Wall-E: Pixar’s Sanctimonious Jerk

June 19, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Review of Wall-E, Directed by Andrew Stanton I hate Wall-E. I hate the cloying romance. I hate the mawkish sentimentalism. I hate the sanctimonious environmentalism. I hate the open contempt for suburban America. But mostly I hate that everyone else loves it. Wall-E was ranked the best movie of last decade by Time. It won the Oscar, the Golden Globe, and the BAFTA for Best Animated Film. It’s #59 on IMDB’s list of the greatest movies of all time. It won the Golden Tomato … [Read More...]

Retrieving Nicaea: A Revisionist History of Nicene Theology

June 17, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Review of Retrieving Nicaea: The Development and Meaning of Trinitarian Doctrine by Khaled Anatolios This is the second installment of Reading Patristics--a review series dedicated to books about the early church fathers. These reviews will not be exhaustive summaries, but instead are meant to pique the interest of readers to pursue reading in this area of study and a guide to good books in the field. Previous installments: Classical Christian Doctrine. The recently published Retrieving … [Read More...]

Man of Steel: Powerful enough to entertain

June 14, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Review of Man of Steel directed by Zach Snyder By COYLE NEAL The Superman story has been told (and filmed) so often that it is undoubtedly a challenge for filmmakers come up with a new ‘take’ on the story that is both interesting to the viewer and faithful to the canon (assuming that … [Read More...]

After Earth’s Absence of Emotion

June 12, 2013 By 1 Comment

Review of After Earth, Directed by M. Night Shyamalan If a naïve and unassuming moviegoer were to attend a showing of After Earth and, appalled by the glaring deficiencies of the movie, leave before the credits rolled, he might be forgive for believing that the dialogue was written by Deepak … [Read More...]

Beauty and the Beast: A Hymn to the Cult of Love

June 10, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Review of Beauty and the Beast, Directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise When you think Disney, you think of bright colors, a mouse, princesses, enchanted castles, music and song, and possibly overpriced theme parks. But perhaps above all, you think of childhood. Disney specializes in a certain … [Read More...]

The Kings of Summer, Masters of Themselves

June 7, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Review of The Kings of Summer, Directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts Whatever happened to those coming-of-age films that mixed a naive innocence with humor and a touching story? Nostalgia? The Kings of Summer offers an antidote. Three adolescent teenagers decide to declare independence from their … [Read More...]

On the Virtues of Bloodthirsty Soviet Propaganda

June 5, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Review of The Battleship Potemkin, Directed by Sergei Eisenstein One of the great things about Netflix and YouTube is the instantaneous access to a wealth of old films that you used to be able to see only on a beat-up VHS player at your local university library. Seeing as we at Schaeffer’s … [Read More...]

Iron Man 3 and the Obsession with Scientific Progress

June 3, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Review of Iron Man 3, Directed by Shane Black The United States is a technologically-obsessed society in a technologically-obsessed era. The line between magic and science in Hollywood films has begun to fade. The Avengers franchise is a perfect example. The Avengers movie involves gods and … [Read More...]

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‘Now You See Me’ has no magic

May 31, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Review of Now You See Me, Directed by Louis Leterrier Now You See Me follows the story of the Four Horsemen (a brand new quartet of illusionists) as they stage three consecutive shows. In their first show in Las Vegas, they steal money from a bank in Paris and shower the crowds with the … [Read More...]

Schaeffer’s Ghost’s Summer Vacation

May 29, 2013 By 1 Comment

By THE EDITORS As Schaeffer’s Ghost approaches its first anniversary, we want to share some news, brag a little bit, and give you advance notice on some upcoming free stuff. First, we want to say "thank you" to our readers. Time and again we’ve enjoyed the responses to our posts from our … [Read More...]

‘Epic’ Community Focuses on Serving, Not Deserving

May 24, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Review of Epic, Directed by Chris Wedge From Chris Wedge, director of Ice Age, comes Epic, a passable animated feature based on William Joyce’s  The Leaf-Men and the Brave Good Bugs. The plot is … well, kind of complex and hard to summarize. If you don’t care about the plot and just want … [Read More...]

Martin Scorsese on Film Preservation and the Future of Movies

May 23, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Review of Scorsese's Jefferson Lecture The National Endowment for the Humanities selected filmmaker Martin Scorsese to deliver its 2013 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities, a distinction NEH calls “the highest honor the federal government confers for distinguished intellectual achievement in … [Read More...]

God is Impassible and Impassioned: An Updated Framework for Divine Emotion

May 22, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Review of God is Impassible and Impassioned by Rob Lister Impassibility is not a common topic of conversation in the pews, but it’s been a debate raging in religion departments and seminaries for quite some time. Rob Lister’s dissertation at Southern Seminary made it into book form as God is … [Read More...]

The Great Gatsby and the Despair of Decadence

May 21, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Review of The Great Gatsby, Directed by Baz Luhrmann "There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, and it lies heavy on mankind: a man to whom God gives wealth, possessions, and honor, so that he lacks nothing of all he desires, yet God does not give him power to enjoy them..." -Ecclesiastes … [Read More...]