Perhaps it’s fitting for a television show located in San Francisco that such a fault line should have formed through the HBO series Looking. As the first extended gay male drama on a mainstream channel since the early aughts’ Queer as Folk, the show was bound to be a lightning rod. But where QAF was controversial for its mere existence, not to mention its graphic portrayal of gay sex, Looking is creating a different kind of controversy. Perhaps, wonder viewers,... Read more
Few scholars of religion and popular culture are as thorough in their articulation of both methodology and findings (and limitations of said findings) as Clive Marsh and Vaughn S. Roberts are in their book, Personal Jesus: How Popular Music Shapes Our Souls. It’s a challenging read, but indispensable for music lovers and those who engage religion, the arts, and pop culture. (more…) Read more
Every now and then, when I finish watching a movie, I ask myself, “What the hell just happened here?” Usually it involves some crazy Asian shock film or a whacky indie film. Rarely do I feel this way when I finish a novel. Given the slower pace of re-reading, I can delve into the world more deeply and return to passages that I may have simply glossed over. But this is exactly what happened with Eleanor Catton‘s The Luminaries, a puzzling... Read more
Few film and religion books are as intriguingly interreligious as Lyn and Tom Davis Genelli’s Death at the Movies: Hollywood’s Guide to the Hereafter. The authors look at a relatively unexplored genre, film blanc, from Christian, Buddhist, mystical perspectives and arrive at prophetic and inspirational insights into our fears of and suppressed obsessions with death, the afterlife, and what happens in between. (more…) Read more
Two smaller “indie” films are getting vastly different treatment this awards season. The first, Enough Said, is being praised for Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ career highlighting performance, and rightfully so. The other, Short Term 12, features an even more impressive performance by its female lead, Brie Larson, but has been virtually ignored in major award conversations, which is all the more puzzling because, as a whole, it’s one of the best films released last year. It certainly would have made our “Best Of 2013)... Read more
Last night, we were treated to one of the stranger spectacles in awards show history, even taking into account Miley Cyrus’ twerking on the MTV Video Music Awards last fall. This was a mass wedding of gay and straight couples, presided over by Queen Latifah, with music supplied by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, Mary Lambert, and Madonna. It’s a strange commentary on equality when you can say same-sex couples are now “free” to participate in legally-binding rituals every bit as... Read more
I’m slowly gearing up for my first extended writing foray into non-film subject matter with a book on the prophetic implications of the work of singer/songwriter Todd Snider. I’ve got a stack of music and theology/religion books to get through. The first (and shortest) is Don H. Compier’s Listening to Popular Music, part of Fortress Press’ Compass Series, a Christian exploration of daily living. There’s nothing particularly groundbreaking (or daring) here, but Compier does lay a strong historical foundation from which... Read more
August: Osage County is the kind of drama that theater critics used to accuse gay men of writing in order to let out their aggressions against straight people. According to mid-20th century conspiracy theories, crafters of dysfunctional family dramas like Edward Albee and Tennessee Williams wrote of Martha and George, Blanche Dubois and Big Daddy to process their own unhealthy gay/family relationships, projecting their self-loathing onto “innocent” heterosexuals. Here we have a film, based on Tracy Letts’ Pulitzer Prize-winning drama,... Read more
It’s that time of year again when, for really no good reason, I scramble to see as many of the Oscar-nominated films as possible. It’s not like I have a vote…yet. All the digital streaming services make the task infinitely easier than it was just a couple of years ago. Several of the films nominated in “minor” categories are streaming on Netflix. First, see The Act of Killing as soon as possible. For a double-dose of depression, follow that up with The... Read more
“With you it’s always Nick Cave and David Bowie…” – Dave Lemley (@lemdavely) Guilty as charged. When putting together the five most spiritually significant songs this year, I’m always going to start with St. Cave and the Thin White Duke. Push the Sky Away is a slow burn of an album that is pregnant with sacred themes which I have spent most of the year digging into and Bowie’s The Next Day talks a ton about coming to grips... Read more
Pop Theology
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