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
The Summer of Soul made me smile. The documentary (the full title of which is Summer of Soul [… Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised]) is playing now in select theaters and Hulu, and it showcases a critical cultural event you’ve probably never heard of: The Harlem Cultural Festival of 1969. Overshadowed by Woodstock even in its own day, the Festival was practically forgotten—the archival footage of the event stashed in someone’s basement for nearly 50 years. Ahmir... Read more
Awake, Netflix’s latest sci-fi thriller featuring a very stressed-out mother (see Bird Box), is a silly, bloody but reasonably interesting flick. No, most critics haven’t loved it: It’s holding a 33% “freshness” rating on Rotten Tomatoes right now. But they’ve overlooked, I think, the movie’s most intriguing theme: Its religion. But to dive into those spiritual elements, we’ll need to get into a few spoilers. Thanks to a really nasty solar flare, the world has gone a little crazy in... Read more
The Conjuring cinematic universe—now eight films strong—is the second highest-grossing horror franchise of all time, having earned nearly $2 billion. Technically, only Godzilla stands taller (with more than $2.3 billion in earnings), but the big guy comes with some asterisks. One, it took Godzilla 36 movies to claim its top spot, and two, it can hardly be called horror if 10-year-old me could watch Godzilla vs. Monster Zero at midnight and still go nightmare free. What has made the Conjuring... Read more
The story behind Netflix’s Blue Miracle (starring Jimmy Gonzalez and Dennis Quaid) is almost too good to be believable: A bunch of kids from a troubled orphanage team up with a crusty, washed-up fisherman and enter the Bisbee’s Black & Blue—sometimes called the Super Bowl of the fishing world—and win the thing. And yet, Blue Miracle (which was released today on Netflix) is based on a true story. And for writer Chris Dowling, the real challenge was to take... Read more
The second trailer for Respect, a biopic of Aretha Franklin and starring the dynamic Jennifer Hudson, just dropped today. Man, if there’s one movie I’m excited about seeing this year, this is it. I’m a big fan of the Queen of Soul. I loved the documentary Amazing Grace, which depicted the recording of her landmark gospel album in 1972. (It became the biggest-selling album in Franklin’s 50-plus-year career.) This year features a double dose of Franklin, which makes 2021 inherently... Read more
Amazon Prime’s The Underground Railroad, based on the 2017 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Colson Whitehead, is both great and terrible: It’s a powerful story with some incredible acting (hand an Emmy to Thuso Mbedu right now), but it can be really hard to watch at times. It’s not just the grotesque abuse we see that makes the show so difficult: Rather, it’s in how true it feels. And for Christians watching, it can be particularly convicting. The limited series centers... Read more
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