NOW SHOWING AT A BLOG NEAR YOU

Yes, I know we did a Now Showing recently, but every time Halloween rolls around the big shots in the blogosphere can’t seem to help dipping their toes in the murky waters we splash around in on a weekly basis, so there’s lots of fun stuff to be found out there.

First up, we have our review of Ender’s Game, the much anticipated, and much protested (to the disgust of John C. Wright), adaptation of Orson Scott Card’s classic sci-fi novel. Fans of the book will likely wince out how much has been left out of the story, but at least they can console themselves with the fact that the finished product doesn’t stink. But let’s face it, no matter how good the adaptation, the book will (almost) always be better. For instance, as much as I love Robert Wise’s 1963 movie The Haunting (and equally loathe the 1999 remake), nothing will ever top Shirley Jackson’s original novel The Haunting of Hill House, as Scott and Julie over at A Good Story Is Hard To Find will attest to.

Speaking of that proposed protest of Ender’s Game, early indications from the box office are that the movie will probably earn a few million more than originally projected, so it looks like all that fist raising on the Internet will have a minimal effect on its success. Regardless of how well Ender’s Game does, though, it still won’t come close to Gravity, the hands down runaway blockbuster of the season. As you might remember from our review of Gravity, we found the film visually stunning and emotionally immersive, but perhaps a bit light on philosophy. Others have not had that problem, however. Sr Helena at Hell Burns found the movie a bit more spiritual than I did, and CatholicSkywalker found it even more so. And then there’s Kathryn over at Aleteia, who dug really deep and managed to find in Gravity an allegory for botched abortions. So there you go.

Maybe people are just hungry for any hint of real spirituality in movies these days. And really, it’s hard to blame them. After all, it’s not like religion, especially Christianity, has gotten that fair a shake from Hollywood over the past few decades. As evidence, just take a look at Donald R. McClarey’s review of Dr. Peter Dans’ book Christians in the Movies: A Century of Saints and Sinners, which chronicles the portrayal of Christians and Christianity in films made between 1905-2008. I’ll give you a hint. Starting in the 60s, it ain’t a pretty picture.

Speaking of which, I can’t imagine an uglier spectacle than Spears The Musical: The Gospel According To Britney. That’s right, some intrepid playwright is proposing a mash-up of the gospels with the pop princess’ performances. As ridiculous as the idea sounds, I’m sure it will find an audience. Liturgical dancers everywhere are probably already salivating.

I suppose we’ll just have to try and laugh that one off. If you’d rather look at something intentionally funny, however, you can always head over to Sword of Peter, where Jeff has his latest cartoon up.

And with that, I’ll stop living off of other people’s posts for the moment and try to get to work on my own stuff. Until then, see you next time.