In an informal poll I conducted among my students late last year, every high school junior I teach claimed to have had a crush on a fictional person. The question both was and was not a trick. In truth, a crush is always a fictional person. While crush is a neologism and not a philosophically…Read On
In speaking with many parents about the kind of movies their children watch, I’ve found that one of their chief concerns is “objectionable content.” For younger children, “objectionable content” means toilet humor, cursing, disrespect shown to parents. For older children, “objectionable content” means nudity, violence, gore, profanity, vulgarity, obscenity, drug use, casual sex and the…Read On
In his fascinating work of collected interviews with Alfred Hitchcock, french filmmaker Francois Truffaut discussed with Hitchcock the possibility of doing a film adaptation of Crime and Punishment. When explaining why he would not, Hitchcock said, “Well, in Dostoyevsky’s novel there are many, many words and all of them have a function…To really convey [the…Read On
Part I. A certain wistfulness attends God’s mercy. After Jonah preaches Nineveh will be overthrown in forty days, the people don sackcloth and fast. The king asks,” Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?” Who can tell? When St. John the Theologian…Read On
If I could see any film again for the first time, I would choose David Fincher’s The Game. Had someone told me the ending of the film prior to seeing it, I would have counted myself robbed of something irreplaceable. I am not without some sympathy for those who don’t want the endings of their…Read On
“I do the same thing over and over, improving bit by bit. There is always a yearning to achieve more. I’ll continue to climb, trying to reach the top, but no one knows where the top is.” Jiro searches after perfection, after Plato’s forms, after goodness. Novelty and originality are of no use to Jiro;…Read On
“There is… an undeniable ethical offense in beauty: not only in its history as a preoccupation of privilege, the special concern of an economically and socially enfranchised elite, but in the very gratuity with which it offers itself. There is an unsettling prodigality about the beautiful, something wanton about the way it lavishes itself upon…Read On
When we first meet Will Graham (Hugh Dancy), the protagonist of Bryan Fuller’s television series Hannibal, he is looking at the grisly aftermath of a home invasion, surrounded by FBI agents. Graham, a special investigator, closes his eyes and, accompanied by the visual cue of a golden light sweeping the screen clean, reverses time, erasing bloodstains, removing agents, and bringing the victims back to life. He then proceeds to reenact the crime scene in his imagination, describing his intentions and actions to us in detail. Fuller then reveals that Graham is lecturing, describing the crime to a classroom full of students at Quantico…Read On
The following exchange between Sam (the little Thomas Sangster) and Daniel (Liam Neeson) in Love Actually has, for me, always been at the very heart and center of the film. Sam: By the way, I feel bad I never ask you how your love life’s going. Daniel: Ha! No. As you know, that was a done…Read On
This is the preeminent human question: What is she thinking? Or else, What is he thinking? Or, What does she think of me? What does he think of me? Can I be certain of how she feels? Is she guarding her true thoughts of me? Does she know what I do? What I think about?Read On
This week, the best of cinematic politics… Thomas Banks: The scene in Godfather II where Michael Corleone refuses to let Senator Whatshisname walk on him. “Senator, my answer is this…Nothing.” The scene in Casablanca where Humphrey Bogart meets Major Strasser. “What is your nationality, Monsieur Blaine?” “I’m a drunk.” “That makes him a citizen of…Read On
It’s a small petpeeve of mine, but in modern young adult fiction the protagonist is often designed to be flattering. They all seem to be misunderstood or lonely or different (re: the virtue du jour: unique) in order to appeal to the vanity of the audience. Two of the most popular stories follow this model:…Read On
This week, the five best songs from animated children’s movies. Sean Johnson: Roger Miller’s “Not In Nottingham” in Disney’s Robin Hood: An education in mournful sadness not likely to be soon forgotten by most children who knew the movie—never to be forgotten by me. Miller’s no crooner, but a good folk song is a perfectly…Read On
Why do people like movies so much? Why will we not shut up about movies? Why do we like making lists of our favorite movies, sharing those lists with friends, and perusing our friend’s lists of favorite movies? Why are movies so easy to talk about at a party? How is it that films are…Read On
From time to time I hear teenage boys mutter, after directing their intellects toward the sticky issue of foreign relations and the Middle East, “Ah, geez, why don’t we just nuke them all?” I could not say for certain how long teenage boys have glibly advocated for the universal destruction of foreign nations, but if…Read On
“Would you let your daughter do a nude scene in a movie? Huh?” Unfortunately, this is about as sophisticated an argument as most Christians are capable of making against nudity in film. “Christians have allowed nudity in art for hundreds of years. Haven’t you ever been to a museum?” Similarly, many arguments in favor of…Read On
If you grew up in a Christian family in the last two decades, you probably have listened to Paul McCusker’s work. McCusker is the mind behind many episodes of the radio drama Adventures in Odyssey and several of Focus on the Family’s Radio Theatre programs. Beyond the Mask was McCusker’s first screenplay. After he wrote…Read On
Plenty of fine films are easy on the eyes and ears, but not all of them. This week, five great movies that you can never summon the energy or courage or humility to watch. And why? Remy Wilkins: 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days: Is the greatest film I will almost certainly never watch…Read On
This week, top five vocal performances from a motion picture. Sean Johnson: Roger Miller’s “Not In Nottingham” in Disney’s Robin Hood: An education in mournful sadness not likely to be soon forgotten by most children who knew the movie—never to be forgotten by me. Miller’s no crooner, but a good folk song is a perfectly…Read On
We live in an age which demands certainty. Faith is not enough. We want to live by sight. Before the Enlightenment, man was content to live by speculation, opinion, and sacred text. Back in the Dark Ages, truth was buried between layers of parable and history and myth and it was hard to keep straight…Read On
