Best Films of 2014 – Back and Beyond
December 27, 2014 by Craig Detweiler Co-founder of the Windrider Forum and the 2014 Spirit of Windrider award recipient, Craig Detweiler is Professor of Communication and Director of the Center for Entertainment, Media and Culture at Pepperdine University. A popular cultural commentator, he also blogs as “Doc Hollywood” for Patheos.com, where this article originated. So [...]
Wrestling with Foxcatcher
By Elijah Davidson ,Reel Spirituality Foxcatcher is a quiet film. Like a patriarch who refuses to talk about his feelings, the film sits still, apparently brooding, unbothered by your presence in the room. It takes its time, does what it wants, and only gets up when the game is over. The game, in this case, [...]
Gods and Kings: Ridley Scott’s Exodus and Interfaith Dialogue
By Dr. Kutter Callaway Dr. Callaway is an Affiliate Assistant Professor of Theology and Culture at Fuller Theological Seminary. His musings are typically focused on film, music, and contemporary culture. It had all the makings of a stereotypical joke. You know the one: a Christian, a Muslim, and a Jew walk into a screening of [...]
BIRDMAN – Artistic Souls Laid Bare
By Elijah Davidson for Reel Spirituality The first thing you’ll notice about Birdman is its score. An anxious, a-rhythmic drum solo backs up most of the action lending the film a desperate, scattered emotional tone. The moments when that drum solo breaks and allows more melodic sounds to rise the fore—most often when two characters [...]
Interstellar Movie Review
By Elijah Davidson Christopher Nolan has always been fascinated by time and its effect on what we are able to know about events, people, the world, and ourselves. In Interstellar, Nolan has expanded that time-focused interrogation of epistemology to include the universe and all human history—past and future—as well. Interstellar is a film about space-time and the things that [...]
Argo: Enormously Entertaining
Argo is a rousing, nail-biting throwback to the best of seventies cinema: timely, topical, and tense. It begins with Islamic protesters burning American flags and besieging the U.S. embassy. No, this isn’t a study of current events in Syria or Libya. Argo celebrates spies and the far-fetched plans necessary to get State department employees out of Iran circa [...]
LIFE OF PI: Visual Splendor and Spiritual Hunger
Life of Pi begins in a magical, animal kingdom in Pondicherry, India. Birds and monkeys flight through the trees is especially vivid in 3D. The seamless blend of real animals and digital replicas makes us sit back and relax, confident we are in the hands of a masterful storyteller. Director Ang Lee staged magical moments in [...]
Dark but Imaginative ParaNorman is Outcast-Friendly
Release Date: August 17, 2012 Rating: PG (for scary action and images, thematic elements, some rude humor and language) Genre: Animation/Adventure/Comedy Run Time: 93 min. Directors: Chris Butler, Sam Fell Voices: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Tucker Albrizzi, Anna Kendrick, Casey Affleck, Leslie Mann, Tempestt Bledsoe, Jodelle Ferland Like that weird kid played by Haley Joel Osment [...]
Sweet D…Insightful as always – “The Hunger Games” in China
As the father of two tweens, The Hunger Games movie was a hot topic in our house for months before its premiere. My kids found Suzanne Collins’ trilogy exciting, smart, and intuitive (especially compared to the monotony of Twilight). Katniss Everdeen struck them as a strong, intelligent young woman who sees that there’s more to life than sparkly [...]
Searching For Sugar Man: A Satisfying Secret
How could an artist of such originality and vision as Vincent Van Gogh sell almost no paintings in his lifetime? Groundbreaking television series like Arrested Developmentand The Wire struggled to find an audience during their initial runs. Searching for Sugar Man tackles a similar conundrum. How could a songwriter as deft and poetic as Rodriguez be ignored by radio stations [...]