It would be easy to criticize this movie as being derivative, boring in its similarities to earlier, better work by either Abrams or Spielberg and an ultimately lazy work of manipulative sentimentality masking deep cynicism and greed. One could hate this film and in the same breath laud its antecedents…
+ MoreUsually, I am able to crank out movie reviews with a machine-like regularity that is rivaled only by Hollywood’s ability to make sub-par sequels. For the past two weeks though, I’ve been having quite a bit of trouble writing reviews…
+ MoreIn this episode of the Reel Spirituality podcast, Co-Directors Eugene Suen and Elijah Davidson discuss The Tree of Life and Midnight in Paris.
+ MoreReleased just weeks apart to US theaters, two films usher viewers into vastly different but equally inspiring journeys of faith. The two films? Soul Surfer (2011, d. McNamara) and Of God’s and Men (2010, d. Beauvois)…
+ MoreThe Tree of Life is about everything in light of one thing. The story revolves around the memories of a Dallas architect (Sean Penn) reminiscing about his boyhood in Waco, Texas, and the death of his younger brother. His personal history is couched within the history of all of Time…
+ MoreThe Tree of Life is about everything in light of one thing. The story revolves around the memories of a Dallas architect (Sean Penn) reminiscing about his boyhood in Waco, Texas, and the death of his younger brother. His personal history is couched within the history of all of Time…
+ MoreThe gods walk among us, or in the case of Thor, the space aliens we have always considered gods walk among the very few citizens of remote towns in New Mexico. This film isn’t based on Scandinavian mythology. It is based on the Marvel comic book based on Scandinavian mythology. I think that makes Thor the Scary Movie of superhero movies…
+ MoreMeek’s Cutoff is a claustrophobic film about a harrowing expanse. The story focuses primarily on the matriarchs of the three families. The women wear large, curve-brimmed bonnets to protect themselves from the sun and wind…
+ MoreJeffrey Overstreet explores the power of storytelling.
+ MoreHanna is a very depressing film. Very simply, this is a tale of lost innocence. It begins with images of pristine, snow-capped hills and slumbering, snow white swans, and it ends in an abandoned, decrepit amusement park in the shadow of the fangs of tunnel shaped liked the open jaws of a wolf. In between a sixteen-year-old girl does horrific things to countless people oftentimes using nothing but her bare hands.
+ MoreDoes Source Code explicitly acknowledge the gospel? Absolutely not, but as I elaborated at the beginning of this review, technology is increasingly becoming the realm of the unexplainable and mysterious. It is becoming the method of the in-breaking of the divine into the mundanity of our lives…
+ MoreAn interview with film director Randall Wallace, famed for such films as Braveheart, The Man in the Iron Mask, We Were Soldiers, Pearl Harbor and Secretariat
+ MoreIs this a true story? Let me ask you a question – What is a “true story?” For a tale to be “true,” must it be factual? Must is be based in historical happenings? And even if Don Wimmer’s story is based on fact, is it then necessarily true?
+ MoreFreedom and the continued struggle for it was front and center Friday night as the Fuller community joined to celebrate the men and women who participated in the Freedom Rides of the Civil Rights Movement with a screening of Freedom Riders, a new documentary about the historic protest rides.
+ MoreThis is not a romanticized retelling of the monks’ dilemma. This is an unflinchingly truthful exploration of the doubts and struggles – all theological, emotional, and physical – that faced the monks during the war. Not since Chariots of Fire have I seen a film so honoring of the Christian faith and so honest about the philosophical difficulties of practicing that faith…
+ MoreWin Win is a tale of tested character. Woven throughout are a whole host of other wonderful themes as well – hospitality, forgiveness, care for the elderly, unselfishness, second chances, renewed hope, justice, family, and the kind of faith that is lived more than talked about. Win Win is a story about a good man on the precipice of being less than that and the people who help him keep from falling…
+ MoreThey say that worship is the only thing we do on earth that we will also do in heaven. When they’re talking about singing as worship, I don’t really agree, but if they’re talking about the kind of things this choir does, I’m on board with that statement…
+ MoreAnd undergirding the entire narrative is the conviction that people are worthy of love, both to love and to be loved. That is a beautiful conviction out of which to live…
+ MoreAt it’s core this film is about faithfulness. The monks’ is a faith proven by action. They are faithful in their liturgies. They are faithful in their work amongst the Algerian people. They are faithful in their care for each other…
+ More