Numerous scholars explore the cultural and political implications of monster and horror films for the times from which they emerge. Through these analyses, we gain insight into seemingly distant pasts that are actually not that far removed from our own experiences now. Few scholars connect such implications across broader expanses of time to reveal how [...]
It might sound weird, but occasionally I’ll see a film that I enjoy so much that I don’t want to write about it. At the end of the day, it seems as if a simple, “Go see this movie as soon as possible!” tweet or comment should suffice. This is how I felt about Drive. [...]
Yet again, one of the best films of the year will not get the extensive release and wider attention that it deserves. Vera Farmiga’s Higher Ground wrestles with conservative, evangelical Christianity…certainly not the subject of choice for most first-time directors. The result is a deeply moving and emotional film that takes its place as one [...]
Richard Lindsay reviews The Help, the film based on the novel of the same name that has taken book clubs and readers across the country by storm. More after the jump.
There’s a tradition of reading some of Jesus’ more intense sayings as prophetic hyperbole. That is, when Jesus in Mark 9:47, “If your eye causes you to stumble, throw it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye, than, having two eyes, to be cast into hell,” he [...]
The recent release of the West Memphis Three is a fitting excuse, if one is actually needed, to return to (or watch for the first time), the classic Hollywood Western, The Ox-Bow Incident. The film’s plot would no doubt seem more ludicrous were in not for real-life cases like the one mentioned above or the [...]
In The Magicians, Lev Grossman asks what if our favorite fantasies and fairy tales were real? Not only real, but calling out to us in some strange way to be a part of them. This is exactly what happens in the novel when Quentin Coldwater stumbles into a parallel world of magic and multiple universes. [...]
Richard Lindsay reviews the latest summer blockbuster, Cowboys and Aliens. More after the jump.
Looking to Hollywood for marriage or relationship advice is about as foolish a task as you could possibly undertake. On the other hand, Hollywood productions often provide interesting avenues through which to check the pop cultural pulse on both. Similar films like No Strings Attached and Friends With Benefits take one approach to which many [...]
Filmmaker Guillermo Del Toro has described the horror film genre as “one of the last of the brave genres of film.” Unfortunately, many critics and audiences reject the genre out of hand, while the growing collection of film and religion scholars have failed to give it it’s due…aside from films like The Exorcist (1973), Rosemary’s [...]
