This review was originally published at Christianity Today Movies. – Fishermen have a tendency to return from fishing trips with tales of “the big one that got away.” But not Stewart Kane. No, he’s come back from a weekend fishing trip with a very different story. And he’d rather keep it to himself than discuss it with his wife. In Ray Lawrence’s new film Jindabyne, Stewart (Gabriel Byrne) and his buddies, Carl (John Howard), Rocco (Stelios Yiakmis), and Billy (Simon... Read more
Scott Derrickson’s The Day the Earth Stood Still becomes more and more interesting all the time. IGN is reporting that a very silly person is in talks to join the cast! Cleese will play physicist Dr. Barnhardt, a Nobel Prize laureate who plays a key part in figuring out the mission and meaning of the arrival of the alien Klaatu (played by Reeves). Read more
This is a revised version of a capsule review that first appeared in a recap of favorite 2008 films, published at Image: • In 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, Romanian filmmaker Cristian Mungiu tells a terrifying tale of two university students, Otilia and Gabriela, whose mistakes lead to excruciating consequences. Gabriela (Laura Vasiliu) seeks an abortion, which is illegal in her part of the world. This is Romania, and it’s 1987. She can’t just purchase whatever she pleases. If she wants quality... Read more
Scott Cairns Reading at Elliott Bay Book Co. Saturday, February 9, 5:00 p.m. Please join Image as poet, essayist, and Eastern Orthodox convert Scott Cairns reads from his new memoir Short Trip to the Edge: Where Earth Meets Heaven РA Pilgrimage, a chronicle of a unique midlife crisis manifested in the desperate need to seek out prayer. Provoked by the realization that his spiritual life was “progressing at a snail’s pace,” Cairns traveled to an Orthodox monastery on the... Read more
Anthony Sacramone, First Things: The Worst Film of 2008. . . . And I don’t care that it’s only January. . . . The violence in this shameless spectacle is so over the top it makes Apocalypto look like Gumby’s Greatest Adventure. Rambo is nothing more than a sadistic gorefest: rife with disembowlments, beheadings, exploding bodies, severed limbs, tortured children, and raped and caged women. … This film subtracts from the sum total of human knowledge. Thanks to Peter Chattaway... Read more
Barack Obama, interviewed at Christianity Today: I am a Christian, and I am a devout Christian. I believe in the redemptive death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I believe that that faith gives me a path to be cleansed of sin and have eternal life. But most importantly, I believe in the example that Jesus set by feeding the hungry and healing the sick and always prioritizing the least of these over the powerful. I didn’t ‘fall out in church’... Read more
The New York Times has the developing story. Heath Ledger was found dead in his apartment, apparently of a drug overdose. He was 28. (more…) Read more
So, there’s this monster in Cyndere’s Midnight, the sequel to Auralia’s Colors… (more…) Read more
Adam Walter’s still in the mood for lists. So he’s picking his favorite films of the DECADE. What are yours? I’m going to wait until my next break in the editing project. And then I’ll come back to this post and share my own picks in answer to Adam’s. So check back… [UPDATE] Okay… Here are my ten favorite films of this decade so far. These aren’t necessarily the greatest works of art, but they are the films I’m enjoyed... Read more
This brief review of Paprika was originally published in Risen magazine. – In 2001, Hayao Miyazake’s Spirited Away won the Best Animated Feature Oscar, and introduced the glory of Japanese animation to a much larger American audience. Unfortunately, some of Japan’s most extraordinary animators are still relatively unknown in the U.S. You probably haven’t heard of Satoshi Kon. And thus you’ve probably missed Paprika, which isn’t just the most imaginative animated film of last year — it’s one of the... Read more
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