Go ahead. “Put out into the deep.”

After a month of feeble-to-failed writing sessions, I made myself sit down to write yesterday morning.

I was pretty sure nothing would happen; I was tired and my head was full of practical matters. But I’ve been taught to show up, so, somewhat begrudgingly, I did.

The coffee shop was crowded and noisy. The table was too small. There were too many interruptions. And yet… 

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A Looking Closer Listening Journal: 2012

It’s been a long time since I’ve written music reviews.

I started out writing more music reviews than movie reviews online, but the interest in movie reviews proved to be much more intense, and I adjusted, desiring to go where the lively discussion was happening. But lately, I’ve been missing the pleasure of “finding out what I think” about music, something that happens best when I write about it.

So, I’m going to pick a few hightlights from my listening adventures this year and make a few recommendations. This post will be updated throughout the year.

Here we go: 

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I’m moving!

Big news.

Good Letters, the daily blog hosted by IMAGE journal, where many of my favorite bloggers (including Sara Zarr, Bradford Winters, A.G. Harmon, Allison Backous, and others) contribute inspiring work every month, and where my film reviews are posted twice a month, is moving!

Good Letters will still be hosted by IMAGE, but it will be published on a larger platform that will bring us many new readers (and probably a much livelier circus of comments).

Where is this mysterious new kingdom of blogging?

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Celebrating my Fourth Tweetiversary

Today is the fourth anniversary of the day I joined Twitter: my favorite social networking site.

And, as if in celebration, Twitter is serving up one exciting link after another.

Here are some of the highlights that I’ve discovered there today…

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Bleepity bleep.

More than a decade ago, when I was writing for Christianity Today‘s movie-review website, I invited a variety of Christians who write film reviews to offer their opinions on “foul language” and whether or not Ted Baehr’s Movieguide and other “morality checklist” review sites were justified in their blanket condemnations of movies that contain cussing.

You can revisit that article here.

I thought of that article today when Alan Jacobs posted this link to The Atlantic…

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The Presidents of the United States of America

As America waits to see Steven Spielberg’s Abraham Lincoln film, starring Daniel Day-Lewis in what some are treating as an automatic Oscar-winning performance, here comes another “Hail to the Chief!” kind of movie, starring Bill “He’s Overdue” Murray as FDR.

Here’s the trailer for Hyde Park on the Hudson.

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“I want to be a writer.” “How do I improve my chances of getting published?” “Should I get an agent?”

I get a lot of emails from aspiring writers. Some of them I feel equipped to answer. Some of them I don’t…

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31 years late: Some thoughts on Chariots of Fire

I’ve written a two-part reflection on the 1981 film Chariots of Fire, which is appearing at Good Letters, the blog hosted by IMAGE.

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Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom opens the Cannes Film Festival

Anderson’s cinema contains a peculiar mix that makes it an ideal opening night vehicle. There’s a kind of absolute auteurism, a hyper-aggressive formalism, an insistence on the camera’s view as a proscenium arch inside of which an entirely theatrical universe is created, alongside a lightness, a preference for melancholy swathed in the scent of vanilla, sadness as a weekend romp, the melodramas of parents and the children they don’t understand as storybook fantasies.

Robert Koehler attended this year’s Cannes-opener: Moonrise Kingdom, the new film by Wes Anderson.

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I feel I’ve climbed a mountain.

Need a book that will keep you up past bedtime turning pages… even though it’s as big as a nightstand? 

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