Movies

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Movie Meditations

- "Son of God" (2014) movie review
- "Philomena" (2013) movie review
- "I am Gabriel" (2012) movie review
- "Frozen" (2013) movie review
- Batman Begins. 2005. Christian Bale.
- The Dark Knight. 2008. Christian Bale, Heath Ledger.

Mass Media Manifesto

The problem of our culture is "if it isn't on TV it isn't real."

TV is not made for truth; it is made for stirring up emotions.

The makers of media must make money. They must play to the mob. And most people are dominated by concupiscence. Therefore, our media are dominated by concupiscence.

Sin photographs beautifully. Most acts of virtue are interior and leave the virtuous characters looking as though they aren't doing anything. At best, the camera shows lots of anguish in order to represent the interior struggle (Frodo, Harry Potter). It's not great theater.

Filmmakers have found that tales of superheroes sell well. So do ancient Greek myths. So why not exploit the stories of the Bible? Telling a Bible story, complete with God's action in it, does not imply any commitment to the reality of God, any more than the movie Thor implies a commitment to the Gods of Greece. It's just a good story, with interesting characters, beautiful costumes, exotic settings, and lots of action.

These films are not going to preach the gospel for us. They do, however, give us a chance to get a word in edgewise among our unchurched family, friends, and colleagues.

Strategy

GKC.
A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.

Don't be like Steve Cichon's first-grade principal, the merciless Mercy sister. Praise all that is praiseworthy.

Commentators

Barbara Nicolosi

Blog: Church of the Masses.
"Theaters are the new Church of he Masses — where people sit huddled in the dark listenin to people in the light tell them what it is to be human" (1930s theater critic).
Script writer, script consultant
Barbara Nicolosi, "A 'Christian' Cinema? An interview with Av Venire."
Movies will rarely fall in the “sacred art” category as they are consitutionally unsuited to liturgical and ecclesial purposes. The notable exception is The Passion of Christ which was an experiment by Mel Gibson to do the Stations of the Cross through cinema.
A movie made by a Christian should work with Catholics on a theological level, and should work with non-believers on an artistic and/or narrative level. It will satisfy their story instincts and their desire for the beautiful, and maybe do something more for them spiritually through the project’s theme. As an example of this kind of cultural success, I would point to the stories of Flannery O’Connor, or the movies A Man for All Seasons or The Passion of Joan of Arc.
Our movies and television are not flowing out of the mysterious impulse to create and connect, which is the hallmark of art, but rather out of the desire to preach and distract.
Ideally, a movie made by Christians should be a marriage of beauty plus one of our defining themes as a subtext. That is, first and foremost a movie made by believers ought to have all its parts present and executed with excellence, and then its meaning should reflect something that only we Christians can say with unique authority. So, some of our defining themes are, “Good and evil are not equal,” and “Joy and sorrow have a necessary and ironic juxtaposition,” and “Death is not the worst thing that can happen to a person,” and “Everything we see is a sign of something we cannot see.” A sign that a movie is really, profoundly Christian, is that it will carry tremendous meaning for non-Christians. Of course, we never see this kind of project from Christian filmmakers today. Not yet any way.
In so far as talented pagan film makers are pursuing wholeness, harmony and radiance in their work - which are the elements of the beautiful - they will be producing stories that far outshine the efforts of Christians who are basically making propaganda and cheap resistance literature for the faithful. Secondly, pagans respect things like artistic principles. They tend to invest seriously in cultural endeavors, and they honor talent and training. In the Church, all that is necessary to get a job as a singer is to own a guitar and have a good heart. It is really very perverse. I think of the loss of the sense of the beautiful as one of the great heresies in the Church in the modern age. It has been devastating particularly because it undermines all of our efforts at evangelization. What good does it do to tell people that the Holy Spirit is Wisdom and Power in a hymn or movie that is lame and pedestrian?
Cinema is perceived by most of the thought leaders in the Church as unserious or as a means of catechesis. We don’t have one Catholic university in the top twenty film programs in the world. Too many of our religious leaders never have a good word for any movie or television and would seem to prefer if we Christians all just lived in caves when they aren’t at church. We need to work with people who have artistic talent, regardless of where they are spiritually, because our working with them might be the way in which God will introduce Himself to the artist, and as a plus, the people of God will get beautiful work done. Too often, I have seen Christians hire bad actors or writers or directors just because they are believers. It always mean ugly movies.
What we really need today are many wonderful parables for the people of our time, that do all the things that Aristotle notes a story should do in his seminal work “The Poetics.” Good parables don’t need to mention God. Jesus told many parables and none of them mention God. I say to my students all the time, “The story is enough.” That is, you shouldn’t need to deliver it with a copy of a homily attached.
As Aristotle said it, human society needs stories to lead people to cathartic experiences of compassion and the fear of evil.
You can’t have a good story without what we call “high stakes.” High stakes means that, in a story, death is always on the table. Stories are better than real life in that way. The most profound kinds of death that human beings experience come through sin - the death of the ability to love, the death of the instinct to care for others, the death of the ability to see and penetrate reality, for example. Hence, you can’t take sin out of storytelling. What Christians could demonstrate to the secular storytellers is how to talk about sin without it becoming an occasion of sin for the audience. The Bible shows us this. It has always high stakes stories of adultery, murder, deceit and betrayal, but never told in a ways that violate the reader.
Some fabulous, powerful movies made by pagans that carry Gospel themes include, The Visitor, Lars and the Real Girl, The Lives of Others, Juno, and Of Gods and Men. I would include nearly everything made by Pixar as something that Christians could look to as a marriage of excellence and deep universal themes.
Again, a beautiful story works because it is beauty married to profound truth. You don’t have to be Christian to do this. Gran Torino was a solid film, and yes, Clint was clearly drawing a parallel to his main character as a Christ-figure. The Christ-figure archetype is well-established in Hollywood lore.

Steve Greydanus

Steven Greydanus, Decent Films.

John Darrouzet

John Darrouzet, "How to Find Faith at the Movies: Using the Decision-Maker's Path."
"John Darrouzet is a successful Hollywood screenwriter, an accomplished lawyer, a student of decision-making, and a deeply committed Roman Catholic layman."
"Simply put, I want to show how to help others find faith by watching movies."

A

Another Perfect Stranger

Sequel to The Perfect Stranger.
2005

B

The Bible

"The Bible" TV miniseries
LightWorkers Media

C

Cesar Chavez

  • I don't intend to see Cesar Chavez, even though I worked for the United Farm Workers Union as a volunteer for three years and acted as a bodyguard for Cesar in New York City in the summer of 1974. He was a great Catholic and he lived a great life, but I don't expect it to be a great movie.

D

Day of War

Part of Lion of War series.
About soldiers in David's army.
The cinematic action movie is based upon the biblical characters of King David and his elite warriors known as the Mighty Men. This is a live action, in your face, gritty, major motion picture. David and Goliath, one of the most well-known stories in all of history will be presented to the big screen like never before, according to those behind the film.
"Day of War, author Cliff Graham's first novel, has earned him a film option for the entire book series — -Lion of War — -from director David L. Cunningham (Path to 9/11) and producer Grant Curtis (Spider-Man films). In ancient Israel, at the crossroads of the great trading routes, a man named Benaiah is searching for a fresh start in life. He has joined a band of soldiers led by a warlord named David, seeking to bury the past that refuses to leave him. Their ragged army is disgruntled and full of reckless men. Some are loyal to David, but others are only with him for the promise of captured wealth. While the ruthless and increasingly mad King Saul marches hopelessly against the powerful Philistines, loyal son Jonathan in tow, the land of the Hebrew tribes has never been more despondent — -and more in need of rescue. Over the course of ten days, from snowy mountain passes to sword-wracked battlefields, Benaiah and his fellow mercenaries must call upon every skill they have to survive and establish the throne for David — -if they don't kill each other first."[1]

Dogma

Bleaugh.

E

Easter Parade

Easter Parade (1948) movie review

Exodus

IMDB: "Exodus" (a.k.a. "Moses")
Christian Bale
In an interview with Esquire magazine, [the directory] Ridley Scott called religion "the biggest source of evil", explaining, "Everyone is tearing each other apart in the name of their personal god. And the irony is, by definition, they're probably worshiping the same god".
It is further rumored to be more in the vein of "300" than "The Ten Commandments."

F

Faith Like Potatoes

South African farmer lives by faith. Tragedies and miracles.
The farmer becomes a non-denominational preacher.

Falstaff — Chimes at Midnight

Falstaff — Chimes at Midnight (1965)
Orson Welles plays Falstaff. A synthesis of all the Falstaff stories in seven or eight history plays by Shakespeare.

Fireproof

In Albany, the marriage of Caleb end Catherine Holt is in crisis and they decide to divorce. However, Caleb's father, John, proposes that his son delays their separation process for forty days and follow a procedure called "The Love Dare" to make them love each other again.
Though Sherwood Pictures produces movies, they are primarily a ministry. For Fireproof, almost everybody involved was a volunteer — over 1,000 people. Every day they began with devotions and a time of prayer.

Frozen

G

Gimme Shelter

Movie website, 2014.
Based on an inspiring true story.
Opening today (January 24)?
IMDB
A pregnant teenager flees her abusive mother in search of her father, only to be rejected by her dad and forced to survive on the streets until a compassionate stranger offers a hopeful alternative.
Sometimes you have to leave home to find your family.

Give Me Shelter

"Give Me Shelter."
2013 documentary about saving animal species.
pro-life?
Plot Summary: In order to save the rest of the over 100 million different species of animals we share this planet with; something needs to be done on behalf of those with no voice who depend on us to survive. We've seen all of these movies of so many adorable animals doing funny things that make us laugh, but we never dig into the lives of animals behind the scenes and impact viewers with real people who are passionate for this cause. Do we want to be the generation that lets tigers go extinct, or sees the last white rhino? Wouldn't we want to be the generation that stopped the annual dolphin slaughter in Taiji or saved the last orangutans in Indonesia? Their lives are literally in our hands and we can either continue pushing forward to impact and educate the world on what is really going on or we can just give up.

God's Not Dead

IMDB.
College student Josh Wheaton's faith is challenged by his philosophy professor, who believes God does not exist.
Duck Dynasty connection? Willie and Korie Robertson are in the cast!
"After he refuses to disavow his faith, a devout Christian student (Shane Harper) must prove the existence of God or else his college philosophy professor (Kevin Sorbo) will fail him" (Google).
"Duck Dynasty's Willie and Korie Robertson Star in New Movie, 'God's Not Dead.'"
The movie is named after a Newsboys song of the same name, which also features in the film along with the band.
"God is Not Dead" is already gathering interest from churches across the US, and those behind the movie hope it will equip and encourage believers to share their faith and remain steadfast in their beliefs in an increasingly secular society.
The movie will open in over 600 cinemas across the US on 21 March 2014.

The thought that if I had a perfect philosophical or theological argument I could silence all of my enemies is false. That is not the way our minds work. God's not Dead uses movie magic to make it appear that we can defeat devout unbelievers with a clever argument. Real unbelievers do not behave that way. (Sailors and citizens of Nineveh in Job.) The saganists are unwilling to admit the force of an argument that concludes, "God exists," just as I am unwilling to admit the force of an argument that concludes, "God does not exist." I would assume that there must be something wrong with the argument rather than assume that my conviction that God exists is false; so, too, the atheists would assume that there must be a flaw in the argument for God's existence rather than assume that their adherence to atheism is in error.

The unbelievers similarly set up patsies to represent Christianity (blind girl in Paul converted from creationism to saganism).

"An Orwellian Fable (?) About an Anti-Christian Society."

Gods of Egypt

Gods of Eqypt (2016)
Gerard Butler, Brenton Thwaites and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau star in the epic fantasy Gods of Egypt, inspired by the classic mythology of Egypt. Australian actress Courtney Eaton (Mad Max: Fury Road) has landed the female lead. Eaton will play a slave girl who Brenton Thwaites’ character falls for. In Gods of Egypt, Bek (Thwaites), a mortal thief, enlists the aid of the powerful god Horus (Coster-Waldau) in an unlikely alliance against Set (Butler), the merciless god of darkness.

Gran Torino

IMDB.
2008
In box office terms, the most successful Clint Eastwood movie ever, both in the U.S. and the U.K, but not with inflation. Taking inflation into account, his most successful films are Every Which Way But Loose (1978) and Any Which Way You Can (1980).
Eastwood's son, Scott Eastwood plays Trey. And his oldest son, Kyle Eastwood provided the music score.

H

Heaven is For Real

J

"Jesus of Nazareth" (1977)


"Joseph, King of Dreams"

Dreamworks
Prologue: "While artistic and historical license has been taken, we believe that this film is true to the essence, values and integrity of a story that is a cornerstone of faith for millions of people worldwide."
Judah treated as more important than Reuben.
"Half-brother." — Four wives.
"I am a Miracle Child": "I am special, I am smart, any rules don't apply, for I am set apart."
Greydanus: B.
"Movie Review / Joseph: King of Dreams."
  • Potiphar learns that his wife alleges she is pursued by Joseph. When he asks Joseph about this in front of her, he denies it. When Potiphar looks at his wife h e understands that she was lying and throws Joseph in jail.
  • Potiphar later releases Joseph from jail and reconciles with him.
  • Joseph gets married and has two kids before his brothers ever come to Egypt.
  • Joseph has to learn to forgive his brothers and how to control the anger he had toward them for trying to kill him.
  • His brothers reassure Joseph that God had intended what happened for the purpose of saving many people! Talk about backwards!

K

Korean Drama

"Korean Drama: A Refreshing Entertainment Alternative."

L

The Last Song

Left Behind

Left Behind (remake, 2014)
Lea Thompson has joined her Switched at Birth co-star Cassi Thompson in Left Behind, Samuel Goldwyn Films’ reboot of the apocalyptic film franchise. Thompson (Back to the Future trilogy) will also star opposite Nicolas Cage, Chad Michael Murray, and Jordin Sparks. Based on the popular series of books, the story centers on pilot Rayford Steele (Cage) and journalist Buck Williams (Murray) that lead a group of survivors after thousands of people mysteriously disappear worldwide in an event called “The Rapture.” For those who have been left behind, the apocalypse has just begun.

M

The Magdalene Sisters

The Magdalene Sisters (2002)

N

The Nativity Story

IMDB: The Nativity Story

Noah

O

October Baby

P

Passion of the Christ

"The Passion of the Christ."
Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ is the ultimate example of the style which Giotto began. It is also the ultimate in our great contemporary tradition of victim chic. Gibson’s Jesus (James Caviezel) is presented not as godhead but as victimhood incarnate. Nobody — not Marlon Brando in The Chase, not Sylvester Stallone in Rocky, not Denzel Washington in Glory, not even Mel himself in Braveheart is going to take a more impressive beating than Jim’s Jesus does. But without any more of a context than they are given here, his sufferings are merely bewildering, sickening. Surely, whatever other heterodoxy he may be guilty of, Mel cannot believe that pity is the same thing as piety? ...
Mel Gibson must have known that, in taking torture and brutality as his subject in preference to more traditionally spiritual considerations, he ensured that not only those who were implicated in such a crime but also those with a history of being unfairly implicated in it would feel themselves aggrieved. My guess is that he’s not sorry to have stirred up this hornet’s nest. ...
All of which is simply to say that The Passion of the Christ is like every other Mel Gibson picture in being ridiculously overproduced. As the British would say, he has once again over-egged the pudding. The new age music with pan pipes and wordless choruses, the swelling orchestral sounds at moments of significance, the flashbacks cross cut with the main action so as to produce heavy-handed ironies — all these things take us annoyingly out of the period and plonk us down jarringly in the entertainment culture of the present day.

The Perfect Stranger

Official website.
IMDB.
Wikipedia.
The Perfect Stranger is a 2005 Independent Christian film based on the novel Dinner With a Perfect Stranger by David Gregory.[1] A film sequel was created, Another Perfect Stranger . It was featured at the 2005 Western Film and Video Festival,[2] and was released on October 28, 2005. Directed by Jefferson Moore and Shane Sooter,[2] the film starred Pamela Brumley and Jefferson Moore.

Philomena

Prince of Egypt

Dreamworks
Prologue: "While artistic and historical license has been taken, we believe that this film is true to the essence, values and integrity of a story that is a cornerstone of faith for millions of people worldwide."
The murder is accidental. Softens the Biblical account: "Ex 2:12 He looked all around, and when he didn’t see anyone, he beat the Egyptian to death and hid the body in the sand."
Moses doesn't stutter.
Greydanus: A+
Irreverrent followup — The Road to El Dorado.
Zipporah replaces Aaron as Moses' sidekick before the Pharaoh.
"No Kingdom should be built on the backs of slaves."

There can be miracles
When you believe
Though hope is frail
Its hard to kill
Who knows what miracles
You can achieve
When you believe
Somehow you will
You will when you believe

S

Son of God

"Son of God" (2014) movie review

Stalker

IMDB, "Stalker (1979)."

Andrei Tarkovsky.
A guide leads two men through an area known as the Zone to find a room that grants wishes.
"A man writes because he is tormented, because he doubts. He needs to constantly prove to himself and the others that he's worth something. And if I know for sure that I'm a genius? Why write then? What the hell for?"
Tarkovsky Zone, transcript
Writer: "A man writes because he is suffering, has doubts. He needs to prove all the time for himself and for the people surrounding him that he is worth something."
Wife: "I knew also that a lot of grief there will be, but sorrowful happiness is better than ... grey and sad life. And perhaps I invented that afterwards. And then he simply came up to me and said: 'Come with me,' and I went. And I never ever regretted after that. Never. And there had been a lot of grief, and it was frightening, and it was shameful. But I have never regretted and I have never envied anybody. It’s just such a fate, such a life, such us. And if there was no grief in our life, it would not be better, it would be worse. Because then there would be ... neither happiness, nor hope. That’s it."

R

"Religulous"

Bill Maher

"Lord of the Rings" vs. Godless worldviews

The existence of God is powerfully asserted in The Lord of the Rings, though, if I remember correctly, the word "God" does not appear in The Hobbit or the Trilogy.

I loved the spirituality of "Star Wars" episodes 4-6. There seemed to be room in the theology of the Force to understand it in monotheistic terms. Episode 1 made that charitable interpretation untenable. The Force is a byproduct of symbiosis between midichlorians and humans.

The "Harry Potter" series is also a Godless universe. Christmas is celebrated, but there is no Christian content. It is simply the winter holiday.

Miscellaneous Movies

  • Godspel
  • Jesus Christ Superstar
  • Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
  • Passion of the Christ
  • Veggie Tales

Sabbatical Movie Festival (2013)

These are the movies that I watched online with Netflix. I also watched six or seven DVDs along with some Amazon on-demand videos.

year title comments
3
2011 30 for 30: The Real Rocky Chuck Wepner — inspired the franchise. Sued, got a settlement.
A
Argo
2005 As It Is in Heaven "This Oscar-nominated drama tells the story of Daniel Dareus, a small-town boy who escaped his tiny village to become a famous conductor. A tragic mishap sends him back home in search of a fresh start, and he ends up leading the local choir." "Singing in tongues" at the end. One song from the film became a pop hit, I think.
B
Babette's Feast
1991 Barton Fink Coen brothers. Writer's block is just the beginning of the horrors.
Best in Show
Best Worst Movie
Bourne Supremacy (2004)
Bourne Ultimatum (2012)
2011 Buck "Buck Brannaman, inspiration for 'The Horse Whisperer,' is revealed as a complex figure in this Sundance Audience Award winner for Best Documentary by Cindy Meehl. The master horseman reveals details of his troubled childhood and his dawning awareness of new ways that humans and horses might work with one another."
C
California Split Eliot Gould
2010 Cave of Forgotten Dreams "Werner Herzog offers an unprecedented examination of the Chauvet Cave, a cavern in southern France that contains the oldest human-painted images yet to be found on Earth."
1988 Cinema Paradiso
2009 Cleanflix
1985 Clue
D
2007 Death at a Funeral
2010 Devil Shyamalan.
2008 Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
E
Everest: Beyond the Limit
Everest: IMAX
F
Footnote.
2010 Four Lions

"In a scathingly hilarious indictment of true believers and the social systems that create them, this outrageous comedy follows an inept group of young Islamic Brits who fancy themselves bloodthirsty jihadists of the first order."

For good or for ill, the film makes us sympathize with the terrorists and grieve their deaths.

G
Gates of Heaven Errol Morris documentary about pet cemeteries. On one critic's top-10 all time list (!).
Gravity
H
2010 Happy People: A Year in the Taiga "Venerated documentarian Werner Herzog teams with director Dmitry Vasyukov for this observant look at life along the River Yenisei in northern Russia, where the industrious inhabitants of a rural village truly live off the land." [No, they don't. They are fully armed and mechanized by industrial civilization!]
2007 Helvetica Story of the ubiquitous type font.
I
2008 I Sell the Dead "As 19th-century grave robber Arthur Blake faces the guillotine, he confesses his sins to a priest, revealing a life filled with unearthly high jinks in this macabre comedy starring Dominic Monaghan as the doomed digger and Ron Perlman as the cleric." One of the worst movies I saw. Dreadfully bad!
In a Lonely Place
  • Produced by and starring Humphrey Bogart.
  • Tragedy.
  • "I was born when you kissed me.
    I died when you left me.
    I lived a few weeks while you loved me."
Inception
2008 In Bruges An extremely black comedy. A friend gives his life to save his friend. Both are ruthless murderers.
2003 Intolerable Cruelty Coen brothers. "A revenge-seeking gold digger marries a womanizing Beverly Hills lawyer with the intention of making a killing in the divorce."
J
K
L
2007 Lars and the Real Girl
2010 Life after Django Reinhardt "Born to Gypsy parents in 1910, musical genius Django Reinhardt is considered by many to be the single most important guitarist in the history of jazz. To honor the legend, a hundred of his disciples gathered for the Django 100 Centennial Tour."
Life is Beautiful
Looper.
2012 Lunarcy! Space dreamers.
M
1979 Manhattan
Midnight in Paris
1990 Miller's Crossing
2012 Mirror Mirror "Much darker than the well-known animated Disney version, this remake of the classic Grimm tale follows fair-skinned princess Snow White on a quest to regain her royal throne with help from a team of shady dwarves." I didn't like it at all.
2011 Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol I enjoyed this more than I thought I would.
2001 Monsoon Wedding Mira Nair.
Moon Duncan Jones
N
Night Train to Munich
Noises Off (1992)
O
Of Gods and Men.
1984 Once Upon a Time in America Sergio Leone. A former Prohibition-era Jewish gangster returns to the Lower East Side of Manhattan over thirty years later, where he once again must confront the ghosts and regrets of his old life.
1968 Once Upon a Time in the West Sergio Leone. Classic Spaghetti Western.
P
1998 Pi Aronofski. Obessive, paranoid "mathematics."
Q
R
Radio Days
Return to Everest/Surviving Everest National Geographic
Revenge of the Nerds 2.0.1.
S
2005 Serenity "Malcolm Reynolds, captain of the ship Serenity, picks up two fugitives from the powerful coalition ruling the universe. Mal and his mates find themselves at the center of a cosmic conflict, pursued by military forces and space-roaming savages."
2012 Skyfall James Bond.
Something Beautiful for God
T
2010 Tabloid "Director Errol Morris profiles another intriguingly dysfunctional personality in this complex documentary about Joyce McKinney, a former beauty queen whose lovely exterior hides a genius IQ — and a criminal disposition."
2009 The Achievers: The Story of the Lebowski Fans All about Lebowski fest.
2011 The Artist "Winner of five Oscars, this artful black-and-white silent film follows the romance between a silent-era superstar on a downward spiral and a rising young starlet who embraces the future of cinema at the dawn of the 'talkies.'"
1989 The Dream Team "While escorting four of his patients to a Yankees game, a shrink (Dennis Boutsikaris) gets waylaid by crooked cops, and his quartet of crazies is unleashed on the streets of New York City in this comic gem from director Howard Zieff."
1926 The General
Mountain Men: The ghosts of K2.
2005 The Ice Harvest "Unethical dim-bulb attorney Charlie Arglist embezzles $2 million from a mobster. Not content with the cash, the sleazy lawyer plans to skip town with pretty club owner Renata Crest — until the cops and townsfolk grow increasingly suspicious." (R rated — nudity and violence.)
2007 The Island (Ostrov) "Father Anatoli (portrayed by former Russian rock star Pyotr Mamonov) lives a hermitlike existence in a remote Russian Orthodox monastery, where he's visited by people who believe he has the power to heal, see the future and exorcise demons. But Anatoli's odd behavior confuses his fellow monks, who are unaware that he's tortured by a past sin and considers himself an unworthy fraud. Pavel Lungin directed this poignant parable."
2003 The Italian Job Team heist with small cars.
1938 The Lady Vanishes Hitchcock's last British movie.
The Long Goodbye Eliot Gould
2011 The Mill & The Cross Watched this for the love of my friends. Slow, symbolic, surreal.
2009 The People vs. George Lucas Fan criticism of what Lucas has done to Star Wars.
1992 The Player Altman
AE The Price of Courage.
2009 The Road Recommended by a friend. The love of the father for his son is edifying. Accepting the conditions under which they suffer and survive is a hard stretch for me. What kind of disaster would kill virtually all animal life but allow dogs and humans to survive?
1986 Offret (The Sacrifice) Andrei Tarkovsky's final film. Dedicated to his son. "A birthday party is interrupted by news that World War III has begun and mankind faces annihilation." I did not like the "sacrifice" that is made at the end.
The Talented Mr Ripley. A horror story.
1988 The Thin Blue Line "Filmmaker Errol Morris's gripping investigation into the murder of a Dallas police officer was responsible for freeing the man who was originally — and erroneously — charged with and convicted of the crime."
The Village Shyamalan
2010 The Way Back "After narrowly escaping from a wretched World War II Siberian labor camp, a small band of multinational soldiers desperately undertakes a harrowing journey to traverse Siberia, the Gobi Desert and the Himalayas on foot."
1999 Topsy-Turvy
The Triumph of the Nerds. Robert X. Cringely.
U
Unbreakable Shyamalan.
V
1981 Vernon, Florida Errol Morris.
2009 Vision: From the Life of Hildegard von Bingen
W
Wall of Death
Water
Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe.
2010 Who Is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talkin' About Him?) Nilsson wrote "Everybody's Talking" from Midnight Cowboy. Huge talent, party animal, admired by the greats, peaked in 1969-1972, seems to have lost his way, became a family man, died with work unfinished.
2010 Windfall The downside of wind turbines.
2011 Woody Allen: A Documentary: Part 1
2011 Woody Allen: A Documentary: Part 2
X
Y
Z

Film Festival

  • Do you want it to be something canned? Just me and Mike? Me and Mike and open lines?
  • Do you have in idea where you would like it to be in the show? I guess the basic options are first, middle, last.
  • Classic movies or what's playing in the theaters now?
  • The baby needs a name:
- Focus on Films
- Faith 'n' Films
- Finding Faith in Film
- Friday Film Festival
- Faith 'n' Reason Film Festival
- Heroes and Heroines
- The Moral of the Story
- The True, the Beautiful, and the Good
- Creative Thinking
  • Watch the clock. Assign a time limit for the segment — 10 minutes? 15 minutes? Keep calls on the segment during the segment; anything goes afterward.

References

Links

To do

  • Buffalo News
  • Buffalo Film Society
  • WBEN?

Release dates

Pious; intended to evangelize, I think.
- Gimme Shelter (pro-life movie, 2014). Very definitely not Give Me Shelter (pro-animal documentary, 2013). January 24, 2014.
- Son of God (History Channel, 2014).
- Left Behind (remake, Nicolas Cage, 2014). October 3, 2014.
- Heaven Is For Real (little boy, near death experience, 2014). April 16, 2014.
- God's Not Dead (2014). March 21, 2014.
Relatively secular. "God" is just another character in an action-hero movie.
- Noah (Russell Crowe, 2014). March 28, 2014.
- Exodus (a.k.a. Moses; starring Christian Bale, 2014). The name of the movie is "Exodus," not "Moses." December 12, 2014.
- Day of War (Ken called it "King David"; 2014). Not cast? No release date set?
- Gods of Egypt (2016).
Secular
- Guardians of the Galaxy — August 1, 2014.

Theaters

Dipson Eastern Hills Cinema
4545 Transit Road, Williamsville, NY
On Transit, just south of Sheridan Drive.

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1:45‎ ‎4:15‎ ‎7:00‎ ‎9:15pm‎

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