A new documentary claims that there are over 132 million orphans in state custody. In a given year, less than 1 in 500 of them will be adopted. Are restrictions against perspective parents too rigorous? Why are those willing to parent being turned away?
By choosing “Inconspicuously Christian” as a motto for this film blog, I hope to signal two things...
Blogs and bloggers come and go. According to one source, even by 2006, Technorati’s Top 100 blogs had an average age of 33.8 months. The implication is clear. Longevity and… Continue reading "Hello — Is it me you’re looking for?"
In Part I of this essay, Jeremy Purves looked back at critics’ reviews of Troy and argued that the film was a better adaptation of Homer’s epic poem than is… Continue reading "Troy (Petersen, 2004) — 10 Years Later: Part II"
Frank vs. God is one of my favorite films thus far into the movie year, and it is without a doubt one of the better "religious" films of those recently released.
It has now been ten years since Wolfgang Petersen’s old-fashionedly classic film on the Trojan War was released. In hindsight, some of the controversy that roiled round the film at the time now seems rather silly. But then much of the criticism the film took was much worse than silly.
In my memory, I have always falsely grouped Sleeping Beauty with Disney's animated features from the 1940s: Pinnochio, Fantasia, Dumbo, and Bambi.
Nobody in No God, No Master actually utters the phrase "those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it," but that sentiment is the subtext of nearly line of dialogue in this historical drama about the Palmer Raids.
It is a good movie, certainly, and it is not writer/director Steven Knight's fault that we live in an age that appears only to recognize two critical verdicts: awesome or awful. There is less room in the conversation for the good, modest movie.
Somewhere in my list of cinephile pet peeves is the notion, loosely held, that direction doesn't matter much in documentaries--that a filmmaker need only find an interesting subject and turn on the camera. Direction does matter.
