At a dive bar in New Orleans this past January, Ryan and I got together to discuss possibilities for PopTheology.com for the coming year. As the drinks flowed freely and we watched my beloved Bengals blow another playoff game, our bar napkins filled up with penned ideas. Maybe it was my mounting gloom at the [...]
A few weeks ago, I went to see the Colin Ferrell Total Recall remake (directed by Len Wiseman) and was struck by a comment from another audience member while the movie started: “I remember coming to see this when Arnold was in it.” The audience member was two rows behind me and, sadly, this would [...]
In 1958, Malcolm Boyd, an Episcopal priest and former Hollywood writer, soon to be known as author of the bestselling prayer book Are You Running with Me, Jesus? offered a contemporary assessment of 1950’s biblical epics. In Christ and Celebrity Gods: the Church in Mass Culture, he called the films “orgiastic, lengthy, overwhelming spectacles that [...]
Richard here. After six years of developing and submitting (and re-submitting, and re-submitting) a paper on the menstrual themes in Pan’s Labyrinth, I finally have my first published, peer-reviewed paper. Here’s the link to the Journal of Religion and Film, along with illustrations of certain key concepts.
Richard here. Adding some more wisdom culled from the notes of my dissertation, here’s the account of Cecil B. DeMille’s first foray into biblical film, his 1923 silent version of The Ten Commandments.
Richard here. PopTheology.com benefits from the fruits of my dissertation labor. Not everything could have fit into the final draft. So here’s some background on one of the great silent epics, Fred Niblo’s 1925 film, Ben-Hur.
My research into Contemporary Christian Cinema keeps turning up more and more films, many of which were straight to DVD releases. Here are my thoughts on the latest one I’ve watched.
