The Cursed, which rolled out to theaters this weekend, is a bloody movie. Really bloody. In my review at Plugged In, I said that the film’s reliance on gore undercut its more thoughtful, sophisticated elements. And that’s true. But at the same time, as I think about it, maybe all that blood actually underscores what I think the movie’s all about: The war between the flesh-and-blood animals we are and the better beings God designed us to be. Full Moon... Read more
Linnet Ridgeway-Doyle is hosting a honeymoon cruise up the Nile for all her closest friends. She can afford it, of course: She’s rich, beautiful and deliriously in love. Too bad most of her guests might want to kill her. Tops on the list: Jacqueline de Bellefort, former lover of Linnet’s new husband. Linnet (Gal Gadot) snatched Simon Doyle (Armie Hammer) away from Jacqueline just six weeks before. Perhaps no one should be surprised that the betrayal still stings, but Jacqueline... Read more
The movie industry didn’t return to “normal” in 2021, but it at least looked a little more familiar. Theaters started opening their doors again after being shuttered for most of 2020. People started buying tickets again—especially for Spider-Man: No Way Home. And it felt like moviemakers gave us a nice assortment of films to choose from—traditional blockbusters, artsy indie fare, thrillers, musicals and some dynamite animated flicks. And a lot of those movies ruminate quite a bit about faith, too.... Read more
Spider-Man: No Way Home snared a staggering $253 million in its sticky North American web this weekend—an unheard-of amount in the age of COVID. At a time when roughly half of us are still uncomfortable going to a theater, Spider-Man was just the ticket to drag us back to our friendly neighborhood cinema. If you ask me, it’s worth the trip. No Way Home is a curious blend of past and present, as well as a high-flying introduction to... Read more
Mass, opening nationally Oct. 22, isn’t always easy to watch. But then again, few worthwhile things are easy. Mass takes place almost entirely in the confines of a church—just one room in that church, in fact. Four people spend an afternoon talking about an unimaginable tragedy: Gail and Jay (played by Martha Plimpton and Jason Isaacs) lost their son in a school shooting. Linda and Richard (Ann Dowd and Reed Birney) raised the killer. The film, directed by first-time director... Read more
James Bond is not, by tradition, a particularly loving man. Oh, he certainly is an expert at sex. He’s had more pairings than a communal gym sock. But love? That’s different. Outside an all-too-short marriage in 1969 (terminated by an assassin in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service) and a tender tryst with the turncoat Vesper Lynd (who promptly died in 2006’s Casino Royale), Bond’s relationships rarely last longer than ground beef does at room temperature. Outside his banter with Moneypenny,... Read more
Nothing sets you up for failure like success. We knew this, of course. The Bible tells us so. history does, too. Success can shape us in ways we never wanted, and its pressures can push us out of kilter with ourselves. We see that even in Christianity—maybe especially in Christianity. God’s blessings can pull us away from God Himself. The Jesus Music, an excellent documentary directed by Andrew and Jon Erwin (and in theaters beginning today, Oct. 1), points to... Read more
You don’t expect a lot of spiritual depth from a Ryan Reynolds comedy. But Free Guy—a fun, zany film featuring Reynolds in full PG-13 Deadpool-lite mode—has more heft than you’d expect. First, a quick setup: Free Guy (in theaters today) takes place mainly inside a videogame—a massively multiplayer online role-playing game that looks something like a T-rated version of Grand Theft Auto. Free City is filled to the digital gills with murders, car chases, explosions and, of course, hundreds of... Read more
The ancient Greeks believed that the gates of the underworld—the land of the dead—was guarded by the great three-headed dog Cerberus. He makes sure that no dead soul leaves this gray, shadowed world. And he ensures that few living go through those gates. Life’s journey ends at Cerebus’ gate, where does it begin? And might there be a gate there, too? In Nine Days, a flower of a film written and directed by Edson Oda, there is a gate of... Read more
Natasha Romanoff never asked to be Black Widow. She wanted to be a butterfly; to shed her old skin and transform herself into something better, something new. Maybe that makes her a lot like us. Almost every time we’ve seen Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow on screen, she’s been on a quest that goes deeper than any given mission (no matter how important that mission might be). She’s looking for redemption. And in the new movie Black Widow, that ongoing... Read more
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