Deep Focus

I think of the too many people I have lost in my life to one form of cancer or another. These are the names I hold in my hand when I shake my fist at the heavens. Their names are the questions that fuel my doubts of God’s goodness and activity in the world. When I think of the ones I’ve lost though, I also think of the ones who stood resolutely beside them through their illness to and beyond the point of death…

Higher Ground is full of characters building to moments of revelation, and the film is about the build-up more than it is about the revelatory moments. In this, Higher Ground is monumentally better than almost all other films I’ve seen concerned with the complexities of the Christian life…

I do not doubt that there is a complicated psychosis beneath Drive’s stylized exterior, but that veneer proves all but impenetrable. Like its hero, Drive reveals nothing of what it is about. The film simply moves and asks its audience to respond…

There are movies that make me feel good about who I am. I see my country/race/gender/religion represented on screen, and I think to myself, this is good. I am proud to be a… whatever is being represented on screen. Machine Gun Preacher is not one of those movies…

The Debt, perhaps, makes the truth seem like a slave driver or a burden too great to bear. Ought we instead to strip the truth of its power and side with Atonement and the idea that the truth is made in the telling, in the fiction not the fact?

For the first hour and forty-five minutes of the film, I hated Hilly with passion, and then I realized the sadness and desperation of her own life. Hilly does not sit enthroned atop a gleaming pyramid. She reigns over a dung heap…

Good sci-fi explores current issues in fantastic situations. The original Planet of the Apes is so good partly because it was so pertinent to its time. The 1960s were the decade of African American civil rights and the perils of nuclear proliferation. The original film tackled both these issues using talking apes. Today, we live in an Era of Rights. Everything from marriage to…

I did find myself sympathetic to the movie’s villain at one point when he declares to Captain America that he has seen the future, and it is “a world without flags.” I believe in that future too, though I expect…

Lighting at one point says to Mater, “You don’t need to change to fit into society. Society needs to change fit you in” (paraphrase). I contend that while society does need to accept Mater for who he is, Mater needs to learn how to behave in social situations. If the “adult” Mater is unwilling to develop social skills, I don’t think we should be laughing at him…

How are we to deal with grief? That’s a question that deserves the breadth a life lived and not 400 words in a movie review. Mourning for what is lost is at the core of the human experience, and I think the best way to deal with that loss is to embrace it, admit it, own up to it, look it square in the eye and acknowledge it…

Though the movie begins with real chemistry between the two leads in the opening scenes – there is humor, and candor, and connection – the focus of the movie ultimately turns elsewhere. As we watch the story unfold, we find ourselves asking questions. Is what we do somehow destined to be? Do we really have free will, or is it somehow planned out for us (by parents? Context? God? Destiny?) If we are married, for example, did we simply choose our mate, or is there some sense in which we were chosen for each other?