4 Great, Tough Lessons I Learned From Silence

Last updated on: March 28, 2017 at 3:06 pm By Paul Asay

Silence, Martin Scorsese’s beautiful, difficult and overlooked masterpiece on faith, is out on Blu-Ray and DVD as of this very day. I’ll be buying it and watching it again—forcing anyone I can to watch it with me. Admittedly, it’s not a fun movie to watch. Unlike most “Christian” movies we’re familiar with, Silence isn’t interested in encouraging its audience or bolstering its collective faith. Instead, it takes Christian moviegoers on a dark, unblinking journey through the valley of the shadow... Read more

Basketball Belief: How the 16 Teams Left in March Madness Reflect Spirituality

Last updated on: March 23, 2017 at 6:10 am By Paul Asay

No more Friars. No more Demon Deacons. Even those hated Blue Devils are gone. The NCAA Basketball Tournament has been hard on teams with religious nicknames. And for casual fans like to inject a little spiritual insanity into their March Madness (and whose brackets are already busted), it’s hard to know just who to root for. Is there a team that a Christian can embrace because of the team’s spirituality? Who would Jesus pick? Well, fear not, casual fans. This... Read more

3 Ways Christianity Sneaks Into Beauty and the Beast (Despite that ‘Gay Moment’)

Last updated on: March 16, 2017 at 2:06 pm By Paul Asay

I’m pretty sure that Bill Condon wishes he had just kept his mouth shut. Condon, director of Disney’s soon-to-be-blockbuster Beauty and the Beast, told the British magazine Attitude that one of the characters, LeFou, has a “nice, exclusively gay moment” in the film. And with those words, an otherwise innocuous PG film became a flashpoint to the still surprisingly lively culture wars weeks before its release. Some people loved the concept of a “gay moment” in a Disney flick, of... Read more

Lent on the Small Screen: Watch Movies Based on All Four Gospels (and Win One, Too!)

Last updated on: March 14, 2017 at 6:01 pm By Paul Asay

We’re in the middle of Lent right now, a time of year when many Christians try to be especially mindful of Jesus and the incredible sacrifice He made for us. Its 40-day duration is meant to remind us of Jesus’ time in the wilderness. We give things up for Lent as a form of fasting. The whole season, if we observe it, is meant to bring us closer to God. Little wonder that so many Christian filmmakers release their movies during... Read more

Christianity and Kong: What Hollywood’s Biggest Ape Has in Common With The World’s Largest Religion

Last updated on: March 10, 2017 at 12:34 pm By Paul Asay

We can’t ignore the 800-ton gorilla in the room. Kong: Skull Island stomps into theaters today, pounding his chest, tearing apart dinosaurs and (its makers hope) thrilling a new generation of moviegoers. If we’ve learned anything since Kong first appeared 84 years ago, it’s that we just can’t get enough of the big lug. Kong made his debut in 1933 in the classic King Kong, and the gorilla’s original story has all the flavor of a Greek tragedy: This gigantic... Read more

The Zookeeper’s Wife Looks Intense

Last updated on: March 9, 2017 at 10:38 am By Paul Asay

It’s going to be quite the March at the movies. Seems like the month is slammed with the sort of high-profile popcorn munchers that we’d typically see in May or June. Logan’s already made more than $100 million in less than a week. Kong: Skull Island barrels into theaters tomorrow. (Kong? Barrels? Never mind.) Beauty and the Beast debuts March 17. By comparison, The Zookeeper’s Wife is flying a bit under the radar–a lamb to these early-month lions. But it looks... Read more

Logan is a Christian Fable Disguised as a Superhero Story

Last updated on: March 6, 2017 at 2:23 pm By Paul Asay

Logan’s a rough ride—raw and bloody and dark. And it’s the best superhero film since The Dark Knight. It succeeds in part because it’s not trying to be a superhero film. While Logan and Charles Xavier (Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart, both in their final turns as the characters) were once indeed superheroes, this story is worlds away from the genre’s colorful bombast. It’s a Western filled with parched land and frontier justice, or maybe a strange family drama.... Read more

CNN Finds a Pretty Good Show in Finding Jesus

Last updated on: March 3, 2017 at 1:29 pm By Paul Asay

If you took each hour-long episode of CNN’s Finding Jesus: Faith, Fact Forgery and distilled it to its essence, you’d be left with about a 90-second show. Take Sunday’s season premiere (airing at 9 p.m. EST and PST), “The Pilate Stone.” It’s centered on a chunk of limestone discovered in 1961 in what was the ancient city of Caesarea. It bears part of a dedication carved between 26 and 37 A.D., and includes the name “Pontius Pilatus,” or Pontius Pilate—proving... Read more

Hugh Jackman Leaving Logan Behind (But Not, Apparently, His Faith)

Last updated on: March 2, 2017 at 11:42 am By Paul Asay

Logan tears into theaters this weekend, and I think it’ll be 2017’s first bona fide blockbuster. Critics love the thing, and Logan’s resonant Super Bowl commercial didn’t hurt interest any. But the biggest buzz surrounds Hugh Jackman, who says this’ll be his last turn as the titular character. That’s right: After nine movies and 17 years as Wolverine, Jackman’s hanging up his claws. “I don’t think he ever viewed it as ‘could be [his last appearance as Wolverine],’” Logan Director... Read more

Let’s Have Viola Davis Accept All the Oscars

Last updated on: February 27, 2017 at 1:39 pm By Paul Asay

Leave it to one little mistake to hijack all the Oscars. Hey, I get it. When something goes according to plan, it’s not news: It’s business as usual. When something goes wrong—like, switching envelopes for the biggest award of the night wrong—people are bound to talk about it. But if it hadn’t been for that strange switcheroo, you know what people would’ve been talking about? Viola Davis’ acceptance speech. For all of Oscar’s sometime unpredictability (see above), Davis’... Read more