Drum roll please… The results are in for the 2024: Best of the Best in all the respective media categories. Please see below and also the archives for previous years. Happy viewing and reading everyone, and as always, we would love to know what you think in the comment section below. Separate reviews are linked on the underlined titles. Enjoy!
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A timely new movie just came out streaming on Netflix. Shirley tells the story of an African American congresswoman in the 70’s who made a bid for the US Presidency on the Democratic Party ticket. Shirley Chisholm was ultimately unsuccessful at securing her party’s nomination, but the path she took to that failure is truly inspiring. In our own national moment in which this political party has recently lost a presidential election, a story like Chisholm’s can provide hope and healing for the future.
Continue readingDrum roll please… The results are in for the 2023: Best of the Best in all the respective media categories. Please see below and also the archives for previous years. Happy viewing and reading everyone, and as always, we would love to know what you think in the comment section below. Separate reviews are linked on the underlined titles. Enjoy!
Adult Movies/TV
Nefarious (2023)
Sound of Freedom (2023)
Big George Foreman (2023)
Shiny Happy People (2023)
Marshall (2017)
Lupin (2021)
The Burial (2023)
As our family gets older, it becomes harder and harder to find a movie that will both enlighten and entertain a vast range of ages without scandalizing the younger ones (we currently range from ages 7-18). When it became clear that almost everyone would be home this Friday evening, I made an announcement that I often make when I am trying to widen the cultural horizons of our children, reduce the number of individual screens, and make watching more communal. I said, “I want to show you all a movie together, and I want you to give it 30 minutes before you decide you want to see something else.” The 30 minute rule is for us the test of a universally good family flick. The Jesus Revolution passed this test for all but the seven year old. Available now to rent or buy through Amazon Prime, this film will be worth every minute of your family’s time.
Continue readingAnd there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. Amen.
John 21:25
The beloved disciple and evangelist John teases us with these words toward the end of his very mystical narrative. But beyond teasing us into writing yet one more book about our Lord and Master, I believe St. John’s words serve as a kind of license to create and imagine contexts and conversations beyond the true Gospel account, while remaining faithful to the original canon of revelation. Dallas Jenkins’ series The Chosen, now in its third season at Angel Studios, continues to be that incredible re-imagining.
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God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.
The Four Spiritual Laws
Thus begins a classic tract of a witnessing Christian Church in which I was raised. A tract is a small pamphlet for people in a hurry to remind them in their busyness of their eternal destiny and worth in the eyes of Almighty God. I saw a movie tonight that epitomizes this message through the narrative of an unlikely football hero, a washed up old timer who missed his one chance to play pro only to claw, scrape and grind his way back into the contest. American Underdog about the story of St. Louis Ram’s quarterback Kurt Warner will leave you overcome with hope.
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In this Black History month, there are many ways to celebrate our diverse nation and the stories that comprise it, especially the African American experience. I just finished a documentary that is one recommended way to celebrate. It features a music festival in black Harlem in 1969, one that was almost lost to history in the face of its more popular white cousin, the Woodstock Festival. This Harlem Cultural Festival was lovingly filmed and then forgotten in a basement for half a century. Director Questlove dug it out of the archives and produced a powerful reminiscence in our own time of this important cultural event. Please put aside your own political persuasions to take in this important milestone in history.
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Some movies are very slow starters. The new and Oscar nominated Dune is no exception. This 2+ hour film really tested this reviewer’s endurance, but by the end, I was cheering for Duke Paul’s attempt to “go native” on Arakis: the spice-laden, sand world he was sent to on behalf of the mysterious emperor. I was cued on to this great movie by my usual source.
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Those of you who have met Russians know that they have well developed traditions for celebrating the New Year. One established tradition, almost universal among all Russians, is the watching of a classic Soviet film from 1976, Ирония судьбы or The Irony of Fate. It features a holiday drunken mishap in which an engaged man ends up in someone else’s apartment and in one night, falls completely in love with another woman. The cinematography and amazing soundtrack lend artistry to the tale of love, and the constant comic romance will keep you in stitches all the way up to the moment of midnight. In fact, watching this rather long feature (close to 3 hours) is what helps your crowd make it to the ripe hour of midnight to see the ball drop.
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It is rare that I watch a film and have to run immediately to blog about it. But a newly released movie has completely enraptured me.
The very modestly named movie Pig carries with it a weight of relational content and mystery that few modern movies measure up to. Nicholas Cage plays a forest recluse whose love for the humblest of animals, a truffle-hunting pig, compels him to hunt down the thieves that take him. He comes out of his reclusion to reveal a world he left behind in the city of Portland, Oregon, a world of friends and family who have lost their first loves in search of fleeting worldly gain, earthly lusts, and extreme disconnection from humanity. But this recluse’s single-minded love and devotion for a simple creature gradually brings them all back around to what is real, holy, and worthy of love.
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Like Mendicant Monks... 