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You Are What You See:
Watching Movies Through a Christian Lens
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Available on DVD: End of Watch (2012)
It's not a propaganda film for the LAPD, but if there were one, it would look a lot like this.
Click to read the review by Scott Nehring. -
Movie Review: The Master (2012)
Who knew insulting Scientology could be so boring?
Click to read the review. -
Available on DVD: Looper (2012)
Will you want to travel back in time and keep yourself from renting this time travel movie?
Click to read the review. -
Movie Review: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)
The Hobbit: The Expected Self-Indulgent Director. Peter Jackson is wading into the George Lucas end of the pool.
Click to read the review. -
You Are What You See: Watching Movies Through a Christian Lens
I recommend it for anyone who wants to dig deeper into films and their meaning beyond the obvious.
- Angela Walker, ChristianCinema.com - Click to get your copy today!
The Last Winter (2006)
Reviewer: Scott Nehring
Should I see it?
Nope.
Made back in the old days when Global Warming was still called Global Warming instead of the more vague term Climate Change, this film plays off the usual Global Warming/Green Communist tripe - oil companies are evil and Global Warming is a) not a Marxist front and is actually happening and b) is the fault of capitalist idiocy.
Oil drillers begin to go insane as they drive further into the Northern Arctic National Wildlife Refuge - apparently their work is releasing toxic gases. Heroic environmentalists are along for the ride.
This production is so burdened by its agenda it never leaves the ground. It would have not been out of place for the narrative to stop and for Al Gore to show up with his PowerPoint.
Related Reviews:
Global Warming movies
An Inconvenient Truth (2006)
The Day After Tomorrow (2004)
Other Critic's Reviews:
Film Critics United
Cineopinion
Click here to buy your copy of
You Are What You See:
Watching Movies Through a Christian Lens
The Way Home (2010)
Reviewer: Christine Hunt
Short review: A true story on the importance of family—good choice for family movie night. Heartwarming though it does often feel like a well done made-for-TV movie.
The Way Home is the true story of a family whose two year-old boy disappeared, how a rural community rallied to search for the missing child, and how the lives of many of those involved in the rescue were changed as a result. The storyline is predictable yet the important moments are sufficiently well done to pull me in and help me feel what the various characters experienced—and not just the main characters but secondary and tertiary characters as well.
The film focuses on the dad (Dean Cain of TV’s Lois and Clark) who suffers from all-too-normal workaholism—and therein lies the predictability. During the search, Dad realizes his need to be involved in the lives of his wife and children. Cain portrays this well (except for the first minute, which should be cut from the film) and his emotional journey carries the storyline. The payoff at the end is believable.
Dean Cain (Dad), Sonny Shroyer (Searcher), Tom Nowicki (Sheriff), Bruce McKinnon (Papaw), and L. Warren Young (Sheriff’s Deputy) were excellent casting choices, as was little Pierce Gagnon as the lost two year old—that little kid was a scene stealer. Lori Beth Edgeman (Mom) was the weakest casting choice; her performance frequently hit me with the fact she was acting, which continually pulled me out of the story, but Cain, Shroyer, Nowicki, and Brett Rice (Fire Chief) pulled me right back in again. In the end, the story won and I cried in spite of my intentions not to.
The music was well done though standard for this type film. I admire director Lance Dreesen’s courage to do without music in many of the scenes and let the skittering of animals in the forest, emptiness of a junk yard, or isolation of a pond speak all the more clearly to the desperation of their search.
This is a film about Christian faith in the God Who is Here and, though at times it seems the actors are too aware of what they’re portraying, the inclusion of faith is presented realistically, especially for this type situation. Particularly poignant for me was when the TV news reporter glances around, awed by the number of volunteers, and sees a small prayer group among the trees. Interviews with the actual people involved are included in the Special Features and are worth the time to watch; footage includes shots of the child who was missing, now a teenager, on the set of the movie shoot.
Messages on the importance of faith, hope, love, family, and unity within a community are timeless. We need to be reminded of their reality. The Way Home, while no Hollywood blockbuster, is a pleasant taste of why they are significant.
Related Reviews:
Christian movies
Facing the Giants (2006)
The Cross and the Switchblade (1970)
Another Critic's Review:
CBN
Click here to buy your copy of
You Are What You See:
Watching Movies Through a Christian Lens
Should I see it?
Yes.
Yes.
Short review: A true story on the importance of family—good choice for family movie night. Heartwarming though it does often feel like a well done made-for-TV movie.
The Way Home is the true story of a family whose two year-old boy disappeared, how a rural community rallied to search for the missing child, and how the lives of many of those involved in the rescue were changed as a result. The storyline is predictable yet the important moments are sufficiently well done to pull me in and help me feel what the various characters experienced—and not just the main characters but secondary and tertiary characters as well.
The film focuses on the dad (Dean Cain of TV’s Lois and Clark) who suffers from all-too-normal workaholism—and therein lies the predictability. During the search, Dad realizes his need to be involved in the lives of his wife and children. Cain portrays this well (except for the first minute, which should be cut from the film) and his emotional journey carries the storyline. The payoff at the end is believable.
Dean Cain (Dad), Sonny Shroyer (Searcher), Tom Nowicki (Sheriff), Bruce McKinnon (Papaw), and L. Warren Young (Sheriff’s Deputy) were excellent casting choices, as was little Pierce Gagnon as the lost two year old—that little kid was a scene stealer. Lori Beth Edgeman (Mom) was the weakest casting choice; her performance frequently hit me with the fact she was acting, which continually pulled me out of the story, but Cain, Shroyer, Nowicki, and Brett Rice (Fire Chief) pulled me right back in again. In the end, the story won and I cried in spite of my intentions not to.The music was well done though standard for this type film. I admire director Lance Dreesen’s courage to do without music in many of the scenes and let the skittering of animals in the forest, emptiness of a junk yard, or isolation of a pond speak all the more clearly to the desperation of their search.
This is a film about Christian faith in the God Who is Here and, though at times it seems the actors are too aware of what they’re portraying, the inclusion of faith is presented realistically, especially for this type situation. Particularly poignant for me was when the TV news reporter glances around, awed by the number of volunteers, and sees a small prayer group among the trees. Interviews with the actual people involved are included in the Special Features and are worth the time to watch; footage includes shots of the child who was missing, now a teenager, on the set of the movie shoot.
Messages on the importance of faith, hope, love, family, and unity within a community are timeless. We need to be reminded of their reality. The Way Home, while no Hollywood blockbuster, is a pleasant taste of why they are significant.
Related Reviews:
Christian movies
Facing the Giants (2006)
The Cross and the Switchblade (1970)
Another Critic's Review:
CBN
Click here to buy your copy of
You Are What You See:
Watching Movies Through a Christian Lens
A Serious Man (2009)
Reviewer: Scott Nehring
The Coen Brothers are hit or miss. They basically have two kinds of films. They make visionary, brilliant films that have established them as perhaps the best film making pair in history (Raising Arizona, The Big Lebowski, Miller's Crossing, Barton Fink, O' Brother Where Art Thou?, Blood Simple, No Country for Old Men and Fargo). Then they have their more "personal" movies. By "personal" I mean "lousy" (Intolerable Cruelty, The Hudsucker Proxy, Burn After Reading, The Ladykillers).
This is a lousy personal movie - meaning it is lousy even when compared to their other lousy movies.
Quite simply, this movie about a Jewish man who is exasperated as his life completely falls apart. He's in trouble at work, his wife is leaving him, his kids are rotten, his brother is a criminal, and on and on. Watching this movie is like listening to a man with a whiny voice complain for ninety minutes.
Related Reviews:
Coen Brother movies
Burn After Reading (2008)
No Country for Old Men (2007)
Other Critic's Reviews:
Roger Ebert
Sight & Sound
Click here to buy your copy of
You Are What You See:
Watching Movies Through a Christian Lens
Should I see it?
Nope.
The Coen Brothers are hit or miss. They basically have two kinds of films. They make visionary, brilliant films that have established them as perhaps the best film making pair in history (Raising Arizona, The Big Lebowski, Miller's Crossing, Barton Fink, O' Brother Where Art Thou?, Blood Simple, No Country for Old Men and Fargo). Then they have their more "personal" movies. By "personal" I mean "lousy" (Intolerable Cruelty, The Hudsucker Proxy, Burn After Reading, The Ladykillers).
Quite simply, this movie about a Jewish man who is exasperated as his life completely falls apart. He's in trouble at work, his wife is leaving him, his kids are rotten, his brother is a criminal, and on and on. Watching this movie is like listening to a man with a whiny voice complain for ninety minutes.
Related Reviews:
Coen Brother movies
Burn After Reading (2008)
No Country for Old Men (2007)
Other Critic's Reviews:
Roger Ebert
Sight & Sound
Click here to buy your copy of
You Are What You See:
Watching Movies Through a Christian Lens
Since You Went Away (1944)
Reviewer: Christine Hunt
Short Review: All-star cast in an Oscar-winning, WWII-era film of a family who must cope with hardships on the home-front when Father is sent to war. Real issues of life and death are faced with determined optimism and love for each other, and faith wins.
The film opens as Mrs. Anne Hilton (Claudette Colbert) returns home from the train station. She has just said good-bye to her beloved husband, an army captain, who is going to war in Europe; now she and her two daughters (Jennifer Jones, Shirley Temple) face a future full of death and uncertainty. Anne must sell the family car, let go of their long-time housekeeper-cum-loving caregiver, Fidelia (Hattie McDaniel), give up her bedroom to a lodger—a retired army colonel whose demands are sometimes more than she can keep up with—and eventually train to be a welder. The elder daughter, Jane, experiences her own set of joys and tragedies, including the death of a close friend, which Anne must help her navigate.
Remarkably and refreshingly absent from this film is any sense of victimization so prevalent in our culture today. Anne and her daughters meet each new crisis with the internal, spiritual awareness that there is One who is at work in every circumstance of our lives. Pain is real—it must be accepted, death deserves tears be cried—but it is not misguided to understand and acknowledge the reality that life is so much bigger than the set-backs we face. Since You Went Away beautifully depicts life’s balance between true optimism and the onslaught of tragedy.
At the beginning of the film, as Fidelia says good-bye to the family, she states the Central Question of the film: "The Lord, Hisself, is just gonna have to take care of these calamities somehow." The Answer by movie's end is, He does.
Not intended as a Christmas film (released July ’44), Since You Went Away ends with a stirring Christmas Eve scene that kick-starts my holiday feelings. Especially poignant to me since my son was with the Marine Corps in Iraq over the last few years.
Related Reviews:
Another Joseph Cotton movie
The Third Man (1949)
Another Critic's Review:
DVD Verdict
Illuminated Illusions
Click here to buy your copy of
You Are What You See:
Watching Movies Through a Christian Lens
Should I see it?
Yes.
Short Review: All-star cast in an Oscar-winning, WWII-era film of a family who must cope with hardships on the home-front when Father is sent to war. Real issues of life and death are faced with determined optimism and love for each other, and faith wins.
The film opens as Mrs. Anne Hilton (Claudette Colbert) returns home from the train station. She has just said good-bye to her beloved husband, an army captain, who is going to war in Europe; now she and her two daughters (Jennifer Jones, Shirley Temple) face a future full of death and uncertainty. Anne must sell the family car, let go of their long-time housekeeper-cum-loving caregiver, Fidelia (Hattie McDaniel), give up her bedroom to a lodger—a retired army colonel whose demands are sometimes more than she can keep up with—and eventually train to be a welder. The elder daughter, Jane, experiences her own set of joys and tragedies, including the death of a close friend, which Anne must help her navigate.
Remarkably and refreshingly absent from this film is any sense of victimization so prevalent in our culture today. Anne and her daughters meet each new crisis with the internal, spiritual awareness that there is One who is at work in every circumstance of our lives. Pain is real—it must be accepted, death deserves tears be cried—but it is not misguided to understand and acknowledge the reality that life is so much bigger than the set-backs we face. Since You Went Away beautifully depicts life’s balance between true optimism and the onslaught of tragedy.At the beginning of the film, as Fidelia says good-bye to the family, she states the Central Question of the film: "The Lord, Hisself, is just gonna have to take care of these calamities somehow." The Answer by movie's end is, He does.
Not intended as a Christmas film (released July ’44), Since You Went Away ends with a stirring Christmas Eve scene that kick-starts my holiday feelings. Especially poignant to me since my son was with the Marine Corps in Iraq over the last few years.
Related Reviews:
Another Joseph Cotton movie
The Third Man (1949)
Another Critic's Review:
DVD Verdict
Illuminated Illusions
Click here to buy your copy of
You Are What You See:
Watching Movies Through a Christian Lens
Movie Quote: I Am Legend (2007)
Anna
The world is quieter now. We just have to listen. If we listen, we can hear God's plan.
Neville
God's plan.
Anna
Yeah.
Neville
All right, let me tell you about your "God's plan". Six billion people on Earth when the infection hit. KV had a ninety-percent kill rate, that's five point four billion people dead. Crashed and bled out. Dead. Less than one-percent immunity. That left twelve million healthy people, like you, me, and Ethan. The other five hundred and eighty-eight million turned into your dark seekers, and then they got hungry and they killed and fed on everybody. Everybody! Every *single* person that you or I has ever known is dead! Dead! There is no god!
Movie Trailer: The Lincoln Lawyer
I love Michael Connelly's books and this will have to do until someone figures out how to make The Poet which I think has been overlooked.
This is an adaptation of his book of the same name. A lawyer works out of the back of his Lincoln and off the books. He gets entangled in a murder case which is pretty well summed up in the trailer.
The trailer itself is stock stuff with the traditional breaks and emphasis. It is odd that they would go so conventional on their trailer and the end with the weird final moment. I found it to be rather awkward.
This could be good, if done right. The director Brad Furman doesn't have a deep enough resume to make any assumptions. The cast is pretty strong and the source material is top notch however.
Movie Trailer: Mao's Last Dancer
I don't see how this isn't going to be great.
Bruce Beresford (Driving Miss Daisy, Breaker Morant, Tender Mercies, Black Robe and Evelyn) directing a film discussing the evil oppression of the Chinese Government by contrasting it to the free society available in the U.S. - we need more of these. As our leaders eagerly pass the mantle over to the Chinese, it is great to see someone displaying what these evil oligarchs do to their people.
Bruce Beresford (Driving Miss Daisy, Breaker Morant, Tender Mercies, Black Robe and Evelyn) directing a film discussing the evil oppression of the Chinese Government by contrasting it to the free society available in the U.S. - we need more of these. As our leaders eagerly pass the mantle over to the Chinese, it is great to see someone displaying what these evil oligarchs do to their people.
Movie Trailer: Source Code
Wait! Wait! Wait!
They have a bomber on a train and they send a guy in using all this high-tech made-up nonsense. THIS IS POST-AMERICA! If we think there might be a terrorist attack we do it the Post-American Way - we force all the obviously innocent people to be molested by government employees and give the kids and cancer patients strip searches.
The guy's boss actually tells him to "look for someone nervous". You can't do that! THAT'S RACIST!
Regardless, this movie would have been so much better if it took place on a short bus instead of a train.
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