One Battle After Another
Paul Thomas Anderson may be the best director working today. His career as a writer/director transcends genre and convention with unique stories and characters every time he steps behind…
Latest Podcasts
Caught Stealing
Darren Aronofsky is best known as a writer/director of provocative films like Black Swan, Mother!, and Requiem for a Dream. Movies that are hard to watch and harder to forget. Caught Stealing is…
Eddington
2020 was a pivotal moment in American history. We disappeared into our homes and came out a divided nation. That’s the backdrop for Eddington. Ari Aster, the writer/director best…
Superman
In an age of superhero gluttony, do we need another Superman? Yes! In fact, Superman has exactly what the Marvel Universe has been lacking lately: fun. And James Gunn…
Friendship
At the beginning of June, Jon drove up to visit Tim in Kansas City. They ate junk food, went kayaking, and watched a ton of movies — male friendship…
Sinners
Oscar season is six months away, but we’ve already seen one of the best films of 2025. And believe it or not… it’s a vampire movie. The difference is…
Latest Articles
Grace in the Grey: Finding Redemption in Morally Complex Films
Let’s be honest — most of us don’t live in clear moral categories. We want to believe we do. We want our stories, our theology, our art to give us…
Grace in Chaos: Pulp Fiction Turns 30
In Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 film Pulp Fiction, grace invades an otherwise chaotic, yet legalistic realm in which the gangster’s code of honor apparently governs a world in which coincidental events punctuate…
Oscars 2024 — Who Should Win (Part Two)
Welcome to part two of our Oscar picks! Here’s part one if you missed it: Oscars 2024 – Who Should Win? (Part One) Remember, these aren’t the movies that will…
Oscars 2024 — Who Should Win? (Part One)
Just like that, the 2023 movie season is coming to a close, and what a season it was! 2023 gave us the best slate of releases in recent memory. Over…
You’re Always Welcome At Church: A Home Alone Homily
I plunked down to watch Home Alone with my kids recently as one of them had it playing in the living room. I initially thought to myself, “You guys watch…
The Sins of the Father and the Redemption of Indiana Jones
In anticipation of The Dial of Destiny, I have been rewatching and reconsidering the Indiana Jones franchise films. I’m a little hesitant about the extent to which James Mangold’s addition…
Black Lives Matter
The Book of Clarence
The opening shot of Jeymes Samuel’s Book of Clarence shows several criminals nailed to crosses per the first century Roman method of capital punishment. In the foreground, a white figure…
Just Mercy
Reproductive justice. Climate justice. Food justice. Social justice. Append the word “justice” to any other word and you’ve got a ready-made brand platform for niche activism. As cultural forces shape…
The Last Black Man in San Francisco
At the end of the day, we’re all just looking for a place to call home. Movies have long wrestled with this sentiment and not just in a physical sense….
A Hero Ain’t Nothin’ But a Sandwich
Politicians, journalists and experts rarely agree, but they have all named the current opioid situation a plague. It’s an appropriate word, with historical and biblical connotations; in every generation, our…
If Beale Street Could Talk
Barry Jenkins and Damien Chazelle both directed Oscar-nominated movies this year. The last time that happened was in 2017 when Chazelle’s La La Land was mistakenly announced as the Best…
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
My Spider-Man was the 1981 “Spider-Friends” version, complete with invented sidekicks, incomprehensible Saturday morning subplots, shoddy animation, and a little dog too (spoiler: they were all killed off by a…
Claudine
“I have known this woman all my life,” Diahann Carroll writes in her autobiography.* “We grew up together in the same neighborhood.” Lest someone might interpret that statement as metaphorical,…
Sapphire
“We’re all the children of God,” a black sophisticate remarks to her boyfriend, after he has interacted with the police. “Forget it.” The exchange is brief — the actor isn’t…
Black Panther
I didn’t expect to feel tears stream down my face so shortly into Black Panther, but within the first few minutes of the film, I was already impacted heavily. In…