You wouldn’t think that Andy from Netflix’s The Old Guard would have much to do with good old George Bailey from It’s a Wonderful Life. George is a decent family man and beloved Bedford Falls citizen. Andy is an immortal warrior who, we’re told, has forgotten more ways to kill than whole armies have ever known. Still, if you ever got them together at a dinner party—and wouldn’t that be something if you did—they’d have more in common than... Read more
Guor Mading Maker was an experienced runner long before he laced up his first pair of track shoes. He’d been running for most of his life. Guor (formerly known as Guor Marial) was born into war. Sudan’s second civil war erupted in 1983, the year before he came into the world, and it raged throughout his entire childhood. When he was 8, Guor’s parents—fearing for his safety in their war-ravaged village—sent Guor off to fend for himself. From that moment... Read more
In the opening minutes of Amazon Prime’s new film, The Vast of Night, the geekily rakish radio D.J. Everett walks through a tiny high school gym in Cayuga, New Mexico, while people pepper him with questions. Can you help fix the electricity? Will you teach me how to use my tape recorder? Can I re-use this reel-to-reel tape to record the game’s play by play? “You read your Bible, Sam?” Everett asks the sports announcer who asks the third question.... Read more
It’s been a strange year for the movie industry, obviously. But while blockbusters have all but disappeared from the horizon, at least for the short term, a number of really interesting films have found their way to the small screen, via video-on-demand. And Scott Teems’ taut, thoughtful The Quarry might just take the early-season prize for 2020’s most spiritually provocative film of the year. (You can rent it through Amazon Prime, Apple, YouTube and a variety of other platforms for... Read more
With most theaters closed, The Other Lamb—an art-house horror film—landed on various video-on-demand services this weekend. It makes for an interesting-if-difficult watch, especially in this strange season of ours. The story takes us into a polygamous cult led by a man we know mostly as “the Shepherd.” He has surrounded himself with women and girls—his own wives and daughters. The Shepherd paints himself as a Messianic figure (played by Michiel Huisman, he even looks like Jesus), and almost everyone... Read more
The movie Wendy hasn’t been as warmly received as director Benh Zeitlin’s breakout film, 2012’s magically weird Beasts of the Southern Wild. Its Rotten Tomatoes rating hovers below 50% right now, and when I asked a fellow film critic how he liked the film, he made a face like I’d forced him to eat chocolate broccoli. I get that. Wendy is a strange tale—a revisionist take on J.M. Barrie’s classic story of Peter Pan that strips out some of its... Read more
I’m no scientist, but I do like science. I’m no pastor, but I do love God. And while I’m no young earth creationist, the Ark Encounter still looks pretty neat. This is not to say the museum/proselytizing center/theme park doesn’t have its share of issues. This full-size ark in Williamstown, Kentucky, is filled with animatronic animals, people and dinosaurs, and naturally it’s packed with controversies, too: The documentary We Believe in Dinosaurs, airing on PBS Monday, Feb. 17, examines most... Read more
The trailer for David Lowery’s intriguing-looking The Green Knight just dropped. Color me excited … and maybe just a bit nervous, too. The movie is based on one of the most famous poems of the late Medieval age, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Hero Sir Gawain—played by Dev Patel—is a knight from King Arthur’s famed Round Table, on par with Lancelot and Galahad. In the poem, the mysterious Green Knight shows up at King Arthur’s castle on Christmas: He... Read more
It’s awards season, of course. The Golden Globes were handed out this weekend, and Oscar nominations will be named on Monday. Plenty of film critics’ associations around the country are doling out their own selected honors, too, including one that I belong to–the Denver Film Critics Society. What follows are the DFCS slate of nominees (in no particular order), along with a few comments of my own: It’ll name the winners next Monday. Best Picture “Little Women” “Jojo Rabbit” “Once... Read more
It’s never easy to piece together these “best of” lists, but I especially struggled this year. First, there’s the funky criteria that Watching God tries to adhere to: cinematic, storytelling excellence coupled with strong, often spiritually resonant messages. Then there’s the perennial difficulty of pitting very different movies against one another. (Can you really say that a difficult, moving drama like Waves is better than this year’s clever retelling of Little Women, for instance?) But this year, for the first... Read more
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