“So that was Mrs. Lundegaard in there? And I guess that was your accomplice in the wood chipper. And those three people in Brainerd. And for what? For a little bit of money. There’s more to life than money, you know. Don’t you know that? And here you are, and it’s a beautiful day. Well, I just don’t understand it.” from Fargo Read more

REVIEW: DISNEY’S PIRATES STAYS AFLOAT Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl is much better than I expected. In an industry in which movies that have “swords and sandals” are generally panned, this film keeps its head above water with both a good story and one outstanding performance by the exceedingly talented Johnny Depp. Depp plays his Captain Jack Sparrow with a slightly off-balance quirky swagger that is pure fun to watch. The story here is also much... Read more

BLOGGING PROSPECTUS AND LIFE SINCE THE PASSION We are just at the end of our first week of the Act One 2003 summer program. We have thirty-one wonderful new students and a really packed schedule which doesn’t let up until August 2. I won’t have a whole lot of time to blog while the program is unfolding. Please do keep the students, faculty, mentors and program staff in your prayers. After Act One wraps, I head to New England for... Read more

T-3: SETTING UP AHNOLD, T-4, AND THE AUDIENCE Terminator 3 would be better titled, “Acts One and Two of Terminator Three.” The film isn’t bad, it’s just all set up for the next film. Action in the first hour could easily have been condensed into about half the time. The studio clearly didn’t want to speed things up because they are counting on getting two movies out of one story. The film leaves us about where the mid-point of a... Read more

“Millions of books written on every conceivable subject by all these great minds, and, and in the end, none of ’em knows anything more about the big questions of life than I do. … Nietzsche with his, with his Theory of Eternal Recurrence. He said that the life we live, we’re gonna live over and over again the exact same way for eternity. Great. That means I, uh, I’ll have to sit through the Ice Capades again. Tch. It’s not... Read more

THE STUFF OF REAL CONTROVERSY? Columbia Pictures has acquired The Da Vinci Code for a seven-figure sum. Describing writer Dan Brown as a “master Storyteller” Sony Pictures Entertainment chairman, John Calley notes that they “can’t wait to bring this puzzle to the screen.” The real puzzle is how come a book that is known to be virulently anti-Catholic can be acquired without a peep of indignation from the people who have been overflowing with horror about how some supposed scenes... Read more

PROTESTANTS LIKE IT TOO! Focus on the Family leaders got a screening of The Passion. They sound enthusiastic. I was a little worried how they would react because the film is so very graphic in its depiction of the violence inflicted on Jesus. But, I’m glad to see they are letting a work of art be a work of art. “It conveys, more accurately than any other film, who Jesus was,” Ted Haggard said based on clips he viewed at... Read more

MORE PASSION I said I would answer questions about my comments on the screening. I will not enter into the frenzied trap of trying to convince people that the Gospel is not anti-Semitic. Nor will I address the specific list of depictions that someone has decided would render the film anti-Semitic. It wouldn’t prove anything. The film is not anti-Semitic. It is beautiful. Think how insane it is to be condemning something without any experience of it. It is absurd... Read more

I SAW THE PASSION So I was at a private screening at Icon Productions yesterday, and got to see a rough cut of The Passion. There were about twelve people in the room, including Mel Gibson, his producing partner Steve and four or five other Icon staffers. After the screening, we talked to Mel and friends for about an hour. (As cool as that was, the quality of the film was such that the celebrity stuff was completely gone from... Read more

“You are so beautiful, are you sure you weren’t altered? This is not the face, the body, of a Godchild. How could something so lovely be a product of chance?” from Gattaca Read more