Thou Shalt Have No Other God But Captain America’s
Or at least, I think that is what he may say if pushed. We don’t quite have the opportunity to press Captain America on his theological background, given that reference to divinity in The Avengers is pretty spare. (This is okay. The primary purpose of the film is to be awesome, and it certainly accomplishes that.) But even if spare, the few references to divinity and godhood... Read More
They Who See God’s Hand: The Tree of Life as an “Upbuilding Discourse”
[Ed. note: A very, very welcome guest post from Nicholas Olson] The very moment everything was taken away from Job, he knew it was the Lord who’d taken it away. He turned from the passing shows of time. He sought that which is eternal. Does he alone see God’s hand who sees that He gives? Or does not also the one see God’s hand who sees that He takes away? Or does he alone... Read More
Taylor-Made: Why You’re Missing Out If You Don’t Go See Blue Like Jazz
Blue Like Jazz, the new film by director Steve Taylor, is based on Donald Miller’s New York Times-bestselling memoir. It’s the biggest filmmaking success story in the history of the Kickstarter program, earning $345,000 in donations to help cover its costs. Were their investments rewarded? If you skim through the reviews, you might be inclined to say, “Apparently not.” But... Read More
Guest Contributor Stephen Lamb: A Short Defense of Melancholia and “Images from a Closed Ward”
[This post comes to us from guest writer Stephen Lamb.] At the premier last Friday of Michael Hersch’s “Images from a Closed Ward,” performed by Nashville’s Blair String Quartet, the program notes included some thoughts from Michael Mazur, the artist whose etchings bearing the same name had inspired the new work. “These compositions are filled sometimes with frightening... Read More
The Absent Clue: Summary and Expectations
Before continuing with my exploration of detective film (leaving, at last, Sherlock Holmes and moving on to more contemporaneous examples), I want to take a moment and re-iterate something that has been implicit in my posts here, but which might get lost in the shuffle when we narrow our focus to individual films. This post, then, is meant to tie together some general themes that... Read More
The Alternative History of Jesus
For me, it all begin with Jeebus, who was made manifest to the world in the fifteenth episode of the eleventh season of The Simpsons. In this episode, titled “Missionary: Impossible,” Homer flees a mob of angry PBS telethon hosts by hopping a cargo plane to hide out as a missionary in Microasia.* Realizing the gravity of his situation, Homer gets on his knees,... Read More
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (Billy Wilder, 1970)
In most of these essays, I try to keep a pretense of critical distance. That is, I point out whatever loose sally of thought the movie in question inspires and then proceed from there, without venturing much comment on the quality of the movie itself. The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, however, must stand as an exception to this rule, for the simple reason that I love it too much.... Read More
A Rankin-Bass Christmas
This less-than-seasonal post is brought to you by NVidia and their faulty logic boards. ————- For most Americans, stop-motion is something of a Yuletide affair. Don’t get me wrong; the surge of stop-motion in theaters lately has been extremely gratifying. Aardman Studios is stretching beyond their Wallace and Gromit brand, Laika is capitalizing on... Read More
The Spiritual Discipline of Cinema
There is often talk of framing our cultural experiences in terms found commonly in Christian spirituality. On account of this, we find film and theology groups that are structurally identical to group bible studies. We reserve watching certain films for certain spots on the Christian calendar, like annual Easter screenings of Gibson’s Jesus film. In a more specific example, a... Read More
The Detective’s Dark Shadow: Murder by Decree (Bob Clark, 1979)
Crime fiction has both the opportunity and the obligation to be the most political of any writing or any media, crime itself being the most manifest example of the politics of the time. We are defined and damned by the crimes of the times that we live in. The Moors Murders, the Yorkshire Ripper, and the Wests, Rachel Nickell, Jamie Bulger, and Stephen Lawrence: I strongly believe... Read More
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