Filmed on location in the rainforests of Costa Rica, The Blue Butterfly offers stunning close-ups of insect and reptile life as it tells the story of an entomologist who grants a dying boy his last wish. However, something seems amiss in this cinematic adaptation of an inspiring true story. Could it be a wildlife narrator?
There’s a vast chasm between (post) apocalyptic literature and films like the Left Behind series and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (see March 29th post) and Michael Haneke’s Le Temps du Loup (Time of the Wolf). A fan of ambiguity and untidy endings, I obviously prefer the latter to the former. I just finished watching Haneke’s [...]
My summer reading program has started off successfully. I’ve caught up on Dave Eggers’ newest “novel,” What is the What, a graphic novel, The Pride of Baghdad, and most recently, Michael Lewis’ Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. All three of these raise significant ethical questions for consideration, and Eggers’ novel poses some [...]
On one of his newer albums, The Devil You Know, Todd Snider has a song entitled, “Just Like Old Times.” In it, he sings of an old friend, “Living out our own kind of American dream…. Your goal was always the same as mine…. You didn’t want to throw a fishing line in that old [...]
This might be the most self-serving post yet, but I couldn’t help sharing that Pop Theology got tagged by our friend Tripp in the thinking blogger meme. Thankfully, I am forced to list 5 other sites that make me think. Check these sites out of you get the chance. They are well worth the visit. [...]
As a fan of Judd Apatow’s hilarious The 40 Year Old Virgin, I had high hopes for his latest raunchy rom-com installment, Knocked Up. As has become the case with this year’s summer blockbusters, I was disappointed yet again. Apatow trades in a brilliant subtelty for examining relationships for a heavy-handed, in-your-face pessimism that could [...]
We’ve seen a couple of articles on video games that challenge the couch potato stereotype. First, scientists were using PS3′s to do medical research. Second, PE classes turned to games like Dance Dance Revolution for exercise. Now, it looks like video games are making their way into retirement communities and retirement homes across the country. [...]
Recently released on DVD, The Queen offers another opportunity to view a near perfect film punctuated by two fantastic performances, Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth and Michael Sheen as the newly elected Prime Minister Tony Blair. As it tells the story of the royal family’s response to Princess Diana’s death in 1997, The Queen raises [...]
As the cinematic summer rolls on, we have the latest installment of the Shrek series. As a fan of the first two films, I looked forward to more of their all-ages humor. Unfortunately, that’s just what Shrek the Third offers.
Big summer blockbusters not your thing? Disappointed over and over again by sequels that fail to deliver? Forget the latest installment of Shrek or Spiderman and go see Waitress instead. This delightful little movie will no doubt be the surprise hit of the summer season and should end up being one of the better films [...]
