ABOUT SCHMIDT
At first brush, Warren Schmidt, the central character of this acclaimed film,
would be easy to dismiss—his spiritual hunger appears negligible; his
existence
mundane—except for one thing: He is a whole lot like many of
us.
AMAZING GRACE
I had mixed feelings about the film Amazing Grace, which opened in
theaters
on February 23. It was powerful, inspiring, and important—but
it was also, at
times, confusing and incomplete.
BATMAN BEGINS
Batman Begins is the first truly great superhero film. While most
superhero films tend to emphasize spectacle over story, Batman Begins
is more akin to a character study masquerading as an action movie.
BLADE RUNNER, THE FINAL CUT (2007)
Many fans of Harrison Ford know nothing about this, his most intriguing,
challenging and disturbing film.
BROKEN FLOWERS
Broken Flowers, the latest film from director Jim Jarmusch, is
something of a
puzzle. The movie is centered around Don Johnston,
played by Bill Murray, a
preoccupied man who lives in the luxury
penthouse/prison of his own narcissism.
CLOVERFIELD
Cloverfield is the product of three people whose pedigrees are mostly built on television.... these men have a strong sense for the postmodern aesthetic, where meaning is left to the viewer, narrative is based on the putting-together of loose strands, and the standards of beauty are entirely subjective.
CRASH
When people of faith go to the movies, they’re often on the lookout for
spiritual content. For some films the search is more fruitful than for
others.
In the case of Crash, 2006's Academy Award® winner for
Best Picture, the
spiritually minded will not be disappointed.
DARK MEN BROODING
We might boldly ask of these films, and those who populate them, what they would teach us about our faith lives.
HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE
With each installment of the series, author J.K. Rowling
has increased
the spookiness and seriousness and danger, inching us along a
seven-year tale of darkness and division and looming death-crusades, as
we have
learned who Voldemort is, what makes him so, and what he’ll do
to earn his own
brand of everlasting life.
HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX
Before he undertook the Herculean adaptation of Harry Potter and the Order
of
the Phoenix, J.K. Rowling’s fifth installment in the
inextinguishable Potter
series, the director David Yates dwelt mostly
in the world of television, making
small-stage dramas about power—how
it’s wielded, who has it, how quickly it can
transmogrify into the
apparatus of the corrupt or of the good.
HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN
Harry Potter fans who have been eagerly awaiting the bespectacled young
wizard’s return to Hogwarts will not be disappointed.
HOTEL RWANDA
The majority of films are forgettable. A slim minority are entertaining. A precious few are insightful. And then, every so often, a film comes along that is truly significant. Hotel Rwanda is one such film.
LEVITY
Levity—featuring the stellar cast of Billy Bob Thornton (Manual
Jordan),
Morgan Freeman (Miles Evans), Holly Hunter (Adele Easley), and
Kirsten Dunst
(Sofia)—has earned major yawns from the professional
movie critics who can't
stand it and sustained applause from those who
highly appraise it. Such
ambiguous responses point to the movie's value
for the religious seeker, for the
film plumbs one of faith's
most ambiguous themes—the price of redemption.
MEL GIBSON'S THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST
The movie is like an extended nineteenth-century revivial sermon that is long on judgment and short on grace.
MILLION DOLLAR BABY
Right
when the formula calls for a “Rocky-like” character to
start shouting “Adrian!
Adrian!” with his/her eyes swollen shut and
arms raised in victory, Eastwood
pulls the old “one-two” and knocks us
face-first onto the canvas.
PAN'S LABYRINTH
Pan's Labyrinth runs under the tagline “Innocence has a power evil cannot
imagine,” but
happily Mr. del Toro labors at that truth with love,
teasing it out slowly, so
that finally we are compelled to do some
pretty heavy lifting if we want what
this piece is offering us
RAY
If you are like me and all you know about Ray
Charles going in is that
he was blind and smiled a lot when he played the piano,
I strongly urge
you to see this film.
SAVED!
When Hilary Faye (played by Mandy Moore), the most perfect and self-righteous
teenage Christian prom queen, gets her comeuppance in Saved!,
you don’t know
whether to applaud or feel a twinge of concern.
SEABISCUIT
Every now and then a big production movie comes along whose impact
outpaces all the pre-release hype that puts it prancing in the starting
gate.
The movie startles and carries you for a ride worth remembering,
if not taking
over and again. Seabiscuit is such a movie.
SHADOWLANDS
Shadowlands is a touching, intelligent film about Narnia’s
creator, C.
S.
Lewis, and his brief but tragic love affair with Joy Davidman
Gresham.
