Batman begins is easily the best of the summer blockbusters so far, and quite possibly the best movie ever made about the Dark Knight. It is certainly the first live-action film to take the title character and his roots seriously. In 1989, a lot of people went ga-ga for the first of Tim Burton’s films […]
The Gospel of John
So much hoopla over The Passion of the Christ, we forgot to say anything about the video release of The Gospel of John, a word-for-word adaptation that had its premiere at the Toronto Film Festival in September and very slowly made its way west, finally coming to Vancouver theatres just one week before Easter. Of […]
Frisbee: The Life and Death of a Hippie Preacher
Lonnie Frisbee was a young hippie seeker fully immersed in the 1960s counter culture when he claimed to have experienced an encounter with God while on an acid trip. This event so transformed him that Lonnie became an itinerant Christian evangelist, something of a John the Baptist of Southern California who compelled thousands of fellow spiritual seekers to make a profession of faith in Jesus Christ. During the 1970s Lonnie Frisbee became widely known as California’s “hippie preacher,” the quintessential “Jesus freak” whose pictures frequented such magazines as Time and Life as the media told the story of a burgeoning “Jesus movement.” Lonnie Frisbee provided the charismatic spark that launched the Calvary Chapel church into a worldwide ministry and propelled many fledgling leaders into some of the most powerful movers and shakers of the evangelical movement…
Hotel Rwanda
Don Cheadle is one of those actors who seems to be everywhere these days, popping up in After the Sunset, Ocean’s Twelve, The Assassination of Richard Nixon and so on. But his minor roles in those films pale next to his powerful performance in Hotel Rwanda, the true story of Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager […]
Because of Winn-Dixie
Christians have become more prominent in Hollywood lately, both as film makers and as film critics — and the press junket for Because of Winn-Dixie, a charming adaptation of Kate DiCamillo’s Newbery Honor-winning children’s book, offers ample evidence of both. On the one hand, the film, about a preacher’s kid and her pet dog, was […]
Saved!
A teenaged boy tells his girlfriend he’s gay. She sleeps with him, thinking it will make him straight — but it doesn’t. His parents send him away. Then she discovers she’s pregnant. And while all this is going on, her widowed mother has an affair with the principal — who also happens to be a […]
Exorcist: The Beginning
It is doubtful that a worthy sequel to The Exorcist (1973) will ever be made, but that hasn’t stopped several filmmakers from trying. The original film, directed by William Friedkin and based on a novel by William Peter Blatty, was in some ways more of a mood piece than a story. The demonic possession of […]
I, Robot
I, Robot not only has very little in common with the Isaac Asimov book on which it is very, very loosely based, it also takes one of that book’s central messages and stands it completely on its head — and a part of me couldn’t be happier. Directed by Alex Proyas (whose moody, noir-ish sci-fi […]
Fahrenheit 9/11
Controversy made lots of money for Mel Gibson and The Passion of the Christ. Now Michael Moore is hoping it will do the same for Fahrenheit 9/11, his heavily sarcastic, rather entertaining and relentlessly incoherent screed against the presidency of George W. Bush. There is very little here that anyone who has followed the politics […]
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Another year, another Harry Potter product. The Harry Potter franchise has produced one new novel or film every year since J.K. Rowling published her first book in 1997, and Alfonso Cuaron’s adaptation of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban may be the most entertaining installment to date — at least as far as the […]
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- …
- 9
- Next Page »