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Bending the air: Defying gravity in “Avatar,” Star Wars, Miyazaki and more
There is a sense in which “Avatar: The Last Airbender” is for my children in part what Star Wars was for my generation: a new and enthralling mythology about a young hero with a mysterious power slowly learning to channel that power to fight against a tyrannical empire.
Benji Off the Leash! (2004)
Benji Off the Leash is undoubtedly the first dog movie ever made that thinks that a happy ending for a boy and his dog is not for the boy to get to keep the dog, but for the dog to go off to Hollywood to make a motion picture.
Bernadette (1988)
Eschewing both the slickness and Hollywood sentiment of The Song of Bernadette and the speculative psychology of Alain Cavalier’s contemporary Thérèse, Delannoy’s unembellished, straightforward account seeks only to tell Bernadette’s story in a clear and compelling way.
The Best Family Films?
The greatest family film of all time? Respondents polled for a Radio Times magazine survey ranked Steven Spielberg’s E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial as the best, with The Wizard of Oz in the runner-up spot.
Best films of 2009: More lists
A few weeks ago the National Catholic Register ran my 2009 year-end piece with my lists of “top ten” and runner-up films. (An expanded version of the article appeared at Decent Films.) This week, I’d like to catch up with a few other lists from Christian sources worth noting.
Best films of 2010: More lists
My 2010 year-end piece and top 10/20 films has been up for a few weeks, and with the Academy Awards upon us we’re almost ready to be finished with the movie year 2010. Before turning the page entirely, though, I’d like to draw attention to a few more year-end lists worth noting.
Best films of 2011: More lists
With the Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday more or less officially ending the awards season, this is pretty much my last chance to blog on some notable best film lists of 2011 worth highlighting.
Best films of 2012: More lists
Perusing the lists below (and bearing my own picks in mind), a number of recurring titles stand out — above all The Kid with a Bike (my #1 film of 2012), appearing on every list below except one.
Best films of 2013: More lists
Most of my friends love The Wolf of Wall Street. (I…don’t.) And Before Midnight. (More sympathy there.)
Best Films of 2014: More lists
Looking over the eight lists below plus my own top 10, three films stand above the rest — two starring Marion Cotillard.
Best films of 2015: More lists
This year my circle of Christian cinephiles converged on the year’s best films more closely than usual.
Best films of 2016: More lists!
I’m pleased to note that my three top films of 2016 achieved a striking consensus in this group of cinephiles.
Best films of 2017: More lists!
It’s hard to pick clear favorites from the latest roundup of the last year’s best films according to my circle of Christian friends and peers.
Best films of 2018: More lists!
First Reformed made more than half of the nine individual lists below, and unsurprisingly topped the year’s best films according to the Arts & Faith Ecumenical Jury … What’s more surprising — anyway I’m a little surprised, and delighted — is that another film was even more esteemed in this little community … and it wasn’t any of the films I would have expected.
Best in Show (2000)
The good news about Best in Show, the latest film from mockumentary veteran Christopher Guest (Spinal Tap, Waiting for Guffman), is that it’s funny — sometimes very funny. Guest is a sort of purist who creates the impromptu feel and immediacy of documentary by working from a short outline rather than a finished script; so his players really are ad-libbing to a significant degree.
Beyond Bias: The Passion of the Christ and Antisemitism
Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League declared recently that Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ is not antisemitic, and that Gibson himself is not an anti-Semite, but a “true believer.”
Beyond the Gates (2005)
Beyond the Gates is most worth seeing for its uncompromising portrait of a more representative episode in the Rwandan genocide than the events depicted in Hotel Rwanda. At the same time, it offers little insight into the Hutu or Tutsi experience.
Bible Films Blog: Color and Symbolism in Bible Films
My friend Matt Page, who blogs Bible Films Blog, has just written an interesting post on color and color symbolism in Bible films.
Bicycle Thieves (The Bicycle Thief) (1948)
Relate the plot of Bicycle Thieves in a few sentences, and a person who had never seen the film might be forever haunted by it.
Big Brother on the Big Screen
Have Hollywood movies been softening us up for NSA-style surveillance?
Recent
- Crisis of meaning, part 3: What lies beyond the Spider-Verse?
- Crisis of meaning, part 2: The lie at the end of the MCU multiverse
- Crisis of Meaning on Infinite Earths, part 1: The multiverse and superhero movies
- Two things I wish George Miller had done differently in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
- Furiosa tells the story of a world (almost) without hope
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