Anthony Lane: … “The Proposition,” in its morality as well as in its geography, is not just basic but Biblical. Directed by John Hillcoat, it shows humanity striving for a New Testament way of life with a Cain-and-Abel drama on the doorstep. Read more
For the first time in my five-plus years writing the weekly Film Forum for Christianity Today Movies, I’m going on hiatus. The lovely and talented JOSH HURST will be piloting the craft while I’m gone, and I’m sure I’ll be humbled by his zeal and competence. I’ll return to that “desk” in June. Right now, every spare moment is focused on my book about faith and film: Through a Screen Darkly. (more…) Read more
Stephen Colbert roasts… and roasts… and slow-roasts the President. That’s gutsy comedy. UPDATE: Reactions, responses. (link via Alan at Arts and Faith) Read more
The Detroit Free Press hands the microphone to Frederick Buechner for a few typically powerful words from the heart. “What we need to do as religious persons, I think, is we need to become tellers of holy secrets. … I’m talking here about the deeper secrets in life that give us glimpses of a world beyond this world.” Read more
Keith Uhlich at Slant: …it is nowhere near as strong as the stink of synergy. Certainly this isn’t the first Hollywood production done in by the competing corporate and personal interests that funded it (consider the unspoken implications—both commercial and propagandistic—of the film’s last-minute title change from Flight 93 to United 93), but it is the only one I’ve come across where the families of those onboard gave it their full-on approval. Not all the families, of course. All evidence... Read more
Screenwriter John August (Big Fish, Corpse Bride) has launched a strike aganst a target that should have been destroyed a long time ago. Air vents are for air, people. Air. Read more
My trusted friend and colleague Steven D. Greydanus has seen United 93. And he says, It is not exploitative. It is not manipulative. It is not strident or judgmental. It does not demonize or lionize anybody. It is as restrained, as respectful, as deeply moving a tribute to the passengers of United Flight 93 (not to mention assorted key players on the ground) as I can imagine a film being. As a New York area resident who watched the WTC... Read more
Ever since I heard a local news anchor make the hilarious claim that The Gospel of Judas is “rocking the Christian world,” I’ve become fond of that phrase. (I have yet to meet any Christian whose faith has been overturned, or even jostled, by the re-emergence of a heresy that was long ago dismissed by thinking Christians.) So I’ve decided to look around for what might (not) be rocking other people’s worlds. In that spirit, here are the Top Five... Read more
Yes, you read that right. Variety is reporting that the director of The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Scott Derrickson (who occasionally stops by here with some comments), is going to direct the big screen version of John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost. The questions are rushing to my brain so fast I hardly know where to begin. Who…? How…? What will they…? Here’s hoping he invites his good friend Wim Wenders along as a technical advisor. After all, Wenders has... Read more
A poet whose work is as nourishing to me as any art I’ve encountered–Scott Cairns–is being featured in the Columbia Missourian. Read more
Looking Closer
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