I’d like to write briefly about the four main referents I noticed in hopes of enhancing your enjoyment of Logan, encouraging you to watch a few great films from the past, and to get at the film’s potential theological imports.
True/false has since become an especially treasured ritual for me, a touchstone of my year in film, every year.
Batman & Robin’s shares a thematic concern with this new LEGO Batman movie everyone loves – Batman needs a family. Furthermore, Batman & Robin and The LEGO Batman Movie share a key referent too – 1966’s Batman: The Movie
In our present moment, faith has come to be seen by many as residing primarily in the intellect, leading to belief that is conceptual and private. Faith worked out through the will, in the public sphere, tends to lead to uncomfortable choices.
“Walking together” is what this list most clearly represents. It’s a symbol of the faith and film-loving community of filmmakers and film scholars who are gathered under the banner of Reel Spirituality, each in their own way. We are trying to make beautiful films, to celebrate beautiful films, and to encourage others to do the same.
The Top Ten Films of 2016 individual lists of each of our community members.
We were honored to be joined by legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese for a conversation about his challenging, masterful film, Silence.
If one can read in the many cultural symbols the elements of self-sacrifice, self-giving love and a search for truth, beauty and goodness or the struggle with existential darkness, then grace is present. These ideals are what give humanity hope.
Villeneuve’s filmography is a cinema of collapsing borders.
I think the continued proliferation and success of the comic book genre is due to the fact that our supergods have been narratively and cinematically incarnated. They are the god-women and god-men, the emmanuelles and emmanuels of our “secular, scientific, rational culture.”
Redeeming the media doesn’t start or stop with the content we make. It means seeing cast and crew as a vital piece of what God is creating, and as a result, treating them with dignity and respect.
Human beings’ search for meaning and complete fulfillment is an age-old quest that has concerned humanity since the beginning of time.
I think of stewardship in terms of God’s commands about stewarding our gifts and resources. For those of us working in or aspiring to work in the film/tv industry, we are managing the gift of an art form that has the potential to entertain and maybe even to change lives.
Sometimes I come across intriguing films that struggle with the issues and concerns of adolescents finding their identity and place in the world. Not being the most popular girl in high school, I resonate with those who feel out-of-place, who are rejected or set aside, or simply just do not fit in.
My process is not entirely unlike placing several objects into a blender, throwing the results against the wall, and attempting to describe the shape of the mess that is left behind.
Some dismiss this anti-technological portrayal as paranoid sensationalism, manufacturing fear for fun and profit. Nobody’s making killer robots, they would say. But such a dismissive response is too shallow. Movies about robots and computers targeting humans act as a sort of collective conscience for our society, warning us of dangers we might otherwise miss
Although other theologians may argue that experience is not to be trusted, the reality is that many of us, just like the ladies in my church growing up, rely on our experiences to draw us closer to God.
With all the expanse of intelligence of human beings and its infinite pursuit for attainment of knowledge, this biological, psychological, emotional and spiritual aspect of human sexuality still defies total human understanding. It is perhaps because what human beings seek through sexual intimacy is the ultimate supernatural existential.
It is this last aspect of storytelling, as “transformative agent,” that is most interesting to me, especially when it is placed into conversation with the question of “otherness,” specifically, the otherness being addressed in the question “who is my neighbor” that leads to the story of The Good Samaritan. How can the question that begins this story shape how we view the characters in the films we watch?
As we contemplate what stories we should tell, we must contend with whether or not we are willing to take the risk of embracing and reaching out to an audience that is on the margins. The film industry reflects the pulse of its people, and that is true for both Hollywood and independent films.
It is in the analogy of the material world that we grasp a glimpse of the Divine. Religious imagination is grounding for those who use art to communicate something of what it truly means to be human.