Within the framework of established by Proverbs, the epigram of True Grit fits as one instance of a larger thematic whole: God ensures that a good life awaits the wise and, conversely that a life of evil results awaits the wicked...

There is and was something about this story that hits at the core of my understanding of relationships. For me the film stood as a reminder of fact that the call to love costs something and sometimes requires entering into dark and dangerous spaces...

This is really the heart of the film—a life presented for us to see that hasn’t been airbrushed or Photoshopped. We’re invited to see how the broken pieces of each character have a genesis—how we are all descendants of our past experiences...

A few months prior to seeing the film I had gotten engaged and although I was ready to make that commitment and transition to married life, there was also a part of me that felt like married life would mean the official end to my childhood and the start of true adulthood...

India is a vast, complex, and diverse nation. The proposed perpetuators and enders of poverty in India’s films are similarly complex and diverse...

Remember the Titans taught me to see others through God’s eyes. It helped me to understand that the culture at times needs to be challenged and changed for the better. The team’s unity despite its diversity painted a beautiful picture of what community is really supposed to look like...

Lyrically filmed along the pilgrimage route, the movie is on one level about a place, a several hundred mile long foot path for pilgrims. But like all “road trip” movies, it is not the setting or even the plot that carries the weight of the movie. What is of real importance in the movie is what the characters learn en route, their personal pilgrimage toward insight and wholeness as they travel along “The Way.”

The following ten films are the films I saw in the theater that have most impacted me and helped me love the world better in the previous year. When I entertain a film and allow a film to entertain me, I am trying to do what Jesus did and rub shoulders with the people of earth so that I may love the world better...

No matter where the tree comes from, what you hang on its branches, or whether you have to water it or reassemble it, putting up a Christmas tree is a ritual thousands of people perform every day this time of year. Lars von Trier’s new film, Melancholia, asks whether that ritual, or any of the countless other rituals we participate in, has any content—or if it is just an empty pattern of life.

Reel Spirituality Co-Director Rob Johnston was recently interviewed on CENTERED Radio. The conversation is an in-depth exploration of the many ways Christians can and perhaps ought to be interacting with our visual culture. Listen in!

Into the Wild creates common language and a common ground for our culture to stand on when speaking about relationships and community. By encountering the story, I learned a reason why freedom should not be the ultimate objective in life...

At times, it would seem that there are simply no words to describe what music is doing with us, for us, and perhaps even to us. For, in the context of filmgoing, music is not simply meaningful; it is also powerful. It is somehow capable of accessing the inner recesses of our basic humanity. A telling example of film music’s mysterious, meaning-making capacity is found in Paul Thomas Anderson’s most recent film, There Will Be Blood...

In 1996, I was a blonde haired, blue eyed, Northern California daughter of a banker father and a stay at home mother. Mike, my boyfriend and star football player and I, a dancer with my high school squad, set out on a typical Saturday evening date-night. Not telling my parents goodbye, I hurried out of the house and into Mike’s Mustang. Our movie started in 15 minutes...

What might both the French and American church learn from a children’s movie?

There may be no artistic medium that more directly engages story than film. And among the film genres, none move their chips more fully onto story than documentary films...

The Dark Knight helped me understand the sacrifice of Jesus in a new way, and allowed me to wrap my head around it in a manner that became more real...

In just about every seminary across the country, there is the similar recognition that unless we adopt new measures and new metrics, unless we change the way we go about projecting our endeavors, we will no longer be effective in serving the church. We might not even long be in business. The same sense of a changing scenario holds true for those running hospitals. Even the very best stand-alone hospital knows that within ten years, it will be out of business if it doesn’t reinvent its business model. Does the same go for the church? I think it does...

These characters don’t exist, but they are part of stories that touch us and speak to the realities that exist inside us. There are real people using fake creatures to talk to us in ways that real people sometimes can’t. They put fake characters into real messes just like in the real world, and they exploit my fears, hopes, and dreams. To put it bluntly, they manipulate us...

Straight’s family was initially concerned that their father would be turned into a laughingstock by the movie, particularly when they learned that the film would be directed by the edgy, four-time Academy Award nominee David Lynch. But they had no need to fear...

Most clergy representatives on film are not suave mainline clerics, beloved Irish-American priests, or wan and thin play-it-safe rabbis. Today, with the rise of presumably Protestant born-again studs, manipulators of people, and takers of the law into their own hands types, we see images of law-breakers with macho swagger...

“Chick flicks don’t have to suck!” boasts the movie poster for the 2011 film Bridemaids. Somehow the hype about the film seemed to be condensed to shock about its surprising, actual hilarity. Its actual hilarity is surprising, of course, for two reasons: the film’s genre and the writers’ gender...

But like all road movies, Up is more about the relationship that develops, than the adventures on the road. The two lead characters meet up with packs of dogs, dangerous cliffs and frightening weather, not to mention an embittered explorer, Charles Muntz, who chases after them. But adrenalin is not the heart of the movie. Rather, Up is about love and friendship.

Is visual media the best antidote to an atrophied imagination? That’s what got us there in the first place. At its core, visual media is projected light on a flat screen. How could telling simple community stories on a flat screen be deep or rich?

Some have called Cars Pixar’s greatest achievement, while others have considered it their worst effort (but even those critics admit that every other animation studio only wishes they could make such a “clunker”). But $5 billion in merchandising sales alone since Cars came out five years ago, and a growing enthusiasm for Cars 2 which will was released this summer suggest that Lasseter’s quirky story about a menagerie of cars has already proven an endearing addition to the animation lexicon.

Released just weeks apart to US theaters, two films usher viewers into vastly different but equally inspiring journeys of faith. The two films? Soul Surfer (2011, d. McNamara) and Of God’s and Men (2010, d. Beauvois)...

Jeffrey Overstreet explores the power of storytelling.

An interview with film director Randall Wallace, famed for such films as Braveheart, The Man in the Iron Mask, We Were Soldiers, Pearl Harbor and Secretariat

Reassessing Our Attitude Towards Movies

Reassessing Our Attitude Towards Movies

Reassessing Our Attitude Towards the Movies

Nonetheless, this is not the time to be cynical. Rather, we have all the more reason to forge ahead with perseverance and innovation, and to recognize and celebrate achievements whenever praise is due. Of all the films I saw in 2010, the following are my favorites...