Film
Is Sinéad O’Connor a secular saint?
A new documentary positions the fiery iconoclast as a prophet ahead of her time.
Beyoncé, Oshun, and the melting pot of American religion
The Black church isn’t in the pot; it is the pot.
How universal is the Force?
The Rise of Skywalker reduces a powerful theological symbol to a family drama.
The story of Israeli prime minister Yitzak Rabin’s assassin
Incitement shows the roots of political fractures that remain.
Quentin Tarantino’s violent movie about violent movies
In Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood, the director delights in both cinema and blood.
A feel-good story's power and limits
There is a danger in responding to a film like Hidden Figures by congratulating ourselves on how far we’ve come.
Why I still love the 1982 version of Annie
I was delighted to see Annie remade with an African American girl in the title role. But the new version doesn't do justice to the original's progressive vision.
Beth Felker Jones's theological film favorites
I’ve never seen a film that translates grace to the screen like Babette’s Feast. As one of the rare films that focuses on the lined and battered faces of real people Babette’s Feast challenges viewers to love real life. The film embraces God’s love for the embodied, the ordinary and the value of the extraordinary, and a love that wastes nothing.
Son of God and marketing Jesus movies to ministers
Son of God is a dud. Just don’t tell that to the film’s producers, Roma Downey and Mark Burnett. They found evidence of divine favor in the “truly miraculous” support they received from Catholic and evangelical leaders. It brought in $26.5 million its first weekend.
Burnett and Downey’s marketing approach makes good business sense and has plenty of precedent.
Goin’ nowhere
Llewyn Davis lives a decidedly nonromantic existence as a starving artist. He’s a good musician, but there are thousands like him, and they can’t all succeed.
Love virtually
I began watching Her suspicious that it would glorify bodiless romance or present a mere male fantasy. But the film surprised me.
‘To the wonder’
Terrence Malick has become the psalmist of film. His characters continually ask the fundamental questions of theological pursuit.
That shape am I
The early history of Alcoholics Anonymous has always fascinated me, so I was eager to see the much heralded new documentary Bill W.
Low-tech Bond
Viewers don’t look to James Bond movies for profundity. Mostly they go to see buxom babes (now brainier and badder) and gravity-defying vehicle chases. But the most recent Bond installment offers some pertinent comments on technology.
