Awards make me uncomfortable.
The Oscars take place this Sunday, and I can’t think of a more brazen example of self-glorification in contemporary America. Don’t get me wrong, I love watching the Academy Awards, and maybe if I ever won something like an Oscar or a Pulitzer Prize or a Nobel I’d feel differently about this [...]

It verges on blasphemy to question “The Blind Side.”
Not only has the movie garnered Oscar nominations for Best Picture and Best Actress, it has also made an unexpected $241 million – and counting. What’s more, the picture has been wholeheartedly embraced by scores of American churchgoers. Sermons are even being fashioned around it.
I thought the [...]

God doesn’t make an appearance in “Wings of Desire,” a 1987 art film with angels that has been recently rereleased by Criterion on DVD, yet the movie still made me reconsider the way He might view the world. Maybe, just maybe, we occasionally entertain Him.
Directed by German filmmaker Wim Wenders, “Wings of Desire” is set [...]

The Vatican doesn’t think much of Avatar. And frankly neither do I.
When the film opened in Italy, the Vatican offered a review.  A Philadelphia Daily News columnist covering the release wrote:
The Vatican newspaper and radio station are criticizing James Cameron’s billion-dollar 3-D blockbuster for flirting with the idea that worship of nature can replace religion [...]

Now that I’m done haggling with myself over the top 10 films of 2009, I can look back at my list and see certain trends and patterns emerge.
One way you could group the movies I’ve selected is in terms of the Biblical virtues they extol.
Three of the pictures on my list chart the emergence of [...]

The image that has most stuck with me since seeing Avatar—and there are a lot of amazing visuals—is one of a human’s weak and broken body cradled in the arms of a giant, strong and healthy alien. It’s a stirring and powerful juxtaposition. Struggling to breathe and crippled from the waist [...]

“Avatar” may take place on a far-off, fictional moon, but the science-fiction blockbuster has some real-world implications for those of us who use avatars in our everyday lives. Especially, in a way, if we’re Christians.
An avatar is a high-tech alter ego. In the movie, a former Marine named Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is sent to [...]

It’s hard to know how to respond to a movie such as “Precious.”
This independent feature and Oscar underdog is heavy stuff. The central figure is Claireece Precious Jones, an obese, illiterate16-year-old girl from Harlem whose regular abuse at the hands of her father has already resulted in one child. As the movie begins, she’s pregnant [...]

In a roundabout way, “Fantastic Mr. Fox” is an appropriate movie for the holidays.
Director Wes Anderson has adapted Roald Dahl’s 1970 children’s novel into an exquisite exercise in stop-motion animation. The story is told with miniature puppets, but otherwise largely remains the same. After thieving from three farmers one too many times, the title character [...]

The television commercial for the end-of-the-world extravaganza “2012” – complete with images of the earth being covered in a flood – prompted the following theological discussion between my 7 and 4-year-old daughters.
“Look at all the water,” the younger one observed, her big eyes even larger than usual.
“Don’t worry,” the older one reassured her. “God promised [...]