Category: Film Reviews/Hollywood
Body Politics in the Films of Steve McQueen
With his new film 12 Years a Slave earning rave reviews and Oscar buzz, British filmmaker Steve McQueen–whose background is in fine art and experimental filmmaking–is poised to become a darling of this year’s awards season. Accolades are pouring in...
Romeo and Juliet (2013 film) Review
Professor Lyle Smith of Biola University once said in a class that Romeo and Juliet almost get it right. Most fans or critics fall off their respective sides of blind devotion to the story or disenchanted skepticism that such love...
Catching Up With Time in the “Before” and “Up” Films
A professor I admire once said — while discussing the films of Yasujiro Ozu, or maybe it was semiotics (can’t remember) — that watching the sun set can be both a thing of incredible beauty and deep sadness, often simultaneously....
To Malick’s “Wonder”
Terrence Malick’s latest, To the Wonder, is an apt follow-up to the enigmatic director’s 2011 classic, The Tree of Life. Both films are beautiful experiences of image and sound, deeply personal memoirs and heartfelt explorations of Christian faith. To the...
Jackson and Tolkien: Hollywood’s Infatuation With Angst
Matt’s piece on The Lord of the Rings a few weeks ago nicely summed up one of the major ways in which Peter Jackson’s view of the world diverges from Tolkien’s: its profoundly different moral vision. But Jackson’s storytelling sense...
Anna Karenina: The Uncontainable Joy of Redemption
Note 1: A version of this article was originally published in The Examined Life, the e-magazine of Wheatstone Ministries. Note 2: The novel came out in 1878. This film has been out for months. I crave dispensation from spoiler alerts. There hasn’t been...
The Risks of a Heart Awakened: Emotional Detachment and Les Miserables
Back in the late 1990s, I watched Saving Private Ryan in the theater. The opening sequence, with its intense depiction of the carnage of battle, captivated, disturbed, and moved me all at once. It was my understanding that this was...
Is Depiction Endorsement? Filmmaker Responsibility in “Zero Dark Thirty” and “Django Unchained”
Of all the 2012 films nominated for best picture Oscars this year, two have gained press as much for their controversial content as for their awards-caliber quality. Those two films are Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty and Quentin Tarantino’s Django...
“Les Miserables”: Failed Musical, Successful Book
(All quotes are taken, out of context, from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo.) Tom Hooper’s Les Mis (I will not confuse the adaptation with Hugo’s masterpiece) was UK-released the 11th of January. This film is a bold experiment. What else it...
In Defense of “Les Miserables”
Tom Hooper’s film version of Les Miserables has received much praise in recent weeks, including multiple Oscar nominations. It topped the list of the “most redeeming films of 2012” (a nebulous distinction, to be sure) that my film critic colleagues...