Is visual media the best antidote to an atrophied imagination? That’s what got us there in the first place. At its core, visual media is projected light on a flat screen. How could telling simple community stories on a flat screen be deep or rich?
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…
Some have called Cars Pixar’s greatest achievement, while others have considered it their worst effort (but even those critics admit that every other animation studio only wishes they could make such a “clunker”). But $5 billion in merchandising sales alone since Cars came out five years ago, and a growing enthusiasm for Cars 2 which will was released this summer suggest that Lasseter’s quirky story about a menagerie of cars has already proven an endearing addition to the animation lexicon.
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.
Released 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)…
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 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…
Jeffrey Overstreet explores the power of storytelling.
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…
An 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
Is 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?
Freedom 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.