A seemingly perfect paradise is created for the home of insurance salesman Truman Burbank, who unknowingly serves as the protagonist for an elaborate television production broadcasting his life to the world. Truman (Jim Carrey) serves as the ordinary guy—the “true man”—navigating the world presented to Read More …
Amidst the wash of imagery and sound in Terrence Malick’s film is a portrayal of humanity’s search for meaning and grace. The parallels between the journey of Christian Bale’s Rick through the bacchanalia of contemporary America and John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress are stated quite clearly, but Read More …
A quote attributed to Chesterton, although heavily paraphrased from his original words, reads: “Fairytales do not tell children that dragons exist; children already know dragons exist. Fairytales tell children that dragons can be killed.” Pan’s Labyrinth, Guillermo del Toro’s fairytale for adults, reminds us of the Read More …
If the key image of spiritual awakening in the Christian tradition is the Apostle Paul’s encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus, I would suggest that Roy Neary’s encounter on a dark country road with a UFO is cinema’s “Road to Damascus.” Close Encounters of Read More …
Barry Egan (Adam Sandler) is a timid, lonely man that suffers from fits of rage, stemming from being the only son in a family that had seven other daughters. One strange day brings a broken harmonium, a caring woman, and a nefarious band of phone-sex Read More …
Picnic at Hanging Rock is one of those rare films which becomes more inexplicable when seen repeatedly. Weir directed this adaptation of the Joan Lindsay novel prior to The Last Wave, a film equally interested in Australia as a land remaining wholly other and inaccessible to its Read More …
Orson Welles famously claimed that his 1962 film, The Trial, an adaptation of Franz Kafka’s seminal novel, was the greatest film he had ever made. Whether or not this is true is certainly up for debate given the richness of Welles’ cinematic oeuvre, but The Trial is, in many Read More …
“I feel like it should mean nothing or everything,” Travis says of the Christianity that he sees professed by others and lived by Martin, “and I can’t get to either place.” This is Martin Bonner is the rare recent film where Christian characters talk like Read More …
We must decide to be human. In the People’s Square, before a great crowd of witnesses and in representing them, we must make the decision to be wholly human. Wim Wenders’ wonderful and dreamlike 1987 fantasy, Der Himmel über Berlin, portrays two angels observing the people Read More …
Spirited Away, perhaps Japanese animation master Hayao Miyazaki’s greatest work of art, is the beautiful and engrossing tale of a young girl, Chihiro, who enters a magical world through an abandoned amusement park. Of course, such a summary necessarily fails to do justice to the Read More …