Looper

Last updated on: September 28, 2012 at 3:33 am By Alexis Neal

Review of Looper, Directed by Rian Johnson By ALEXIS NEAL It’s 2042, thirty years before time travel is finally invented (or do I mean discovered?) and immediately outlawed. But as with most illegal technologies, prohibition does not equal eradication, and the crooks of the future still make use of time travel—most notably in the disposal of individuals who’ve overstayed their welcome. But rather than commit murder on their own time-soil, they ship the live targets back in time to particular... Read more

Terminator 2

Last updated on: September 27, 2012 at 6:30 am By Alexis Neal

Review of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Directed by James Cameron By ALEXIS NEAL It is the summer of 1995, eleven years after Kyle Reese made his fateful trip through time to save (and woo) Sarah Connor, thereby ensuring her survival and the eventual birth of hero and savior of mankind John Connor. But ten-year-old Connor is no hero yet—he spends his days shoplifting, playing video games, and generally disregarding his increasingly at-a-loss foster parents. Meanwhile, his mother Sarah languishes in... Read more

Real Marriage

Last updated on: September 26, 2012 at 6:33 am By Coyle Neal

Review of Real Marriage by Mark and Grace Driscoll By COYLE NEAL First, the basics: this is a book about marriage. Real Marriage, not that fake stuff you see on TV. And, apparently, not that fake stuff you read about in most Christian books either. At least, so the back of the book claims. “This is not”, we are assured in letters that are both bold and italicized, “one of those books” that “assume the author did it right”, “barely mention friendship”, or “use... Read more

Vocational Stewardship for Fashionable Christians

Last updated on: September 25, 2012 at 6:14 am By Paul D. Miller

A Review of Kingdom Calling: Vocational Stewardship for the Common Good by Amy Sherman Reviewed by Paul D. Miller There is so much to admire about Amy Sherman’s Kingdom Calling: Vocational Stewardship for the Common Good that its flaws, omissions, and oversights were grating. Sherman’s basic argument, extending the line of thought covered by Andy Crouch in Culture Making and James Davidson Hunter in To Change the World, is that secular work is not less important than paid “full time ministry.”... Read more

True Grit, Old School

Last updated on: September 24, 2012 at 6:41 am By Alexis Neal

Review of True Grit by Charles Portis By ALEXIS NEAL Mattie Ross is no ordinary fourteen-year-old. She has a head for figures, good business sense, excellent bargaining skills, and a stubborn streak a mile wide. Oh, and she’s looking for the guy who shot her pa. See, her dad was gunned down in cold blood by a low-down no-account good-for-nothing by the name of Tom Chaney, and Mattie’s dead set on making sure he pays for his crime. Unfortunately, Tom... Read more

The Cause versus The Way

Last updated on: September 21, 2012 at 5:58 am By Kendrick Kuo

Review of The Master, Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson By KENDRICK KUO Paul Thomas Anderson (affectionately called PTA) captured my imagination in high school, when a friend introduced me to Magnolia. Following that, I was shocked and challenged by Boogie Nights and more recently deeply appreciated There Will Be Blood. Even his critics admit that he is a master of his craft and admire his ingenuity and audacity to keep pushing the line in Hollywood. This brazen disregard for conventions,... Read more

Madam Bovary

Last updated on: September 20, 2012 at 6:38 am By Paul D. Miller

Review of Madam Bovary by Gustave Flaubert By PAUL D. MILLER [Spoilers] Emma Bovary is an idiotic, listless romantic who pines for love and meaning. She tries to find it in novels, marriage, motherhood, two adulterous affairs, Catholic religion, and opulent living. Crushed by debt, she commits suicide. The end. Despite its perfunctory plot, Madame Bovary is nonetheless engaging and Flaubert has some wonderfully descriptive prose. The characters have depth and the book kept my attention. The problem is that I simply... Read more

The Sacred Science

Last updated on: September 19, 2012 at 6:22 am By Coyle Neal

Review of The Sacred Science, Directed by Nicholas Polizzi By COYLE NEAL Nicholas Polizzi’s The Sacred Science takes eight people out of the West and into the Amazon (the jungle, not the website—though that would possibly have been a better movie) and puts them under the care of tribal shamans. The goal is to see if there is medicinal and curative wisdom to be found in traditional cultures with access to different tools than we have here in civilization. Along... Read more

Searching for Sugar Man: An Artist’s Resurrection and Rebirth

Last updated on: September 18, 2012 at 6:29 am By Christian Hamaker

Review of Searching for Sugar Man, directed by Malik Bendjelloul By CHRISTIAN HAMAKER This September, a singer from Detroit performed “a charming and awesomely odd show”—his first in the Washington, D.C., area in many years. It was a wonder he attracted a paying audience, given his relative obscurity and advancing years, and the fact that, even in his heyday, he never had much of a U.S. following. But the performer, Sixto Rodriguez, has been recently rediscovered in America thanks to... Read more

Tokyo Loneliness

Last updated on: September 17, 2012 at 6:26 am By Paul D. Miller

Review of Tokyo Story, Directed by Yasujiro Ozu By PAUL D. MILLER Roger Ebert recently updated his personal list of the ten best film of all time. I had seen eight of them and knew of a ninth, but had never even heard of the tenth. I Googled the mystery film and learned that it is not on the IMBD’s list of the top 250 films of all time and it won no Oscars—so, really, how good could it be? But... Read more