Tag: Film
In 2012 I began teaching a course called “Christianity & the Arts,” and in 2014 I published a book on the same subject but directed specifically toward music, entitled Resonate: Enjoying God’s Gift of Music. In the process of researching for both the class and the book, I ended...
Most parents are concerned about how much television their kids watch. Bad parents, we all know, simply set their kids in front of the TV all day, never considering what their kids are watching or what the incessantly shifting images are doing to their kids' brains. But the rest...
Hollywood isn’t known for its adherence to biblical truth. But in some cases, Hollywood returns repeatedly to biblical truths. As with all humanity, Hollywood can’t seem to fully move beyond Jesus, as though Jesus were a “thorn in the brain” (to borrow a phrase from Christian Wiman), a “haunting...
My girls loved Frozen. I loved Frozen. It was a great story that carried great lessons. It was also funny and entertaining. Ultimately, I loved it because it conveys a powerful message about personal growth and fighting for love. And perhaps the best part is that the type of...
Spoiler alert: If you haven’t seen the movie Now You See Me and plan to, you probably don’t want to read this until you’ve seen the movie.
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I recently watched Now You See Me, and I loved it. It’s clever, funny, features a fair amount of action, and comes with...
Yesterday, I talked about the History Channel’s new series on the Bible. As I said, many found the show compelling and faithful to the overall story, if not to every detail of the biblical story. My argument in yesterday’s post was that adapting a book for film is fraught...
Last night, the History Channel aired the first episode of their series on the Bible. I watched the previews for this show with curiosity. For one thing, Hollywood isn’t known for its efforts to protect the accuracy or intent of Scripture. For another thing, if the History Channel wrote...
Before Thanksgiving, my wife and I watched The Perks of Being a Wallflower. As I’ve been looking at the movie lineup this Christmas season, I’m realizing that The Perks of Being a Wallflower is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a while. Not everyone will agree. Viewers...
Most Christians go through life with an uneasy truce with the media. We can’t avoid the media altogether. (Maybe we can, but nobody really does.) But we also distrust it. We find music, movies, and tv shows compelling, but we also sense that we are being asked to believe...
What could Thomas Kinkade possibly have in common with Quentin Tarantino? Both of these artists are famous for portraying only one side of reality. Which means that both give us a deficient view of the world. Of course, artists can’t present every aspect of reality in every work, nor...