Yes, my friends, the time has come once again to pick the brains of my fellow bloggers for interesting tidbits regarding the intersection of film and religion. Let’s see what’s going on out there.
First up, if you haven’t found it on your own, let me point you to AZ Catholic, a fine blog written by Kim a.k.a. The Papist MSTie. Someone want to tell me how a blog with the statement “We can find important theological lessons while watching MST3k” on it got started and I just noticed it? Anyway, according to Kim, she’s “just your average Roman Catholic who is from Arizona, and is one of the half million or so in this great state that is of Irish descent. Who is currently attending college to get an AAS in Culinary Arts, and has a border line obsession with old and/or bad movies, but especially comedies and Mystery Science Theater 3000.” Be sure to drop by and tell her hello.
After that, you might want to head over to The Art of Apologetics, but only if you haven’t seen (or have no plans to see) last year’s most critically acclaimed horror movie, Let The Right One In. Austin has watched it and taken note of some rather disturbing subtexts in the film, themes which I feel have been overlooked by most of the mainstream reviews, but which are starting to get tossed around on various movie forums. Be sure to stick around for the comments section where I make a rambling butthead of myself.
Speaking of rambling buttheads, by now you’re probably already aware of Ron Howard’s impassioned “my movie's not anti-Catholic” defense of the upcoming Angels & Demons. As expected, the Catholic blogosphere isn’t buying it. Carl Olson, over at Insight Scoop, does a fairly comprehensive Catholic fisking of Mr. Howard’s article, but if you’d also like a secular perspective on Ron’s Dan Brown movies (and your eyes don’t mind the obligatory four letter words), be sure to check out Chud.com’s reaction to a possible Da Vinci trilogy.
For something a little less jocular, pop over to the Chicago Sun-Times where Roger Ebert has posted a rather serious essay on how he believes in God. (Combined with some of his other recent posts, I’m beginning to suspect the man is either preparing an autobiography or believes he is dying. I hope for the former.) Like so many these days, Mr. Ebert finds himself too intelligent to trust in the dogmas of organized religion, but unlike too many, he’s surprisingly complimentary about many aspects of Catholicism and his own religious upbringing. Anyway, despite the fact that I obviously disagree with some of his conclusions, I’m inclined to be charitable to Roger as he’s one of the people whose work taught me to take film seriously. Plus, maybe it’s wishful thinking, but there’s something about the article that feels like he’s still seeking, and you know what Scripture says about that. AND, he mentions that his wife has a strong faith (of some sort). The prayers of a wife and mother are pretty irresistible forces Rog, just ask St. Augustine.
And if after all that you’ve got room for a little bit more, Gabriel McKee over at SF Gospel takes a quick look at a favorite of ours around here, The Day of The Triffids and finds that heroes can be real jerks sometimes.
So don’t just hang around here, start clicking, pick some brains and gain some knowledge.
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