Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper, the award-winning biopic based on the military career of Chris Kyle, was released on video May 19. With the proceeds, Warner Brothers plans to donate up to $1 million to the Wounded Warrior Project. I’m a big fan of Clint Eastwood’s directing, and while American Sniper wasn’t my favorite of his, it was still pretty well crafted (albeit full of seriously hard R-rated content). It made nearly $350 million in theaters and was nominated for six Academy... Read more
We Christians talk a lot about our broken world. And let me tell you, worlds don’t look much more broken than they do in the Mad Max movies. So given all that brokenness, maybe it’s not so surprising that religion and faith are important thematic elements in Mad Max: Fury Road. Through muscle, cruelty and a convenient monopoly on water, Immortan Joe has appointed himself as savior to his portion of parched land. He lives on high in a pillar... Read more
Legendary blues artist B.B. King died last night at the age of 89. King’s influence on American music can’t be overstated. Through his dirt-road voice and exuberant guitar work (often on his famed favorite Gibson guitar Lucille), King brought the blues to mainstream audiences. You can read The New York Times‘ obituary of King here, but for my money, King might’ve been one of the greatest American musicians ever, ranking alongside the likes of Elvis Presley, Ray Charles and Billie Holiday. The blues... Read more
I’ve spent lots of time talking about superheroes lately—their their choices, their longings, their guilt, their sometimes problematic Christ complexes. Heroes don’t just wear colorful body armor or turn green when they’re angry, of course. Some are very human indeed. But their work is, in some respects, no less extraordinary. Noble, released in about 175 theaters this weekend, is a dramatization of the work of Christina Noble, an Irishwoman who heard a call of her own and followed it all... Read more
If he was alive, Orson Welles would’ve celebrated his 100th birthday today. Perhaps he’d celebrate it by watching his cameo in The Muppet Movie (where I first saw him) and sipping a glass of inexpensive wine. Welles might be one of the most influential entertainers ever. The guy did a little bit of everything, from avant-garde Shakespearian stage productions to headline-grabbing radio theater (his 1938 War of the Worlds broadcast triggered nationwide panic) to, of course, movies. Citizen Kane, his... Read more
Avengers: Age of Ultron has been out for, oh, about 90 seconds, and already you’re seeing them: T-Shirts, bumper stickers and mugs bearing the slogan “Jarvis is my co-pilot.” We see the bumper sticker ever-so-briefly when Tony Stark’s flying the Avengers’ quinjet. It’s a quick glimpse, but it speaks volumes—Tony’s reliance on his disembodied computer helper, a sly tweak on those ever-popular “God is my co-pilot” stickers and a bit of foreshadowing of what’s to come in this spiritually self-aware... Read more
Superhero stories often have religious oomph to them. It’s only natural, really: You’re dealing with tales that dive into the nature of good and evil, are predicated on themes of justice and redemption and often star cape-wearing demigods. But who or what, exactly, do these superhuman wonders worship themselves? That can be tricky to parse. Thankfully, a site called comicbookreligion.com helps keep track of all this spirituality. And according to the site, The heroes we’ll see in The Avengers: Age... Read more
The Dark Knight Rises, the most anticipated movie of the year, was opening at midnight across the country, including Century 16 in Aurora, Colo. Hundreds of Batman fans filed into the theater, many in costume. No one thought much about the guy with the shock-orange hair that July night in 2012. Not until he started shooting. About 30 minutes after the movie started, James Holmes—wearing a gas mask—threw a couple of smoke bombs and fired a 12-gauge shotgun into the... Read more
I’ve got a list of favorite books. F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men. Charles Dickens’ Bleak House. But if I had to name just one book—my favorite book—it might be Antoine de Saint Exupéry’s haunting The Little Prince. It is a simple, beautiful and profound story, as gauzy and sometimes as perplexing as a dream. I don’t think any movie can ever fully capture the charm of the book, but this trailer gives... Read more
Most evangelical Christians don’t cotton to horror movies. Ever since King Saul and the Witch of Endor spent some scandalous time together, we’ve been cautious of anything that carries the tang of the occult—the bread and butter of most horror flicks. They’re typically filled with all sorts of issues that we call out at Plugged In, and some Christians believe they’re the work of the devil. Given the general evangelical loathing of fright flicks, it’s interesting how oddly moral they can be.... Read more
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