A collection of some of my publications (movie reviews, essays, book excerpts, etc.) from 2021.
Recent Writings / Spring-Summer 2019
Recent Writings / Winter 2019
Recent Writings / Summer-Fall 2018
Collected Writings on Terrence Malick
One day I'll write a book about Terrence Malick. In the meantime, and in honor of the upcoming release of the Criterion Collection extended cut of The Tree of Life, here is a list of every Malick-focused piece I've ever written.
Notes on 10 Years of Blogging
As utilitarian and burdensome as they sometimes feel, blogs become part of the blogger. For good and for ill, they are places to vent and process aloud, to praise and critique, to know and be known. My blog has allowed me to develop ideas that eventually became books, to engage and celebrate the many things that captivate me, and to make lots and lots of lists.
Recent Writings / Summer 2017
Recent Writings / Winter 2017
A collection of my publications from recent months
Song to Song is Cinematic Wisdom Literature (March 16, 2017, Christianity Today)
My review, for Christianity Today, of Terrence Malick's latest film, Song to Song
Recent Writings / Fall 2016
A collection of links to my publications from August-November, 2016. Includes film reviews of 'Hacksaw Ridge,' 'Arrival,' 'Ben-Hur' and 'Voyage of Time,' as well as articles on religious liberty, Christian higher education's impact on the common good, California Senate Bill 1146, uncomfortable church and a review of 'Good Faith' by Gabe Lyons and David Kinnaman.
The Politics of Nostalgia
Richard Tanne's Southside With You, a compelling cinematic depiction of the first date of Barack and Michelle Obama (played brilliantly by Parker Sawyers and Tika Sumpter), is on one hand a smart romance in the vein of Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise trilogy or James Ponsoldt's The Spectacular Now. It's a quiet, simple love story that captures the innocence, awkwardness and impermanence of the early days of relationships. Southside is a snapshot of a couple of lawyers in 1989 Chicago who two decades later would be ruling the free world in the White House. That's the obvious hindsight angle that makes the film interesting as narration of a particular m
Considering the Lobster
How are we humans actually different than animals? In The Lobster humans are mostly Darwinian creatures fighting simply to survive natural selection. The film is full of Hunger Games-style hunts. When characters die there are no tears. Sex is very urge-driven and emotionless. Even the characters who do find “matches” do it merely for their own survival. It’s a dog-eat-dog world, in more ways than one.
Everybody Wants Some (More Time)
It may be true that “You cannot conquer Time,” but the attempt to conquer it through moment-capturing art and particularly cinema can be quite beautiful. This pretty much sums up Richard Linklater’s "Before" trilogy, his "Boyhood" masterpiece and his just-released "Everybody Wants Some." Linklater is a filmmaker who knows well the powerful potential that cinema has to capture that peculiar, elusive mystery of time.
Knight of Cups
Never have I seen a movie so full of beautiful imagery and sound, yet so simultaneously empty, unsatisfying, and downright sleazy, as Terrence Malick’s Knight of Cups. But this is precisely its point. The film’s 118-minute parade of bodies, beaches, and landscapes, accompanied by painfully brief snippets of Grieg, Debussy and Vaughan Williams, provides a glut of beauty that is also a deprivation.
The Hateful Eight and Jesus Christ
When it comes to Quentin Tarantino, one of the things I've long pondered and have recently been writing about, is the way his films exemplify an "incarnational aesthetic." It's not that they are about the Incarnation of Jesus Christ explicitly; but that their bodily, sensory, cultural preoccupations reveal a reverence for incarnational, embodied existence in a manner that helps the viewer re-sensitize to the physical, fleshy world in which Christ lived, breathed, died and rose.
Spotlight
We need more journalistic reporting like "Spotlight," Tom McCarthy’s excellent film about the Boston Globe’s groundbreaking 2002 coverage of systemic clergy sex abuse and cover-ups within the Catholic Church. We need it because humans are very prone to doing bad things and really, really good at covering up those bad things. Someone needs to shine the spotlight on darkness, even if it means implicating ourselves too.
Amy
The new documentary about Amy Winehouse, Amy, is devastating. Whether or not you were a fan of Winehouse's music, it's hard not to be moved by this film, directed by Asif Kapadia (Senna). It chronicles the singer's rise to superstardom as well as her roller coaster struggles with drug and alcohol addiction, eating disorders and other destructive behavior which ultimately led to her tragic death-by-alcohol-poisoning in 2011.
The Salt of the Earth
The headlines today--or any day--reinforce the tragedy of life on this planet. Hundreds Feared Dead After Boat Filled With Migrants Capsizes. Video Purports to Show ISIS Killing Ethiopian Christians. There are ample reminders of the world’s calamity, horror and heartache in our daily social media feeds.
Interstellar
Christopher Nolan's Interstellar is one of those films I wish I could have seen three times before I wrote my review. As it is I only had a few hours to process the (insanely mind-bending) film before I had to turn in my review for Christianity Today. Because of that I want to share a few further thoughts I've been mulling over in the week since I've seen the film:
Whiplash
Whiplash is a great new film about jazz starring Miles Teller and J.K. Simmons. If you've ever played an instrument, pursued anything creative with a passion, or even if you just like jazz, you should see this film. Here's an excerpt from my review for Christianity Today:
Best Films of the First Half
We're midway through 2014 and so, as I do every summer, I've compiled my list of favorite films so far this year. I have yet to see Richard Linklater's Boyhood(which doesn't come out until July 11 anyway), which I assume will make my year-end list. I love Linklater and last year at this time I already knew his Before Midnight would be one of my top films of the year. In general it's been a fairly standard first half of the cinematic year: a few great films but not a lot of memorable ones. I'm excited to see what's to come this fall. Here's what's stayed with me so far in 2014.