The recent movie The Shape of Water won the Academy Award for best picture this past weekend. Like most of the country, I wasn't watching. However, it appears I'm going to have to see it. Its plotline sounds a little too familiar. In case you're not familiar with the...
movie reviews
Exodus Movie: An Utterly Banal Waste of Time
Last night my wife and I saw the Exodus movie by Ridley Scott. She talked me into it. She told me it would be something people would expect me to see and say something about. Pardon me, but if my audience is this cruel, I need to rethink what I'm doing online. What...
Impressions on the Noah Movie
I went to see Noah last evening. I had briefly blogged about it earlier to draw readers' attention to Brian Mattson's review, which I highly recommend. I'm not going to recycle his observations. I just wanted to share some impressions. This is s a weird movie. Not in...
Aronofsky’s Noah Movie: What It Teaches Us About Christian Ignorance from the Pulpit to the Pew
I'm going to see Noah this week. In preparation, I've been reading reviews. If you do the same what you'll likely find is a mixture of cautious endorsement ("Hey, it's got crappy Bible content, but it starts a spiritual conversation") and condemnation. Most of the...
Prometheus: Another Review
This past week at the annual meetings of the Society of Biblical Literature and the American Academy of Religion I ran into an old friend of mine, George Gatis, who practices law in South Carolina. George is a fellow bibliophile, theologian, and sci-fi fan. I was...
My Favorite Science Fiction Movies
In the wake of my review of the dismal Prometheus (the word still prompts that "I feel a yawn coming on" feeling), a reader asked for my own Top Ten list of favorite science fiction films. Below is a list of more than ten, in no particular order. A few notes are in...
Prometheus: A Galactic Bore
I saw Prometheus last night. Instead of enjoying the drive home with my head filled with appreciation for a provocative, inventive retelling of the ancient astronaut myth, my mind busied itself on how many ways I could mock this under-achieving, unimaginative bore of...
Promethean PaleoBabble
Hat tip to Jason Colavito for this link to a Salon.com piece on Ridley Scott's new movie. When you click through, take note of the titling of the URL itself: "dazzling dumb-ass theology." What a perfect, poetic description of the film and the ideas it conveys. Can't...
Mirage Men Trailer
I wasn't aware that the Mirage Men, a book I reviewed here some months ago, was being made into a documentary film. I liked the book, so hopefully the film will be well done. Here's a look at the recently released teaser-trailer. Editor's note: broken link to the...
Merry Christmas – Christ is Born
If you've never seen the beginning of Ben-Hur, the nativity scene, here it is. We watch this every Christmas. Enjoy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huQAExSl5os
UFOs, Aliens, and Faith: A Review of the Movie “Knowing”
Last Friday I saw the new Nicholas Cage movie, Knowing. If you haven't seen it yet, you can read some brief plot details here, along with a just-as-brief review. That review seems to suggest Cage recovered his faith, but I'm less generous (and so are many other...
The Crystal Skulls: Not Alien Relics (What a Shocker)
It just kills me how, when certain people find an impressive work of craftsmanship or art that appears old they conclude it must be alien. "I couldn't have made anything like that, and no one I know could have, either. They must have an extraterrestrial origin!" ...