurosis blown to cosmic proportion, is beside the point. As it stands, A Serious Man is an impeccably made comedy that offers some gravely serious reflections on what it means to be human…
+ More
Despicable Me is anything but despicable. Following How To Train Your Dragon and Toy Story 3 this summer movie season (both excellent films in their own rights), Despicable Me carries a charm all its own. It is engaging and fun in just about every possible way…
+ More
The film Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man is a visual and musical memoir of the legendary singer-songwriter of the 60’s and 70’s, Leonard Cohen, and the current artists he has influenced. This documentary, while centering on the “Come So Far for Beauty” concert at the Sydney Opera House in 2005 in honor of Cohen, also includes intimate interviews with this Canadian beat poet who put much of his work to music, and with the artists who draw inspiration from him…
+ More
Similar to the radio show, which has been on the air since 1974 (or as Guy Noir says, “…since Jesus was in the 3rd grade.”), this fictional movie is not about anything in particular really. Less about plot (the viewer is supposedly getting a behind-the-scenes look at the final radio broadcast of the show due to the sale of the Fitzgerald Theater to a cold-hearted corporate hack), the film is more about moments, songs, conversations, and characters…
+ More
“Iris,” the most adult film of the three movies, is also a true story of a woman stricken with Alzheimer’s disease. Adapted from John Bayley’s (portrayed by Jim Broadbent) memoir of his wife, the philosopher and novelist Iris Murdoch (Judi Dench), the movie shows viewers their 40-plus year marriage. It movingly brings to light the love and pain which commitment can bring, particularly when one of the life partners slowly loses her mind to Alzheimer’s disease…
+ More