How Did We Get Here?
June is the month where we break from the normal format of the Cinema Faith podcast and deliver something different. This year, Cinema Faith founder Jonathan Butrin talks directly…
Latest Podcasts
Civil War
Releasing Civil War in an election year could have been irresponsible, but Alex Garland knows better. The writer/director, best known for Ex Machina, has crafted a sober warning to America. Is anyone still…
Dune: Part Two
March is a wasteland for film — the place bad movies go to die after being rejected by the Academy and the box office. Every once in a while,…
Poor Things
Welcome to the last podcast of the 2023 movie season! And what a perfect show to end on. Yorgos Lanthimos doesn’t make movies for everyone. He’s an absurdist filmmaker…
May December
Now that the holidays are winding down, it’s time to turn our attention once again to Oscar season. May December may have December in the title, but it’s far from…
Killers of the Flower Moon
Four years after The Irishman, Martin Scorsese is back in the director’s chair. But this time, he leaves behind the familiar world of the Mob to explore a different kind…
Latest Articles
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…
Steven Spielberg Made Me Believe I Could Fly
The final scene of E.T. the Extra Terrestrial remains a memorable and poignant moment for me replete with the distinct John Williams score in which the trumpets and tympanies accentuate…
Oscars 2023 — Who Should Win (Part Two)
Welcome to part two of our Oscar picks! Here’s part one if you missed it: Oscars 2023 – Who Should Win? (Part One) Remember, these aren’t the movies that will…
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…