About eight years ago, something happened to Nicolas Cage. Known until then as an offbeat but fascinating charactor actor, Cage won an Oscar for playing an alcoholic who literally drinks himself to death in Leaving Las Vegas — and then he suddenly turned into an action hero. Many, but not all, of Cage’s onscreen adventures since then have been produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, including the R-rated action movies The Rock and Con Air and the PG-13 heist flick Gone in... Read more
One of my favorite films of all time is The Family Way, a comic drama from the mid-1960s about a newlywed couple from the north of England whose honeymoon plans fall through and who struggle with the fact that, a few months after the wedding, their marriage remains unconsummated, possibly because they are compelled by economic necessity to live with the husband’s parents. In one scene, the husband and wife go for a stroll through the town, where they are... Read more
Film is perhaps the most technological of artforms, and it relies increasingly on computers for its simulations of the real world. Not surprisingly, films have also expressed concern over the directions in which our technology is taking us, and these days, as spyware snoops around our hard drives and governments assume more powers unto themselves, the issue that crops up repeatedly in films is that of control. Who has it? Who uses it? And to what degree have the devices... Read more
Talk about timing. The same day a new movie about Martin Luther opened in Canadian theatres, the Daily Telegraph reported that German archaeologists had discovered the toilet on which he allegedly composed the 95 Theses that sparked the Protestant Reformation in 1517. “This is a great find,” said Stefan Rhein of the Luther Memorial Foundation, “particularly because we’re talking about someone whose texts we have concentrated on for years, while little attention has been paid to anything three-dimensional and human... Read more
FR. THOMAS Hopko may have retired as Dean of St. Vladimir’s Seminary in New York two years ago, but he still keeps quite busy. Last month, the author of numerous books and articles on Eastern Orthodox Christianity spent nearly three weeks on the road, during which time he visited churches in Victoria and Vancouver and spoke at functions hosted by Regent College, Trinity Western University and InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. The indefatigable Fr. Hopko sat down to talk about Orthodox-evangelical relations... Read more
For years, Ernesto “Che” Guevara has been more of a symbol than a man — but a symbol of what, exactly, is hard to say. The Latin American revolutionary, who helped bring Fidel Castro to power in Cuba in 1959 and died at the hands of the Bolivian army in 1967, is still revered for his Marxist politics in some quarters, but for many people, he is little more than the model for that famous image which can now be... Read more
In orthodox Christian belief, Jesus is both God and man, fully divine and fully human. And it is because God has revealed himself in the form of a particular person who lived in a particular time and a particular place that Christians down through the ages have generally felt free to portray Jesus in icons, passion plays, and other forms of religious art. But except for the most basic and theologically essential points, such works of art have generally passed... Read more
I said something earlier about ST5:TFF being a wasted opportunity. Star Trek: Generations (hereafter known as ST:G) was an even bigger opportunity, and thus, as it turned out, may have been an even bigger waste. It has been ten years — an entire decade — since Captain James T. Kirk bit the dust, and until I watched the “collector’s edition” DVD today, I don’t believe I had seen the film at all since the three times I caught it in... Read more
It is almost impossible to imagine that a worthy sequel to 1973’s The Exorcist could ever be made, but that hasn’t stopped several filmmakers from trying. The original film — directed by William Friedkin from a screenplay by William Peter Blatty, who also wrote the original novel — was more of a mood piece than a story. The demonic possession of a 12-year-old girl was less a conflict to be resolved than a hook on which to hang a thoughtful... Read more
Homer Simpson once declared that alcohol was the source of, and the solution to, all his problems. 20th Century Fox might have something similar to say about diehard fans of the Alien and Predator franchises, who have waited 15 years to see these sci-fi beasts duke it out onscreen, ever since the two biggest space monsters of the Reagan era were first pitted against each other in a Dark Horse comic book. Frustrated by all the delays, hardcore Alien and... Read more
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