There once was a time when C.S. Lewis (the inventor of Narnia), J.R.R. Tolkien (the inventor of Hobbits), and Charles Williams — known collectively as “the Inklings” — wrote stories about fictitious people who had fantastic adventures. Now other people are writing stories in which it is the Inklings themselves who have the fantastic adventures. Three years ago, Image Comics released Heaven’s War, in which the Inklings confront Aleister Crowley shortly before World War II. And now, the Hollywood Reporter,... Read more

You might have heard a rumour once about something naughty involving a certain bishop in a certain Disney cartoon. That rumour was debunked ages ago, but apparently it still makes the rounds and has been known to get Disney into trouble now and then … so, now, reports Jim Hill, for the film’s DVD release this coming Tuesday, Disney has gone the extra mile and removed the apparently-but-not-really naughty something in question. The purist in me objects to this, of... Read more

Spent all day watching movies. Realized just before the last film that I could not find my notebook, which might have been left at the previous theatre. Came home in time to find that the twins wanted an extra late-night feed. Spent the next hour or two catching up on e-mails and stuff (tangent: I hate the new Google Reader interface). Would love to comment on the day’s films, but will get around to blogging them later, when I’m not... Read more

This year’s edition of the Vancouver International Film Festival kicks off tomorrow, so it’s about time I posted the first draft of my movie-going schedule. I recently discovered I won’t be going to Chicago after all next week, so that frees up some time; but there are still church events and Thanksgiving dinners and the like to work around. As with last year’s schedule, this list will be continually revised often over the next two weeks, and any films I... Read more

In July, a court ruled that companies which sell censored DVDs without authorization, such as CleanFlicks and CleanFilms, must turn over their inventories to the studios whose copyrights they were infringing. Both firms have since shut down entirely. But one company escaped censure. That company was ClearPlay, which does not edit DVDs but, rather, sells a DVD player which can censor movies as it plays them. Instead of selling edited DVDs, they sell filtering software for specific titles — and... Read more

I’d love to post more, but for now I’ve got time for these: 1. Production Weekly says Danish bad boy Lars von Trier is finally going to shoot Antichrist next summer. He’s been talking about this project — which is “based on the theory that it was Satan, not God, who created the world” — for at least the past two years, but Cinematical says he had to ditch an earlier version of the script after one of his producers... Read more

Production Weekly reports that Martin Scorsese is once again planning to shoot a film based on Shusaku Endo’s Silence: “Silence” is set in sixteenth century Japan, where Portuguese missionaries must contend with traders from rival European nations and the persecution of Christians by Japanese feudal lords. The feudal lords want to drive Christianity out of Japan, and try to do so by torturing priests into apostasy, denying their faith. This is done symbolically by stepping on a “fumie,” a Christian... Read more

The Canadian Press says it’s official — as of this past weekend, with $9,389,972 at the Quebec box office and another $1.3 million from the rest of Canada, the bilingual buddy-cop movie Bon Cop, Bad Cop is now the top-grossing film in Quebec history. Ordinarily, that would make it a shoo-in for the Golden Reel Award — yes, Canada’s version of the Academy Awards hands out statuettes for top-grossing Canadian film — but it’s always possible it will be surpassed... Read more

Queen Spoo has posted a very brief but interesting interview with Alexander Siddig, who plays the archangel Gabriel in the upcoming movie The Nativity Story. The most interesting bits: 1.) How did playing the role of the archangel Gabriel compare to other roles you have played?I’ve enjoyed most of the roles I’ve played but the archangel was different because most people have an idea of what they think an angel is. But in a sense I had more leeway, many... Read more