I love reading year-end lists. I’m not such a big fan of writing them. Hey, it’s not easy to sift through all the year’s movies and come up with what I think are “the best.” What does that even mean, anyway? Are these the best movies, aesthetically speaking? The stuff that secular critics drool over and take home scads of awards? Or are these the movies that I enjoyed the most? The movies that made me smile while leaving the... Read more
I met Carrie Fisher when I was 8 years old. Well, “meet” is perhaps too strong a word. The actress, who died this morning at age 60, didn’t see me. I was just one of dozens of people in a tiny Taos, N.M. movie theater, watching Star Wars. She wasn’t Carrie Fisher to me, of course, but Princess Leia, a beautiful galactic heroine with a rather unflattering hairstyle. She fired laser guns and swung on ropes and cracked jokes like... Read more
I was a scrawny, buck-toothed –year-old when I first saw the first Star Wars movie—known then simply as Star Wars. (No “A New Hope” for us.) It changed my life, no joke. I loved the lasers and light sabers. I loved C-3PO and R2-D2. I hated Darth Vader, but that hatred, of course, made the movie all the more loveable. This clean-cut story of a plucky bunch of ragtag good guys taking on an evil galactic Empire pulled me in... Read more
Grief challenges us in a way nothing else can. When we love and lose someone, it’s as if someone flicked off the lights. We can’t move. We can barely breathe. You’d think that faith would be a hard sell in times of grief. And yet, in those times of agony, faith often rescues us. We lean on that God, even if He feels distant. Our loved ones haven’t left us; they’ve gone home. But faith wraps itself in such strange,... Read more
The following is a guest post from Jedd Medefind, president of the Christian Alliance for Orphans, who recently talked with one of my favorite authors, Katherine Paterson, about some issues pretty close to my own heart. I love what she has to say here. It’s well worth the read. *** Embed from Getty Images “No book made a greater impression on me before high school,” a 40-something magazine editor recently shared with me. My 10-year old daughter said much the... Read more
That Dragon, Cancer was never meant to be the next big video game franchise. You don’t shoot aliens or run anyone off the road. You don’t fight the Joker or, despite its name, even battle any dragons. The game, designed by Ryan and Amy Green, was simply meant to help players understand what they went through as their son, Joel, suffered from and eventually died of cancer. You’re there with the doctors as they break the bad news, despair liberally flooding... Read more
Moana, Disney’s latest animated heroine, sails into theaters this week. While she might not live in a palace or charm the socks off the nearest Prince Charming, everyone—especially the girls who’ll be flocking to see her—knows exactly who and what she is. “You’re in a dress and you’ve got an animal sidekick,” says resident demigod Maui. “You’re a princess.” Princesses have ruled Disney’s magic kingdom since Snow White first trilled into her animated wishing well in 1937. Since the Mouse... Read more
It’s been quite a week. As I type this, I’m hanging out in downtown Denver as an anti-Trump rally winds past me, the sky filled with chants and signs saying “NOT MY PRESIDENT.” However we pulled the lever for, I think most of us can agree that our democracy wasn’t exactly at its brightest this election season. A good many Americans disliked both candidates from the start—a rock-bottom beginning that somehow kept going lower. Most of us had to vote... Read more
Superheroes have always been religious. But Marvel’s great, trippy new movie Doctor Strange takes superhero spirituality to the mirror dimension and unfolds it in a dozen fascinating ways. Underneath all the story’s Eastern mysticism and occult trappings, there’s a deeply Christian undercurrent here. Perhaps we should’ve expected Doctor Strange to be pretty religious. Director Scott Derrickson is one of Hollywood’s best-known and most influential Christians. And Strange (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) is an inherently spiritual character: He doesn’t rely on... Read more
Christianity is bloody. The whole thing started with an execution. If the early Christians had any tact—or, at least, a good PR agency—they would’ve downplayed the religion’s messy, off-putting beginning and encourage prospective newcomers to concentrate on something else. Instead, the cross has become the central symbol of our faith—something we slap on our walls and hang around our necks and embroider on our throw pillows. It’s almost like we’re venerating the electric chair. And when you read the Bible,... Read more
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