Watch the Trouble

For those of you lucky enough to have HBO, tune in tonight to watch Trouble the Water, one of Pop Theology’s Top 10 Spiritually Significant Films of 2008 and one of the Oscar nominees for best documentary.  If you can’t record it, check out the other airtimes after the jump. [Read more]

Screening Worship

At its basic level, Michael G. Bausch’s Silver Screen Sacred Story: Using Multimedia in Worship is about change in the church. The questions that he poses regarding the potential shift to multimedia in worship services apply to any change that the church confronts be it doctrinal, denominational or otherwise. Though the multimedia about which Bausch writes will continue to evolve, and has evolved leaps and bounds since its original publication, the processes that he discusses for appropriating it are timeless. [Read more]

Man of a Thousand Faces

Pop Theology contributor Richard Lindsay gives us a brief review of the biopic about one of my favorite actors, silent film star Lon Chaney.  I’m still thinking about the whole suffering servant bit…there’s a book, or at least an article, in there somewhere. [Read more]

A Season Has Changed

In their song, “Live Free,” Son Volt sings, “The season has changed; I want to see you in it; The lights that shine are caustic without you.”  As a deeply religious and spiritual person, seasons are important to me.  Because I’ve lived in various places where seasons come and go in different ways, I often look to other seasonal markers that are familiar to most of us, the crack of the bat, the first tailgate (be it in warm or cool weather), daylight savings time….  For me, the voice of John Madden served as one of those seasonal markers, and to rework Son Volt, a season has changed…permanently. [Read more]

Get Down with WATTSTAX

Pop Theology contributor Richard Lindsay gets funky with a capsule review of Wattstax. [Read more]

Ten Questions with Brent Plate

Religious Dispatches just posted a Q & A with religion and film expert S. Brent Plate around his new book, Film and Religion:  Cinema and the Re-Creation of the World.  I am a huge fan of Plate’s work as he represents a wealthy future of religion and film scholarship.  Follow the link after the jump. [Read more]

Make Up Your Mind Already…

It’s not unusual for even secular apocalyptic films to have religious under/overtones.  As a meteor hurdles to earth or aliens poise for attack, invariably characters utter or scream, “Oh my God!” or the president informs everyone to pray.  There might even be implications that  God is angry and thus causing the potential destruction, usually from the mouth of a crazy, homeless street preacher.  However, in Hollywood’s latest apocalyptic blockbuster, Knowing, the religious implications play a more prominent, if still uncertain, role. [Read more]

No Line on the Horizon Review

Pop Theology contributor Richard Lindsay reviews U2’s latest album, No Line on the Horizon. [Read more]

Two Takes on Kings…

Religion Dispatches has two opposing viewpoints on the new NBC drama, Kings.  Both look at how the series draws from biblical narratives and either succeeds or fails.  Follow the links after the jump. [Read more]