I must confess I still haven’t figured out the pace or rhythm at which the ChristianWeek website uploads its new stories, so it was only today that I noticed they had posted my review of Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, which has appeared in slightly different forms elsewhere. It looks snazzier here, though. I also discovered this editorial on Orthodox Christianity, which appears to be a response of sorts to a feature that I wrote on... Read more

The local press screening for this film is still a week away, but in the meantime, GetReligion.org links to this NPR interview with Don Roos, director of Happy Endings, a dysfunctional comedy about various characters, one of whom is a pregnant woman who chooses not to abort her child but to put her son up for adoption. The film, says Roos, was partly inspired by his and his partner’s own recent adoption of a child. I haven’t had time to... Read more

I have been meaning to catch up with Following (1998), the first full length film directed by Christopher Nolan, ever since I saw a trailer for it on the DVD for Memento (2000; my mainstream review; my Christian review; my 2001 top ten list; my article on memory movies). But it wasn’t until someone mentioned Following in an online discussion of Nolan’s newest film, Batman Begins, that I finally put a hold on it at the library. As it turns... Read more

Time for another batch of rumours and stories. 1. Ain’t It Cool News reports that Liam Neeson may be the actor who replaces Brian Cox as the voice of Aslan in the upcoming film adaptation of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. (My sister Michelle’s ecstatic reaction: “I don’t know if I want a sexy Aslan! That could be scary!”) If true, this could be at least the third film this year — after Kingdom of Heaven and Batman... Read more

I just got home from a screening of Murderball, a documentary that opened in the United States last week and opens in Canada in just a few days — and I really, really liked it. There are a number of subtextual ironies wrapped up just in the film’s name. For one thing, “Murderball” is the name that quadriplegic rugby, or wheelchair rugby, apparently had when it was invented in Winnipeg almost 30 years ago — by a man who now... Read more

Whoops, looks like a store near Vancouver mistakenly sold some copies of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince over a week before its July 16 release! According to Reuters: Raincoast Books Ltd., which distributes the books in Canada, said a “small number” of the books were sold, and it has won a court injunction barring the buyers of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” from disclosing the plot. I wonder how such a thing could be enforced. I suppose blogging... Read more

One of the first conversations between my wife and myself concerned DVDs and home entertainment options, and somewhere in there, she mentioned that she wanted to own the entire Babylon 5 series some day. Nearly two years later, my friend Betty gave us the first season as a wedding present — and my wife and I managed to watch most of it on the honeymoon, in between going for walks and, um, other activities. Since then, we’ve picked up seasons... Read more

It’s been a long time since anyone paid all that much attention to the films of Hal Hartley — see this article from last February’s New York Magazine for more on that subject — so it’s a little odd to hear that his most recent film, The Girl from Monday, will now be available on DVD exclusively through Netflix, i.e. as a rental, i.e. impossible to purchase, at least in North America, for the foreseeable future. It’s a curiously strange... Read more

Here are the figures for the past weekend, arranged from those that owe the highest percentage of their take to the Canadian box office to those that owe the lowest. Aurore — CDN $369,864 — N.AM $369,864 — 100%Mr. & Mrs. Smith — CDN $15,470,361 — N.AM $158,647,000 — 9.8%Madagascar — CDN $16,545,049 — N.AM $179,550,000 — 9.2%Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith — CDN $32,582,119 — N.AM $370,819,000 — 8.8%Batman Begins — CDN $14,623,132 — N.AM $172,105,000... Read more

The New York Daily News reports that the film version of The Da Vinci Code may downplay the book’s anti-Catholic elements: In Hollywood, as the old adage goes, bad books often make great movies. In fact, the pulpier the fiction, the better the final result (think “The Bourne Identity” or “The Bridgesof Madison County”), because then the movie adapters feel no qualms about making significant improvements. So it’ll be fascinating to see how closely the team behind the 1995 smash... Read more