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?
When bad things happen to good people, we all know that there are no words capable of answering our grief. Or if there are words, they are most often primal questions and childlike observations. So it is for Jack…
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…
Usually, 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…
In this episode of the Reel Spirituality podcast, Co-Directors Eugene Suen and Elijah Davidson discuss The Tree of Life and Midnight in Paris.
The 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…
The 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…
Meek’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…
Hanna 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.
Does 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…
This 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…
Win 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…
They 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…
And 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…
