A local sports talk radio host frequently comments on the importance of family, arguing that at the end of the day, they’re the only people you can really count on…the only people who’ve been with you from the start. Of course, this is only one half of the story. Jonathan Tropper‘s most recent novel, This Is Where I Leave You, tells the other half. (more…) Read more
Film and religion professor Terry Lindvall recently alerted me to Theodora Goes Wild (1936), a screwball comedy starring Irene Dunne and Melvyn Douglas. The DVD also contains another comedy, Together Again (1944), starring Dunne and Charles Boyer. Both films offer an entertaining dialogue between iconoclastic behavior and conventional social mores, even if the outcomes are conservative and expected. (more…) Read more
It’s hard to talk about the Coen brothers’ most spiritual film, because in one way or another, whether clothed in humor or extreme violence, all of their films speak to the spiritual. However, their most recent film, A Serious Man, might be their most explicitly spiritual in that the lead character undertakes something of a quest to find spiritual and theological answers to a series of trial and tribulations that beset him. (more…) Read more
This fall, I have been teaching a course entitled Theological Crises and the Development of American Cinema. It’s a glorified film history course in which we look at the theological implications of cinematic representations of sex, violence, gender, race/ethnicity, and religion. A couple of weeks ago, I lectured on the Hollywood studio system that thrived through the late 20s and into the 50s. One key component of this system was what film historian Jeanine Bassinger calls the “star machine.” Hollywood... Read more
Lars von Trier‘s Antichrist is one of the few films that I really want to see this Fall. Film and religion scholar S. Brent Plate wrote about it over the weekend for Religion Dispatches and will write more about it in the coming weeks. You can find the link to his article after the jump. What films are you looking forward to this Fall? (more…) Read more
Barrack Obama’s reception of the Nobel Peace Prize pleased, puzzled, and perturbed in equal measure yesterday. I personally found it an interesting commentary on the state of peacemaking in our world when simple acts of willingness to talk with “the enemy” are considered an extreme, award-worthy stance. Surely much more is needed in the violently interconnected world in which we find ourselves if we are to make stronger in-roads to peace. Recently, I have been catching up on season two... Read more
While re-watching Frost/Nixon, I was struck by one of the opening lines of the film. Reflecting on the whole experience of interviewing Richard Nixon, James Reston, Jr. (Sam Rockwell) says of David Frost (Michael Sheen), “He understood television better than any of us.” I’ve been thinking more and more about the church in the digital age lately and wondering what the church could understand and do better. (more…) Read more
I don’t know how it escaped me, but a draft of this review has been sitting around for a couple of months now. Better late than never! Over the past couple of years, my novel reading has suffered greatly due to “required” reading. I certainly chose wisely when I picked The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski. (more…) Read more
Asterios Polyp. It’s either the name of an obscure Greek philosopher or some sort of intestinal ailment. Actually, it’s neither. Asterios Polyp is the titular character in one of the most engrossing and beautiful graphic novels that I have ever read. Famed graphic novelist David Mazzucchelli has turned out a masterpiece that draws from, and elevates the medium to, high art. (more…) Read more
Pop Theology contributor Richard Lindsay and I discuss one of the year’s best movies after the jump. (more…) Read more
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