Archive for the ‘Film’ Category
Your Christmas Viewing Guide
Wondering how best to wile away those hours of vacation time this Christmas? Hoping for some good family activities to help you all slow down and enjoy one another’s company? Look no further. The Examined Life’s Lindsay Marshall has some holiday movie tips, complete with suggested questions...
December 20th, 2011 | Culture, Featured, Film, Media, Television | Read More
Real Life Vigilante Sounds More Like a Movie
Oh wait, it was a movie.
It turns out Seattle has their own crime-fighting team, known as the Rain City Superhero Movement. In fact, this idea of a real life superhero is growing much larger than I realized. Vigilantes are cropping up, and people are acting like Batman to the best of their ability (while...
October 19th, 2011 | Culture, Ethics, Featured, Film, Religion | Read More
An Icon of The Man of Steel
In The last week, the internet (or at least a certain portion of it) has been abuzz with excitement, loathing, and a good deal of speculation. This storm of strong emotions and opinions was set in motion by the release of a single image: The first official look at Henry Cavill in full costume as...
August 8th, 2011 | Culture, Film, Other | Read More
The Four-Legged Mirror
Terrence Malick’s astounding film Tree of Life opens with Jessica Chastain’s breathy monologue, explaining that there are two ways in this life, the way of nature and the way of grace. No film embodies that dichotomy more practically than Buck.
You know who Buck Brannaman is, even if you don’t...
July 19th, 2011 | Creation Care, Culture, Film, Other | Read More
An Affair to Remember in Words Soon Forgotten
An entire year of planning goes into the brief, televised announcement. A network of hundreds of experts vet every point. Presentation is everything. The words, carefully chosen, have the power to define the successes of the last year and set expectations for the next. But after countless hours of...
January 27th, 2011 | Conservative/Liberal, Democrats, Film, History, Libertarians, Other, Politics, Republicans, Television | Read More
A Moment of Grace: My Name Is Jerry and the Difficulty of Change
We’ve all seen that film: the middle-aged protagonist, bored with his bourgeois existence, is suddenly captivated by a younger woman who holds the key to the exciting life he wants. After two hours of confusion, emotion, and the casting aside of inhibitions, our protagonist emerges a changed man, willing...
October 4th, 2010 | Culture, Film, Media | Read More
Scott Pilgrim vs. Reality
Full disclosure: I have never read one of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s popular graphic novels about Scott Pilgrim and his epic of epic epicness. But my students insisted last week that I had to see the film adaptation because it was, well, epic. And really, you should do something fun after you’ve...
August 31st, 2010 | Culture, Film, Media | Read More
History Matters
This is an apologetic for the importance of paying attention in history class.
I teach high school history, and I fully understand the boredom history class usually breeds in students. While I’m happy to spend 85 minutes discussing the variations of Christian doctrine among the peasant classes of...
June 2nd, 2010 | Culture, Education, Film, History, Media | Read More
Women, Mermaids, and Mystique: Why We Don’t Really Want to Be Part of Your World
“I want to have fins”, she sighed, gazing longingly at an advertisement for Disney’s The Little Mermaid.
I could hardly have been more relieved; for a moment I’d thought I’d walked in on every modern mother’s nightmare – a preschooler who longs to be thin. It’s not healthy for a four...
May 26th, 2010 | Culture, Film, Media, Philosophy, Television, Worldviews | Read More
PtW XIV: A New Hope
Welcome to the final episode of Picturing the Word!
Our curriculum this week was themed “Redemption.”
We watched:
La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc (The Passion of Joan of Arc) (Dreyer, 1928)
Offret (The Sacrifice) (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1986)
The Shawshank Redemption (Frank Darabont, 1994)
Mildly adhering...
May 26th, 2010 | Culture, Film, Media | Read More
