Category: audio reviews
“Winter, slumbering in the open air, wears on its smiling face a dream… of spring.”
What to do now that we’ve got six extra weeks of winter? We find ourselves in the shadow of Groundhog Day…
Hard to believe a cute little 1993 feel-good film about Punxsatowney Phil and Gobbler’s Knob, starring SNL alumnus Bill Murray, would be deemed by some “One of the best films of the last 40 years…” and “required viewing for the course ‘Religion, Ethics, and Film”. Still, when a spritely holiday comedy film by Harold Ramis finds itself being compared to the works of Nietzsche and Camus, you can’t help but scratch your head. Is this the result of a great story, or people reading into things because they’re holed up due to six extra weeks of winter?
A Twilight Zone style event makes an irascible weatherman relive the same day over and over again, until he’s forced to confront some important things about himself, the world around him, and what he’s living for. A great article by Justin Taylor praising the film made me relive it all over again, and we hosted a film event where I got to sift the host of commentary on the film and sprinkle in some apt scripture as it applied. If you look deep enough into this film, might it look into you? Let’s see who swerves first…
Let’s check the list:
- Pouty lips (is it Blue steel, or Magnum?)
- Mouth Breathers.
- Elongated stares more torturous than a Hostel movie.
- Abs that send washboards back to the gym in shame.
- Teen Wolf’s extended family (P.S. – we forgive you too, Jason Bateman)
- Sparkly vampires that make Count Chocula cry in his milk.
These are just a few of the ideas that come to mind when thinking about the overextended Twilight series that adds “Breaking Dawn – Part 1” to it’s cinematic entries in Potter-mimicking fashion.
Two archetypal sons are examined in this 2011 summer blockbuster, hammering home deep truths about jealousy and pride that have existed long before even Jacob and Esau in the Bible. Marvel’s film adaptation of Thor examines how we relate to ourselves, others, and our father – both earthly and heavenly.
A revenge-fueled mutant man befriends an optimistic dreamer who can read and control minds. Their views of mankind’s nature and possibilities for the future come under sharp scrutiny and stand polarized as they deal with…
“All I have are the choices I make.” – David Norris, The Adjustment Bureau Really? Is this quote a truism about humanity, or a truth we really want to live with? I left this film with an…
“You must pay for everything in this world, one way or another… there is nothing free except the grace of God.” Following the murder of her father by hired hand Tom Chaney, a 14-year-old farm…
Greetings, programs! As we’re steeling ourselves for a summer of mind-bending blockbusters that will take us from Ohio to Oa, I took one last visit to The Grid with several hundred attendees at a viewing…
Well, Christopher Nolan’s film has received it’s Oscar nod, and yet I have a feeling the Academy will wind up giving our “Best Picture” to something overinflated, overwrought, and overadulated like Black Swan. While I’m…
A special son raised in a Christmas paradise is sent south to a much harsher world where he sees the darkness in the world and overcomes it with a light in his eyes that refuses…
In 1982, TRON was passed over for an Academy Award nomination for Best Visual Effects because the Academy felt the movie “cheated” by using a computer (seven years later, The Abyss would win for it’s computer…
Right now, Inception and The Book of Eli are battling in my mind for best film of the year. We’ve already visited the post-apocalyptic vision by screenwriter Gary Whitta and the directors Hughes with a…
“Sometimes you get to a point in life where you only love a few things, maybe even just one.” Those haunting words in The Hurt Locker sum up a spellbinding, seat-gripping drama of life that…