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20Dec

13 Movies—Christ and the Christian #2: Children of Men

Posted by: mark Categories: 13 Movies: Christ and the Christian Moviemakers Movies
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The Holy Ghost haunts no one like the 20th century English writer. This robust literary tradition has given us J. R. R. Tolkein (Catholic), Evelyn Waugh (even more Catholic), Graham Greene (self-described “Catholic agnostic “), E. M. Forster (irreligious), Philip Pullman (atheist), and C. S. Lewis (atheist-turned-Anglican). Even among the nonbelievers, a streak of Christian […]

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26Oct

13 Movies—Christ and the Christian #1: Chariots of Fire

Posted by: mark Categories: 13 Movies: Christ and the Christian Moviemakers Movies
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I’m going to kick things off with Chariots of Fire. The reason is simple. This film not only clearly demonstrates a muscular, unwavering faith, it also stands at a crossroads in time. The years after 1981, when Chariots of Fire opened, have been referred to as the “post-Christian age.” Before 1981, Christianity in the U.S. […]

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15Jun

Lone Star (1996)

Posted by: mark Categories: Moviemakers Movies The 1990s
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Lone Star is the Great American Movie. Oh, I know I nominated a number of films for this title (It’s a Wonderful Life, Sullivan’s Travels, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Citizen Kane, Ben Hur, Oppenheimer, October Sky, Malcolm X, Daughters of the Dust, and Once Upon a Time…When We Were Colored—and believe me, there are more), […]

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21Apr

The Celebration (1998)

Posted by: mark Categories: Moviemakers Movies The 1990s
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The Celebration (Festen is its original Danish title) encapsulates the dizzying innovation and creativity the 1990s afforded the independent filmmaker. Thomas Vinterberg and his crew shot the feature on the emerging medium of digital video, using a tiny handheld camcorder. This is also the first Dogme 95 movie, which meant it adhered to a set […]

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24Mar

Once Upon a Time… When We Were Colored (1995)

Posted by: mark Categories: Moviemakers Movies The 1990s
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What is the Great American Film? Citizen Kane? Ben Hur? Oppenheimer? These are movies about great men, but I would argue a Great American Film should celebrate great Americans. And by that, I don’t necessarily mean senators, warfighters, or celebrities—rather, the humble unsung people who embody the American spirit of independence and grit. These folks […]

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Terence Stamp in The Limey
22Feb

The Limey (1999)

Posted by: mark Categories: Moviemakers Movies The 1990s
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I don’t have a favorite movie genre. I love dramas, historical epics, comedies, action, martial arts, romcoms, mysteries, meta-films, gangster movies, slice-of-life indies, films plumbing the meaning of existence, and even art films offering beautiful abstractions. Unlike most men, I adore a good musical (too bad there are so few). But if I had to […]

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Eat Drink Man Woman dinner scene
11Jan

Eat Drink Man Woman (1994)

Posted by: mark Categories: Moviemakers Movies The 1990s
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Directed by Ang Lee, written by Ang Lee, James Schamus, and Hui-Ling Wang Since the introduction of sound, cinema has competed with opera as the exemplar of Gesamtkunstwerk, the total art form. Both encompass the visual, aural, spatial, and the pathetic. With experiments like Sensurround and Odorama, the movies have tried incorporating the haptic and […]

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21Dec

Smoke (1995)

Posted by: mark Categories: Moviemakers Movies The 1990s
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Smoke is a hyperlink film released at the start of the 1990s hyperlink fad—which is to say one year after Pulp Fiction. But unlike less successful movies like Playing By Heart, Grand Canyon, Crash (the Paul Haggis movie, not the Cronenberg one), and even the highly-regarded Short Cuts, Smoke doesn’t ever feel like it’s trying […]

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