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
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
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”