Hilarious Short
Take a look at this short comedy film by uber-talented On the Lot contestant Zach Lipovsky. This is not the last time you'll hear of Mr. Lipovsky-- I can't imagine he'll lose the competition or fade...
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Pixar Produces Another Instant Classic
Just when you think our culture's imagination is in full retreat, taking to the comfortable hills of easy formulas, Pixar strikes again with another instant classic. Unlike the Shrek series, Pixar's...
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"Worst Miscalculation This Side of Ishtar"
A JP Catholic student recently forwarded this very interesting article about the failure of Evan Almighty in connecting with Christian audiences. Though I haven't seen the movie yet, the author seems...
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Leo Tolstoy on Film
I found a pretty cool quote from Leo Tolstoy the other day. The great 19th century Russian author saw the immense impact film would have once it emerged on the world stage - and he died in 1910 at a...
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Harry Potter
Despite the relentless prodding of my sister to read the Harry Potter books, I've fallen too hopelessly behind in the series to care much about the release of the new movie and last book. For all those...
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Evan can wait
Hello! This is Martin's wife Sara and I'm going to join him as a contributor to this blog. I'd like to begin by offering my thoughts on "Evan Almighty," the recent mega-million dollar "Christian"...
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Raging Bull
Jake LaMotta reportedly quipped that he didn't know the full extent of his own depravity until he watched Raging Bull, Scorsese's 1980 flick based on the boxer's autobiography. It's a testament to...
View ArticleWhere have all the ideas gone?
It's been a common complaint of late that Hollywood has lost its creativity. The theaters have been inundated with sequels and remakes, or both. Who would have thought a few years ago that one of this...
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"You Talking About Cuba?"
Sergei Eisenstein, despite his fall from Soviet grace, left a powerful resume as the most prolific and talented propagandist to ever live. His energetic "collision montage" painted an image of drama...
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Simpsons Movie: A Return to Form
I filed into the theater last night at midnight with an eclectic throng of Simpsons faithful. While not as rowdy as the Harry Potter and Pirates of the Caribbean crowds whose wild din pierced through...
View ArticleIngmar Bergman Dies at 89
The associated press reports that Ingmar Bergman died at the age of 89. The only movie I've seen of his was the abstruse and densely allegorical Seventh Seal, an existential tale about a knight's game...
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The Gospel According to the Simpsons
Here we go, another Simpsons post....This morning talk show host Laura Ingraham was talking about Mark Pinsky, a journalist with the Orlando Sentinel and author of the book The Gospel According to the...
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Becoming Jane
While Martin was on business trip to Wichita, I went with my sister to see Becoming Jane. It's a biopic (sort of) about the early life and romance of Jane Austen. (It's very much a fictional tale,...
View ArticleMichaelangelo Antonioni, RIP
Check out this video of Monthy Python making reference to Michaelangelo Antonioni, another great film director who died on July 30, the same day as Ingmar Bergman. Anontioni was a mid-century Italian...
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Fellini's 'La Strada'
Martin and I recently watched Federico Fellini's La Strada (stay tuned for his more sophisticated opinions), on a special edition DVD introduced by Martin Scorcese. Scorcese cites Fellini as a seminal...
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In the Valley of Elah
It shouldn't bother us much when big screen stars patronize us daily with their moral superiority, or when they sound off on politics with inflated self-importance, or when they do all of the above...
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If only Hitler had denounced British imperialism...
I know I'm late to the bandwagon, but Forest Whitaker's portrayal of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland is perhaps the finest performance I've ever seen. While Whitaker perfectly...
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Central Station - A Film from Brazil
Last night I watched a great foreign film, titled CENTRAL STATION, or in Portuguese, CENTRAL DO BRASIL. I was totally surprised. Director Walter Salles brings together a hardened, selfish retired...
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The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford has received as many critical awards as its transcontinental name has letters. Some critics love to have their sense of established film...
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First Thoughts on Bella the Movie
What can I say about Bella the movie? It's beautifully filmed, beautifully acted, beautifully paced--it has everything a "nice" "inspiring" film has--except it has some unnameable other thing,...
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Through a Screen Darkly: A Christian Watches Secular Film
In a rare excursion last week to San Diego’s downtown Central Library, I came across an interesting new title from Jeffrey Overstreet, a film reviewer for Christianity Today. His first book, Through...
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The Magnificence of Wall-E: Pixar Simply Gets It
My childhood introduction to anthropomorphized robots occurred when I first witnessed R2-D2 sass an up-tight C-3PO and subsequently ignore the chorus of passive and ineffectual complaints from “The...
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Lilies of the Field
Sunday night, Martin and I watched the 1963 film "Lilies of the Field," for which Sidney Poitier won a Best Actor Oscar and numerous other awards. Martin had never seen it before; I had, countless...
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Supernatural Evil and Divine Providence: The Dark Knight Gets It Half-Right
The pure camp of the 1960’s Batman will forever be etched in our cultural memory. Even young adults, born decades afterwards still sigh and reminisce about the fight scene exclamations “EEE-Yow!” and...
View ArticleBurn After Reading: Laughing at What We See in the Mirror
After winning Best Picture with their suffocating somber No Country for Old Men, Joel and Ethan Coen’s Burn After Reading marks a return to the eccentric brand of screwball comedy that produced such...
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