Faith comes easier when everything else is hard. Mark “Oz” Geist, Kris “Tanto” Paronto and John “Tig” Tiegen get it. As three of the real life “secret soldiers” portrayed in 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi (coming out this Friday), they know what it’s like to sit on a roof and wonder whether your next hour will be your last. They’ve felt the precious, delicate gift of life in a way that few of us have. “People say ‘I... Read more
The United States is getting more secular all the time, we’re told. And yet religion has never been so big—at least on screen. Forget about 2014, the so-called “Year of the Christian Movie.” This year will feature several promising Christian flicks with recognizable, borderline A-list stars, and a number of Hollywood’s buzziest secular offerings have a pretty explicit faith angle, too—be it a silly spin or seriously theological. What follows is not a complete rundown, but it gives you an idea of... Read more
Quentin Tarantino frustrates the snot out of me. He is, unquestionably, a master craftsman. He has an eye for breathtaking visuals, an ear for mesmerizing, often gorgeous dialogue. But he has a taste for blood, too—so much so that his movies require a separate budget for it. And it often spoils his movies. I know, I know. The blood is all for show, I’m told. It’s meant to look fake and stylized and, in some strange way, pull us out... Read more
I love reading lists, but I don’t like making them. Choosing the “best” movies of the year is a little like trying to pick your “best” day. Would it be that day when you woke up at the perfect time and ate your perfect breakfast and everything seemed just completely right with the world? Or would it be that horrible day when you had to make that painful decision that, nevertheless, turned out to be exactly the right decision to... Read more
I may not bleed orange and blue, but on game days I sweat the colors a little. I love the Denver Broncos, and I don’t think that’s too strong a word for it. It’s practically a requirement when you live in Colorado, and those that don’t cotton to ’em around these here parts are destined for a lifetime of scorn and crusty looks. When people ask me what my favorite television shows are, I say “football,” and I will always,... Read more
When I think of music’s great voices, I think of Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan, Aretha Franklin and Adele. Amy Winehouse was as good as any of ‘em. She was a tiny girl with massive pipes—her voice brassy and buttery and frayed at the edges. She was at once behind and ahead of the times—a classic jazz singer who became a pop phenomenon, a women who claimed the past and made it her own. “She had the complete gift,” the... Read more
Embed from Getty Images Jim McDermott doesn’t want me, or you, or anyone to tell him about Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens. In an article in America, the Catholic priest goes so far as to say that spoilers are a sin. Maybe not a mortal sin, but certainly some demerits on the spoiler’s karmic register. (Sorry for the mixed religious references there.) He writes: We’ve just started the Year of Mercy. And I feel pretty confident spoiling Star... Read more
Kylo Ren isn’t all that he pretends to be. When we first meet him in Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, Ren (played by Adam Driver) is doing his best to look, sound and act just like his idol, Darth Vader. He wears a fearsome black mask. He has a seriously wicked-looking red light sabre. He can telepathically choke people like nobody’s business. Like Vader, he serves as a spiritual leader to a galactic power—the First Order, an organization... Read more
In the Heart of the Sea gets under your skin. It’s hard for movies to stand out in December, surrounded as they are by Oscar contenders and box-office heavyweights. But a good movie sticks with you. And I’ve been noodling on this one for a couple of days. Directed by Ron Howard, In the Heart of the Sea is based on the true story of the whaling ship The Essex (and, by extension, the non-fiction book by Nathaniel Philbrick). The... Read more
“You gotta serve somebody,” Bob Dylan once sang. And whatever their faults may be, the Minions at least get that. We’re not into the movie three minutes before its narrator tells us directly what they’re built to do: Serve the biggest, baddest, most evilly evildoer imaginable. Well, at least until they accidentally kill him. They serve the Tyrannosaurus Rex until they knock him off a cliff. They serve a medieval vampire until they open his crypt’s curtains for a little... Read more
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