Over the Rhine’s Christmas Playlist

Here now, is what Over the Rhine would play for you if you asked to hear something besides their own extraordinary Christmas recordings...


1 Comment6 Minutes

Coyote Hunting at Christmas with Linford Detweiler

In this, my fourth Looking Closer conversation with Linford Detweiler of Over the Rhine, we talked about the stories behind the songs on the band's third "Reality Christmas" album, Blood Oranges in the Snow.


0 Comments24 Minutes

Alissa Wilkinson’s Christmas Playlist

When inquiring of my favorite writers and artists about the Christmas music that means the most to them, I turned habitually to someone I tend to ask for recommendations in almost everything.


0 Comments16 Minutes

Looking Elsewhere: Dec. 4, 2014

Here are a few recent distractions and discoveries from elsewhere on the web that gave me fleeting moments of relief from the storms of a Bad News Week.


1 Comment4 Minutes

Ashley Cleveland’s Christmas Playlist

Our Christmas Playlist Party continues! Here's one of the most soulful musicians I've ever had the pleasure of seeing live: Grammy award-winning gospel singer Ashley Cleveland.


0 Comments5 Minutes

Joe Henry’s Christmas Playlist

Our first Christmas Playlist Party host? Please welcome Grammy award-winning producer, poet, and musician Joe Henry, whose new album "Invisible Hour" is, at this writing, my favorite record of 2014 and the one I have played most often.


2 Comments7 Minutes

Cinematic States Contest Winner

Last week, I invited you to tell us which movie best captures the character of your home territory. The winner would receive a signed copy of the book "Cinematic States," Gareth Higgins' thought-provoking tour of the U.S.A. by the way it is revealed through its movies. Whose name did I draw from the hat?


2 Comments14 Minutes

The New World (2007): Looking Closer’s Thanksgiving Movie

So, putting on my film critic hat, I will do as I usually do at Thanksgiving — I will recommend that we remember the origins of this nation, that we reflect on the early days of European culture converging and clashing with Native American culture, through the lenses, the imagination, the eyes, and the conscience of Terrence Malick. My Thanksgiving movie is the "Extended Cut" of The New World.


0 Comments26 Minutes

Rough Neighborhood

A Note About Facebook, Comments, and Social Media Manner


6 Comments8 Minutes

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 (First Impressions)

Our futures will be shaped by the capacity of rising generations to challenge and test what their screens and gadgets tell them about the world, and The Hunger Games is a parable for them, about them, summoning them to demand freedom, human rights, and the truth.


2 Comments5 Minutes

Saving Christmas (2014): A Looking Closer Film Forum

Featuring a guest review by my new friend N. D. Wilson, author of Boys of Blur, Death by Living, 100 Cupboards, and more.


4 Comments16 Minutes

Interstellar (2014)

After I got home from seeing Interstellar — I saw it in good old-fashioned 35 mm, not in IMAX — I had mixed feelings about the movie, and decided I would jot down a few notes. About 90 minutes later, I was still writing.


3 Comments24 Minutes

Birdman (2014)

I've read that Birdman is a movie that pulls back the curtain to reveal (surprise!) that show-biz is really just a hell of egomaniacs on adrenalin highs, using and abusing one another for stardom, and taking the name of "art" in vain. The rumors are true... it does.


3 Comments11 Minutes

Looking Elsewhere: Star Wars – Episode VII, Interstellar, The Hobbit, Best U2 Punchlines, Glen West 2014, Hayao Mizyazaki, Sandworms, George Lucas, Collateral

Did you hear the one about the door of U2's private jet falling off mid-flight? Best punchline for that set-up wins...


1 Comment4 Minutes

Blaze of Gory

On Christmas Day 2012 — while Americans were still grieving for victims of the Newtown elementary-school massacre — "Django Unchained," the new film by Quentin Tarantino, opened nationwide. This week, as my community grieves the loss of lives in two recent Seattle school shootings, Tarantino's hyperviolent Western has arrived on Netflix.


1 Comment7 Minutes

Ragamuffin (2014) – A Guest Review by Martin Stillion

"... if the goal of Ragamuffin is to get viewers to reconsider the life and music of Mullins, who’s been dead these seventeen years ... : I have some of his stuff playing on YouTube right now. If the goal was for the film to be a work of art in itself, then there’s a lot more work to be done."


4 Comments8 Minutes

Deliver Us From Evil (2014)

Arriving on home video just in time for Halloween, Scott Derrickson's "Deliver Us From Evil" delivers a creative tangle of tropes and trippy special effects, aiming to do better than merely making us jump out of our seats. And it succeeds.


0 Comments23 Minutes

Battle in Seattle (2007)

#Ferguson. #WTO. #U2iPhone6 Why am I not tweeting my outrage? Have I been pummeled numb by scandal, injustice, and atrocity? Have I become hard-hearted?


1 Comment3 Minutes

Calvary (2014): A Looking Closer Film Forum

"I don't think it will be winning any awards from the Christian world. ... It takes place in a universe very like ours."


0 Comments11 Minutes

Left Behind (2014): A Looking Closer Film Forum

This post will be updated over the next few days, so check back as this thrilling — dare I say rapturous? — cinematic occasion unfolds!


19 Comments10 Minutes

The Christian Message of David Fincher’s Gone Girl . . . (Not Really)

One of my favorite writers on the subject of art, faith, and culture — Alissa Wilkinson — has seen "Gone Girl," the new film by David Fincher. Let's ask her: "What's the message of the movie?"


4 Comments9 Minutes

Chef (2014)

What are the greatest movie moments that involve sandwiches?


3 Comments8 Minutes

Looking Closer with Jeffrey Overstreet

(now the ears of my ears awake andnow the eyes of my eyes are opened)

– e. e. cummings, “i thank You God for most this amazing”