The King's Speech...movie review

from ChristianityToday gives this R rated movie 4/4 stars:

Where The King's Speech elevates itself over more conventional films in this genre is in its ability to overlay internal and external obstacles. Firth opined to audiences after a festival screening that film was, for him, about the difficulties in forging and maintaining intimacy in the face of his character's political, cultural, and psychological conditioning to reject it. The extent of that conditioning is poignantly and brutally depicted in scenes where George's father berates him, where his brother mocks him, and where his own children (after his coronation) learn to suppress their natural easiness around him and adopt a formal reserve viewed more appropriate for public, royal interactions.

Eat Pray Love Me Generation

from Standpoint Magazine:

Maybe what was once seen as a little girl's fairy-story is now seen by baby-boomer women as an inalienable right. A little self-knowledge would go a long way here. But this movie is not about self-knowledge. The audience will come out of Eat Pray Love none the wiser on how to put their stuff in order. Rather, it's all about looking beautiful and having hunks lust after you in beautiful settings, with some faded old Sixties mantras thrown in to add to that feel of quality. And there is something distasteful about the kind of pick-and-mix, magpie-like attitude to different cultures that this film shamelessly displays.

In any case travel — the modern variety anyway — increasingly narrows the mind, I find. It's become a fetish, a manifestation of personal disquiet rather than a genuine desire to explore. Gilbert was wrong and Dorothy was right — you don't need to go any further than your own backyard. Or try therapy, if you must.

It is, after all, very rare to come across anybody who has genuinely been changed by a stint living here or there, whatever they might claim to the contrary. Travel, in and of itself, never makes a person more interesting. A boring person's take on their experiences will be the same whether they're in Bali or Boston — even if they do look like Julia Roberts.

The American...movie review by Crosswalk

"Rating: R (for brief strong language, strong sexual content, nudity, and violence)
Genre: Drama
Run Time: 105 min.
Director: Anton Corbijn
Cast: George Clooney, Violante Placido, Thekla Reuten, Paolo Bonacelli


It's a rare thing when a movie achieves the psychological depth of a novel (though many try). Movies need not do so to be great, certainly, but when they do the result is absorbing. The American is one such rarity, and is so by not using any literary tricks at all.

A particularly distinguished thriller, too, in that The American is driven by character rather than plot. In a genre almost-by-rule defined by high concepts and plot mechanics, it's daring to slow down, thin the narrative, and really explore a man's nature more intensely than the danger he finds himself in. "

City of Ember...movie review by Charity's Place

"Our rating: 5 out of 5
Rated: PG

Reviewer: Charity Bishop

I remember seeing previews for this in the theater and thinking nothing more of it. I assumed it would be rather dull and not worth my time. I was wrong.

Imagine yourself living in a world of complete darkness, apart from the power generated lights that illuminate the narrow streets of your underground civilization...Everyone must work, everyone must pull their weight, and everyone is increasingly concerned about the number of blackouts there have been of late. ...explorations of the various undocumented tunnels on a map will turn up a dark secret.. or that the key to humanity's survival is in a box in the back of a dark closet...

Salvo Blips...King Corn and others...

from Salvo:

This is an eye-opening film about modern American agriculture and its impact on American food. Picture this: Cows are fed genetically modified corn that makes them sick (a corn-heavy diet is toxic to cattle). The cows are pumped full of antibiotics, slaughtered, and then sold to us as meat. We ultimately ingest the corn and the antibiotics. And that’s just one of the problems.

Whatever happened to quicksand in the movies

from Slate:

Access to sand and water may have given kids like me something that has since disappeared—a venue for a certain kind of wilderness fantasy, or "a peril over which the child's imagination has complete control," as Jesse, the quicksand fan, describes it. The ubiquity of sandboxes once nurtured the playful idea of being swallowed whole, while the kids who dreamed of quicksand sustained the movie myth. But in the late 1980s, nervous parents started to take our sand away. When they looked at the sandbox, they saw danger, too.

Winter Bone...movie review Christianity Today

Christianity Today recommends Winter Bone. Rated 'R':

It's is a hard film to classify. It's been described as a psychodrama, a Western, a suspense/thriller, and a whodunit. The story is rather faithfully adapted from Daniel Woodrell's novel of the same name; Woodrell calls his fiction—which is always centered in the Ozark region of his own upbringing—"country noir," and that is an apt description of the film as well. But this is "noir" all shot through with light, bleakness that is somehow achingly beautiful. However you definite its genre, Winter's Bone is a great, taut story animated by characters who refuse to fade after the final frame. It's sad and it's difficult, but it's very, very good.

Loving the lost and monstrous

from Prospect:
Movie Review of "White Material"
"If you could put your finger on Denis’s trademark as a director, it might be her huge reservoirs of empathy, not just for the deserving but for the lost, the cruel, the monstrous. “This kindness, yes: this is something I’m aware of,” she says after a long pause. “Not because I’m a kind person, I’m not. I’m just kind to my characters. I can be unkind to someone in the street or in the subway, I’m a bad-tempered person, but I’m unable to be unkind to a character. They exist because of me and I have responsibility for them.”"

Prince of Persia...Movie review by Charity's Place

from Charity's Place:

Charity's place recommends this PG-13 movie...

If you're fond of the fantasy genre or were not concerned with the supernatural aspect in the Pirates films, this is no more pervasive and in some ways, less sinister since it doesn't involve the walking dead. It surprised me with the fact that it was simply fun to watch -- it doesn't require much emotional involvement but still manages to include a few wonderful moments and they were careful to keep the action scenes from becoming too repetitive. Overall, it's one of the more enjoyable experiences I have had in the cinema.

Movie Review..."Furious Love"

from Charisma:

Furious Love takes us to the darkest places and shows that God's love is there.

This movie powerfully demonstrates and celebrates God's love and the freedom that He brings. But it goes further to ask the church if it will step up and show Christ's love to the world. Will Hart, who ministered in Thailand, issues a challenge.

Movie Review: Dark Light- the Art of Blind Photographers

Her.meneutics movie review: "Dark Light- the Art of Blind Photographers" in speaking about art that reveals our need for grace:

"Eckert, whose work is an ethereal masterpiece of precision and planning, doesn’t want to chronicle the sighted world or depend on sighted people to make his photographs. On his website, he writes: “It is important to me that the sighted think about blindness. . . . Talking with people in galleries builds a bridge between my mind’s eye and their vision of my work. Occasionally people refuse to believe I am blind. I am a visual person. I just can't see.”

What one discovers anew through these films and the artists they highlight is that the world is a magnificently broken and beautiful place. It is full of pain that can at once overwhelm and inspire. The brokenness of others reflects back to us our own brokenness and need for grace, if we have eyes to see. All too often, however, we refuse to believe we are blind. Sometimes it takes an artist to remind us that we too are visual people who just can’t see.

In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are" (Matt. 6:28-29), This reference to paradoxical beauty comes in the middle of an exhortation not to worry. The Lord concludes it with this word of comfort (v. 30): “And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith?” Why indeed?"

A Beautiful Mind...key dialogue

from AfterExistentialismLight:
There’s a deep philosophical (and theological) principle in this line from Alicia Nash in the film, A Beautiful Mind:

“Often what I feel is obligation, or guilt over wanting to leave, or rage against John, against God. — But then I look at him and I force myself to see the man I married. And he becomes that man. He’s transformed into someone I love. And then I’m transformed into someone who loves him.”

And now, Hans Urs von Balthasar, from Theo-Logic I: Truth of the World:

“The lover simply lets the real, imperfect image of the beloved sink into nonbeing. In the lover’s eyes, this image has no validity, no weight, no right to exist. It is, so to say, crossed out, banished from the cosmos of existing things. It is not honored with knowledge. It is not accorded the same measure of significance as if it were meant to unveil itself, as if it possessed, in other words, a truth of its own that was pronounced enough to take seriously. …God’s knowledge of things is absolutely archetypal and exemplary. He has in himself the ideas of things. This image is the correct one, not because God sees things more objectively than we do, but because the image he projects is as such the one true image that is both subjective and objective at once. Because God sees things thus, they should be as he sees them. It is to this idea of things held in God’s safekeeping that all of man’s creative knowledge has to look. Only in God can one man see another as he is supposed to be.” (Ignatius Press, pp. 117, 119-120)

And, hence, the importance of an Atonement that is universal.

Ringling Museum of Art debuts Six Great Films ~ all Fifty Years Old

from ArtKnowledgeNews:
For film lovers yearning for “the good old days,” the Ringling Museum of Art presents a new line-up for their popular Monday Night Movies.

Starting April 12 and continuing through May 17, They Don’t Make ‘em Like They Used To: Six Great Films – all Fifty Years Old will be presented at the Museum’s Historic Asolo Theater.

April 12: Some Like It Hot – Billy Wilder’s classic comedy starring Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon as two musicians on the run from the mob.

April 19: Spartacus – Kirk Douglas stars as the Gladiator who challenged the imperial might of Rome in Stanley Kubrick’s epic film.

April 26: Psycho – Hitchcock’s unrelenting exercise in terror.

May 3: Inherit the Wind – Spencer Tracy as Clarence Darrow and Frederic March as William Jennings Bryan in the masterpiece by Stanley Kramer.

May 10: Elmer Gantry – The novel by Sinclair Lewis comes alive with Burt Lancaster starring as a slick salesman peddling his own kind of religion.

May 17: Butterfield 8 – Elizabeth Taylor won an Oscar for her portrayal of the high-priced model transformed by love.

Top Car Movies Ever Made...from HotRod Magazine

from HotRod Magazine.

The final results are in and the winner of the best car movie of all time, as chosen by you, is "American Graffiti."

The contenders were the winners from the intial voting on the best movie from each era. There were some obvious winners but some surprises as well.

In the 50s to Early 70's era "Bullitt" won handily, which is no shocker, by garnering 64% of the votes.

Movie Review...'Shutter Island'

from ChristianityToday:

Christianity Today recommends 'R' rated 'Shutter Island': "Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island is a film about the war within. It's a deeply psychological, feverish madhouse of a movie that relentlessly pushes its protagonist to the brink of sanity, and forces us to question our own distinctions between things like heroes/villains, real/unreal, and order/chaos."

Movie Review...'Leap Year'

from ChristianSpotlight recommends PG 'Leap Day' "...a relatively clean, lighthearted romantic comedy that has many positive elements. The many misfortunes that befall Anna and Declan on their expedition through the Irish countryside on their way to Dublin are humorous and fun to watch."

The 10 Most Redeeming Films of 2009

from Christianity Today:

We mean movies that include stories of redemption—sometimes blatantly, sometimes less so. Several of our films have characters who are redeemers themselves; all of them have characters who experience redemption to some degree—some quite clearly, some more subtly.

Some are "feel-good" movies that leave a smile on your face; some are a bit more uncomfortable to watch. But the redemptive element is there in all of these films.

"Alice in Wonderland" movie review by Scriptorum Daily

from ScriptorumDaily:
I thought it was a great movie! (and like Avatar, this is something you totally have to watch in IMAX 3-D just because it takes place in a vivid fantasy world; a DVD just wouldn’t do it justice!)

"A Good Woman" movie review by Charity's Place

from Charity's Place a recommendation for the PG movie, 4/5 stars.

It's intended to make you chuckle and does. If you do not mind feeling a bit scandalous for the first half, and can put aside moral judgments until you learn the truth, I think you will find it a rewarding and entertaining film more than worthy of your time.

Percy Jackson & The Olympians reviewed by Crosswalk.com

Crosswalk.com recommends this PG movie:

While the movie's set-up is effective, it's the madcap journey where things really get interesting.

Thanks to some great chemistry between the actors, you can't help rooting for them to succeed. Whether it's the run-in with Medusa (a terrific Uma Thurman, but it's the cool special effects that really steal the show) in New Jersey, a wild jaunt through Nashville's Parthenon (complete with winged Converse sneakers to help Percy fly) or the dangerous trek to meet Hades in the underworld (the portal is just below the Hollywood sign, a funny slice of serendipity, no?), Percy Jackson & the Olympians is an exhilarating adventure.