BatChrist: Born (and Re-Born) in Hell
Depending on how you choose to count, there are either three or four Batman resurrections in The Dark Knight Rises.
God
The Psychopathic Chicken (and Other Lessons of Evolution)
In the fifth chapter of his 2007 book Evolution for Everyone: How Darwin’s Theory Can Change the Way We Think About Our Lives, David Sloan Wilson writes: “It turns out that something very similar to my desert-island thought experiment has been performed on chickens by a poultry scientist named William Muir.” That probably sounds odd. It will likely sound even odder when you find out what the desert-island thought experiment is: a set of three hypothetical situations to explore human morality through the lens of evolution.
Can the Left Find God?
A foolish person doesn’t recognize that one can learn much from opponents. So liberals have begun to understand that they need God on their side as much as the Christian Right does. The lesson from conservatives, said Rabbi Michael Lerner, is that it’s okay to base policy on faith and spiritual values, and it’s important to stand up for what you believe in. “When they come to a decision about what they believe in, they fight for it,” he said of the Christian Right in a recent interview. “And they’re willing to lose an election for the sake of what they believe in.”
Tagged: God, Interviews, Michael Lerner, Politics, The Left Hand of God
Short-Film Week: A Short Film About Failure
My version of Robert Zemeckis’ Contact uses the same source material but starts at the 33-minute, 25-second mark and ends at one hour, 26 minutes, and five seconds. It’s a marvel of economy. Let me explain myself.
Tagged: Contact, God, Reviews, Robert Zemeckis, Science Fiction, Short Films, Short-Film Week
The Blossom: Jim Kurring
The first images of Jim Kurring involve his morning routine, and it’s nothing remarkable: He eats, he showers, he reads the paper, he exercises. But there are little hints about how we’re supposed to react to him. He laughs out loud – and not very convincingly – at something on the Today show. When he’s lifting weights, we see one of those inspirational posters encouraging “determination.” And he prays, on his knees at the foot of his bed, with a cross looking down upon him. When he finishes, he gets up and claps his hands together once, as if Team God had just broken from the huddle. We learn through voice-over that he participates in some dating service, or at the least runs a personal ad. He’s a cop, and he gives himself a pep talk in the squad car.
What Would Jesus Read?
At Strange Culture, RC is hosting the Film + Faith Blog-a-thon, running through November 9. (The announcement is here.) I’m hoping for a diverse, engaging, thoughtful, and provocative batch of essays, because the spiritual component of movies is critical but often neglected.
Tagged: Blog-a-thons, Faith, God, Morality, Spirituality
A Most Dangerous Word
Near the anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, spiritual-documentary filmmaker Martin Doblmeier conducted a survey on his Web site. He asked whether people supported constructing a “garden of forgiveness” at Ground Zero in New York City. Thousands of votes later, the results were overwhelming: Roughly 95 percent of respondents said “no.”
Possessed by Pain
Sometimes the biggest gift a film can give us is to force us back into the real world rather than letting us escape. The German movie Requiem is about demonic possession, yet in spite of its subject matter, it’s a serious, wrenching piece. And because of its subject matter, it’s all the more effective, as the audience isn’t expecting to be challenged.
Why Are There Frogs Falling from the Sky?
Why does nobody take the frogs seriously? Why does nobody question them? In Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia, the cataclysmic, apocalyptic rain of frogs seems casually accepted. Nobody says: “That’s some fucked-up shit, those frogs.”
Superman and the Crucified Christ
If we’re comparing Superman and Christ, let’s not ignore what seems a fairly blatant artistic reference in the current campaign for Superman Returns, to Salvador Dali’s Christ of St. John of the Cross and Crucifixion.
Tagged: God, Salvador Dali, Superheroes, Superman
