There’s nothing unusual about David Lynch lecturing about transcendental meditation. He does that all the time. But watch what happens during his lecture in Germany. This is very unusual, and a rather shocking development in Lynch’s career… and in the history of filmmaker lectures. (more…) Read more
Daniel Day-Lewis rarely ever acts in a film. But when he does, it’s not something you easily forget. I first encountered him when I saw A Room with a View, which remains one of my favorite films. It’s just perfect. And Day-Lewis is astonishing in his ability to take a character that could so easily have been a scapegoat and turn him into a three-dimensional character. In fact, he owns the movie’s most moving scene. Since then, again and again,... Read more
What a happy way to wrap up a Friday at work. (more…) Read more
And sometimes, I get email that makes my day. And from total strangers! Hello, my name is Michael Kane. I just finished reading Auralia’s Colors and I must say I’m impressed. For the last year I’ve worked at a christian bookstore, and must admit I get tired of the mediocre stories and writing that so proliferates the market today. As someone who whet my teeth on Lewis, Tolkien, and MacDonald, it can be hard to swallow a lot of what... Read more
At Paste, Linford Detweiler slips into that storytelling voice that fans of Over the Rhine know and love, and he vividly illustrates the events leading up to his career as a songwriter, to the recording of The Trumpet Child, and to the arrival of a song about Tom Waits. Read more
Here’s today’s email… I post this simply because a few people have asked me recently if there are still Christians out there who hold onto this condemning reaction to art and culture. They seemed certain that if there are such people, there are only a few isolated folks out there who think this way, and I should just ignore them. But I am convinced that there is still a vast community out there who write off movies (and other forms... Read more
My friend Adam Walter shares my enthusiasm for David Lynch’s Twin Peaks and for several of his films. Nobody’s been more excited than me about the new boxed set of Twin Peaks DVDs… except Adam. Adam and I both had the privilege of attending a special screening of Inland Empire at the Cinerama a few months back, with Lynch in attendance. It was great to see Lynch and witness his fascinating Q&A session afterward. But the film left me rather boggled, not... Read more
There’s a new comedy opening this month, one that’s received a lot of praise at film festivals. And I’m very concerned about what is going to happen when it opens. Since I don’t want to distract people who will see the movie and mess up their experience of it, let’s just call it “J” for now. J‘s storyline involved a controversial ethical decision, just as Million Dollar Baby‘s story involved a different controversial decision. Already, conservative and Christian media personalities... Read more
There’s a fascinating story at CNN today about the apparent inclusion of musical notes in Da Vinci’s “The Last Supper”. Pala stressed that his discovery does not reveal any supposed dark secrets of the Catholic Church or of Leonardo, but instead shows the artist in a light far removed from the conspiratorial descriptions found in fiction. “A new figure emerges — he wasn’t a heretic like some believe,” Pala said. “What emerges is a man who believes, a man who... Read more
I’ve been doing a lot of radio interviews about Auralia’s Colors, and questions about Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass keep coming up. I’ve been planning a sort of once-and-for-all blog post about the controversy, but for now you’ll find a few of my responses to these questions posted here. (The transcript has several errors in it, but I can’t do anything about that. Still, you’ll get the basic idea of my response. And where it seems I’ve “quoted” the book,... Read more
Looking Closer
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In