Released last summer in theaters, and now available on DVD, The War Room was the most surprising hit film of 2015—and one of the most rewarding. It is an explicitly Christian drama which proclaims Christ as Lord and Savior, affirms the power of prayer, and emphasizes the reality and danger of . . . . Continue Reading »
Believing in absolutely nothing is harder than it looks. The ultra-skeptical Arcesilaus, head of the Platonic Academy in the third century b.c., tried his best: When confronted with the saying “I only know that I know nothing,” which was attributed to Socrates, he is supposed to have replied . . . . Continue Reading »
This year two films on suicide took home Oscars: Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1 for best Documentary Short Film and The Phone Call for best Live Action Short Film. Both speak with quiet eloquence about the power of love in the face of death.
Patrick Cassidy, the composer for the 2014 film Calvary, jokes about the film’s grimness: “It’s not exactly a date movie.” He’s right: The film follows a lonely Irish priest as he shepherds a cold and bitter village. Its harsh realism is profoundly humbling. Heavy as the film is, it is lifted by Cassidy’s classical score. Continue Reading »
Humans typically situate their divinities at the border of the cosmos. The Israelites and Babylonians understood the solid sky to represent the edge of the created order and placed gods there accordingly. Whether YHWH or Marduk, deities reside at the farthest limit of the world. Modern science has expanded the cosmos so far beyond the ancient imagination that not only do we now find the idea of divinities living in the sky absurd, but we cannot even place new gods at the edge. There is neither absolute space nor privileged location in the new, constantly expanding universe. Continue Reading »
During the 1970s Paul Williams’s talents as a singer, songwriter, composer and actor were in high demand. His song, “Evergreen”— sung by Barbara Streisand for the film A Star is Born—won an Academy Award and reached number one on the pop charts. He produced similar hits for the Carpenters, Helen Reddy, and David Bowie. He wrote the celebrated score for Bugsy Malone, and appeared in numerous films himself—stealing the show as a wisecracking bootlegger in Smokey and the Bandit. On television, Williams became a ubiquitous presence, co-hosting the Merv Griffin and Mike Douglas shows, and appearing on the Tonight Show an astonishing forty-eight times. In 1979, Williams became even more famous when he wrote The Rainbow Connection, the theme for Jim Henson’s Muppet Movie. Continue Reading »
In a scene cut from The Exorcist’s 1973 theatrical version, Jason Miller’s Fr. Damien Karras sits with Max von Sydow’s Fr. Lankester Merrin on the stairs of the MacNeil house, and the two Jesuits discuss why the child Regan has become a monster. Continue Reading »
Upon its release fifteen years ago, the distributors of The Blair Witch Project realized they had a phenomenon in hand. An innovative marketing campaign had built interest in the film by leading people to websites displaying fake news stories and information about the witch and the killings. . . . . Continue Reading »
Wes Anderson is one of the most vital, personal, and distinctive American filmmakers of his generation, an exacting auteur whose florid signature blazes across his work. Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Darjeeling . . . . Continue Reading »
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