On Media
TV with friends
I have always watched TV in community. In many ways these communities of shared stories have shaped the stories I tell about my life.
When the Westerners leave
After centuries of Westerners going to Africa to teach, documentary filmmaker James Ault goes to learn.
Clickbait kitsch
Several times a day, my Facebook feed invites me to cry, laugh, or feel amazed. I click almost every time.
Lights, camera, teach
In adapting my course for video, I had to learn to bridge the distance between me and students I couldn't imagine, let alone see.
Never off the clock
The lead character of Wallander is a cop relentlessly pursuing justice. He knows he should leave work at the office, but he can't.
Right-sized stories
Poems, novels, and short stories have all influenced Christian ways of telling our sacred stories. What about a miniseries?
Undaunted
Divergent puts age-old questions of belonging in a new setting: a postapocalyptic society with the motto “factions before blood.”
Papal indulgence
The Borgias series has a human, believable Pope Alexander VI. But it misses opportunities to make more of holiness as well as of sin.
Cop car philosophizing
Cohle and Hart are magnetic and unforgettable. But True Detective's existential heft never exceeds the palaver of a 101 class.
TV Protestants
In The Walking Dead, there's a crucifix at a Baptist church. Why don't producers check such details with somebody who is actually religious?
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.
What girls want
Girls gets attention as a boundary-breaking comedy focused explicitly on gender. But Hannah and friends are not navigating adult life well.
More orcs
Though action-packed, Peter Jackson's Hobbit films have less of what made his Lord of the Rings movies work: character development, humor, interior drama.
Leading man
In the holiday movie blitz, one live wire unites two very different films: Christian Bale, who plays the lead in both Out of the Furnace and American Hustle.
Capitol spectacle
I was prepared to enjoy the theological heart of Catching Fire. But my moviegoing experience was bizarrely affected by all the ads.
Enslaved
Twelve Years a Slave pulls no punches. As a white southerner, I found myself objecting that it couldn't have been as bad as this all the time. But these horrors happened, and we have yet to face them squarely.
She’s every woman
Orphan Black is so suspenseful and addictive, you may not realize that it's examining deep questions about the meaning of selfhood.
Crippling fantasies
Don Jon is not about a porn addict saved by a good woman. It's about the unhealthy collision of two people who are ready only for broken relationships.