Last night I saw one of the year’s best films–The Squid and the Whale–which is a deeply saddening film about the consequences of divorce and joint custody on children. Noah Baumbach first got my attention in 1995 with a delightfully rowdy comedy about college and dating called Kicking and Screaming. He also co-wrote The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou for Wes Anderson. The guy has a thing for telling honest and poignant stories about love, ego, and broken families. Here,... Read more
UPDATE: Now, read John Wilson’s commentary on Anne Rice at Books and Culture. John Wilson, editor of Books and Culture, was quoted today in a new CNN article covering Anne Rice‘s new focus on Christian faith, her new novel Christ the Lord, and the latest novel by Walter Wangerin: Jesus: A Novel. John Wilson, editor of the evangelical journal Books & Culture, said the conjunction of the Jesus novels by Rice and Wangerin isn’t surprising — writers have continually produced... Read more
Film critics and cinephiles at the Arts and Faith Conversation have revised their list of 100 Spiritually Significant Films, and the picture has changed dramatically. Michael Leary offers a fantastic commentary on the list over at The Matthews House Project. How many of the Top 100 have you seen? What inclusions are you most pleased to see there? What’s missing from the list? I didn’t participate in the voting for this year’s list, partly out of frustration over understanding the... Read more
Christianity Today looks into a popular new book from WaterBrook Press: Dinner with a Perfect Stranger. In the past few years, fiction used as straight-up apologetics rather than literature or entertainment has gained ground in the Christian marketplace. Brian McLaren did this in A New Kind of Christian, which is less about plot than about dialogue that conveys certain theological views. Now author and speaker David Gregory uses a similar, if more succinct, device in the July release of his... Read more
If you love Over the Rhine (and how could you not?)… and if you believe in justice… well, then do what you can to bring them the honor they deserve. The Grammies are not known for being awarded to the artists that deserve them, but once in a while something goes the way it should. (Bob Dylan, Time Out of Mind. U2, “Beautiful Day.”) Like the Oscars, once in a while something providential occurs, bringing attention, celebration, and blessing to... Read more
Sheryl Crow’s Wildflower is mind-boggling. That is, it is full of simplistic, dismissive questions about religion; exhortations to “live it up” as if there’s no tomorrow; plaintive questions about her general bewilderment about spirituality and the afterlife; and lines that shrug off any idea of “sin” with assertions that “we were apes before we spoke of sin.” (And so we should revert back to apes, Sheryl? Is that what you want?) In “Letter to God,” she seems open to the... Read more
Wednesday’s specials: Good news! I’ve just snared a deal for a new monthly film column. Can’t tell you where yet, but I’ll give you the details soon. THE NEW ISSUE OF IMAGE IS READY FOR YOU Click here to peruse the contents of the new issue. (New Scott Cairns poetry! Woo hoo!) The latest Image update sums it up like this: Image issue #47 features Texas portraitist John Cobb’s chapel, a portable structure composed of panel paintings of his friends... Read more
I heard this on NPR during my carpool commute in to the office today. The Elements of Style … the opera. You won’t believe your ears. Read more
CNN talks to Woody Allen: Allen, who will be 70 on December 1, says age hasn’t brought wisdom. “I’ve gained no wisdom, no insight, no mellowing. I would make all the same mistakes again, today,” he tells the magazine. I think this statement is borne out in his last film, Melinda and Melinda, which finally I saw over the weekend. Where his earlier films seemed to be asking serious questions about choices and consequences, now Allen just seems content to... Read more
Monday’s specials: CHATTAWAY DISCOVERS NEW NARNIA STORY! Yikes! Chattaway has stumbled onto one of the things I’ve dreaded… the first of the new stories about Narnia, NOT from the mind of C.S. Lewis. Here’s the Amazon info page. Speaking of Narnia… NEWSWEEK ENTERS NARNIA The inevitable splashy article that contains enough information to qualify as a review of the movie: Will the movie be too religious for a wide audience? Might it not be religious enough for Lewis’s Christian fans?... Read more
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