I fancy myself a bit of a gamer. Here on our world tour, I’ve allowed myself a PS Vita as my luxury item. It’s helped feed the addiction in between sight-seeing and eating/drinking. I check the game sights every few days to keep up with the latest news, releases and reviews. But in my most significant Geek Out moment of the journey, I tuned into the live stream of Sony’s and Nintendo’s E3 press conference and watched replays of Microsoft’s... Read more
A fuller engagement with media (film, music, novels, etc.) requires not only an active imagination (in order to make cinematic leaps or construct visuals from the written word, for example), but also an active memory. We enjoy films, in part, or better connect with the characters because we remember similar joyful or painful experiences that they endure in the film. On a much more serious level, theologian Miroslav Volf turns his attention to the importance of memories in his recent... Read more
Richard here. There comes a point–maybe it’s after studying a bunch of obscure films for a graduate degree–that you discover you’re completely culturally out of touch with the rest of the world. (more…) Read more
Richard here. After six years of developing and submitting (and re-submitting, and re-submitting) a paper on the menstrual themes in Pan’s Labyrinth, I finally have my first published, peer-reviewed paper. Here’s the link to the Journal of Religion and Film, along with illustrations of certain key concepts. (more…) Read more
Richard here. In the spirit of going ahead and writing about things even though they’ve been out for weeks, I have some thoughts to add about The Hunger Games. (more…) Read more
Traveling throughout Southeast Asia, my wife Amy and I have seen labor exploitation up close. On a recent outing in Cambodia, we paid about $10 to ride a bamboo train. When talking to some locals at the turnaround point of our journey, we learned that our driver, the person doing all the heavy lifting, would barely see a pittance of that fee. It’s a small example, but a crystal clear version of what we’ve suspected has gone on in numerous... Read more
The more vivid your memories of the ’80s, the more you’ll love Ernest Cline‘s Ready Player One. It’s the geek out of all geek outs…with some nice its of commentary on digital vs. real and our reliance on virtual worlds and, just maybe, a bit of post-apocalypticism thrown in to boot. (more…) Read more
In a recent movie post over at Deadspin, Tim Grierson and Will Leitch posted about Joss Whedon‘s history in Hollywood and and how he’s always been more of a cult phenomenon that couldn’t quite break out into the mainstream. With the runaway success and critical acclaim surrounding last weekend’s release of The Avengers, Whedon is now (as he always has been to his followers) royalty. I’m excited to be co-editing a book on religion in the works of Joss Whedon.... Read more
Richard here. Bully is a raw and disturbing documentary about harassment in schools–a long overdue call to change school culture to defend kids who have been targets of violence from their peers. Anyone who believes in Jesus’ words in Matthew 25:40 should see it. (Read on if you don’t have that one memorized.) (more…) Read more
Joss Whedon‘s latest film, The Cabin in the Woods, directed by and co-written with Drew Goddard is perhaps his most atheistic production to date. Where god(s) and religoin play key roles in other of his works, here he is advocating the destruction of theology…or at least a particular kind. (more…) Read more
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