Thursday, 24 January 2019

Movies

Goodbye, Family Christian Stores

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This week, it was announced that Family Christian Stores — one of the world’s largest Christian retailers — will close all 240 of its stores. This isn’t really shocking; Family Christian had gone through bankruptcy a few years back. But it will have an impact; more than 3,000 employees are going to lose their jobs as the stores shutter and Christian culture loses one of its largest and most diverse suppliers of books, music and trinkets.
Granted, this is just the nature of the beast these days. ..

Have you caught up with “It’s My Favorite”?

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Hey everyone,
Not going to lie: it’s been a week. Work, school and home life have been busy, and the general insanity of our world right now has really robbed me of a lot of energy and will to write.
It’s a shame, because I have some really good stuff on deck for you. One new series I want to write and one Oscar-related miniseries of articles, and I’m hoping that starting this weekend those will start posting. And in the weeks ahead I’m going to really be jumping into the reviewing pool again ha..

Watch: New music video for The Shack with new footage

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Itching to see The Shack — or at least to get a taste of it before it comes out five weeks from now? Well, maybe this will tide you over: the powers that be have released two new songs from the film’s soundtrack, one of which even has a music video.
Here is the video, for a new acoustic version of Skillet’s ‘Stars’:

The studio has also released the full version of ‘Keep Your Eyes on Me’, which is sung by Tim McGraw and Faith Hill and has previously been heard in the trailers.
Here is a Spotify ..

The Story of God: Proof of the Divine

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Photo by Amanda Slater, Flickr. C.C. Licensing.
Season two of “The Story of God with Morgan Freeman” airs Mondays at 9 p.m. (8 p.m. Central) on the National Geographic Channel. Once again, I’m writing about it here each week from a Christian perspective as a preview. This post is about episode three, the season finale, “Proof of God.”
In the final episode of “The Story of God’s” second season, Morgan Freeman travels the world speaking to people who believe they’ve experienced proof — often tang..

Oscar nominations — my own two bits, and a complete list

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It looks like La La Land is the movie to beat at this year’s Oscars.
The film, a jazzy musical that stars Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone as a musician and an actress trying to make their way in Hollywood, racked up 14 Academy Award nominations this morning — tying the record set by 1950’s All About Eve and 1997’s Titanic. However, because La La Land was nominated twice for original song, it is actually nominated in 13 categories — which is more than the 12 categories that All About Eve was nominate..

Let’s talk Oscar noms!

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Some quick thoughts on the 2017 Academy Award nominations, which were announced earlier today. A full list of nominees is available here.
At first blush, my biggest surprise is that there isn’t a ton here I would bicker with. The list of nominees this year is really darn good, spread out over several movies. Maybe it’s because I saw fewer movies than normal this year or simply because so many of the nominated films are on my best-of list, but I can’t really find a bad choice among the films. Re..

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Earlier today, the official Star Wars Twitter feed ended more than a year of speculation by revealing the title of the latest entry in the saga, due out this December: It’s official. STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI is the next chapter of the Skywalker saga. This December. #TheLastJedihttps://t.co/ySkVwQcMTPpic.twitter.com/eHrPgbsRJq — Star Wars (@starwars) January 23, 2017 [Read More…]

Encountering the Mystical in the ‘The Fits’

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The fascinating film about adolescent encounters with the sublime gives us plenty to ponder.

If you’re looking for a film that inspires lively conversation, you’ve got to check out The Fits. Anna Rose Helmer’s debut feature film runs a brief, but intense, 72 minutes, leaving plenty of time for discussion and debate afterwards. It caused a stir last year at Sundance, and critics have been talking about it ever since. Fortunately, Amazon Prime subscribers can currently stream it for free—and for ..

Review: The Resurrection of Gavin Stone (dir. Dallas Jenkins, 2017)

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The Resurrection of Gavin Stone is a “faith-based” comedy about a washed-up former child star who, having trashed a hotel roof bar, is told to do a couple hundred hours of community service at a Chicago-based megachurch and ends up starring in their Easter play. It’s a safe, formulaic and utterly predictable film — precisely the kind of “Christian” movie I tend not to review here — but because of my interest in movies about Jesus, I was interested in seeing how this film would depict the play.
T..

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Flickr, by Simon Rahn. CC Licensing.
Season two of “The Story of God with Morgan Freeman” airs Mondays at 9 p.m. (8 p.m. Central) on the National Geographic Channel. Once again, I’m writing about it here each week from a Christian perspective as a preview. This post is about episode two, “Heaven and Hell.”
Years back, I was out to dinner with a friend when we began talking religion. She was agnostic and I was in the middle of a pretty ugly bout of cage-stage Calvinism. She kept trying to change ..