Inside Out 2 is great. While not quite peak Pixar (which hit its artistic zenith with WALL-E, Up and Toy Story 3 in the late 2000’s), it’s awfully close. Moreover, the movie is all about belief: Not belief in God, exactly, or what we believe happens when we die, but what we believe about ourselves. But don’t fool yourself into believing that Inside Out 2 isn’t spiritual. In its own way, it’s deeply so. As the Disney/Pixar film opens, we... Read more
The movie Sight came out a couple of weeks ago. It was released alongside the more heralded Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and The Garfield Movie. Directed by Andrew Hyatt and coming with a subtle-but-powerful foundation of faith, Sight, based on a true story, is a gently inspiring, smartly crafted film. And honestly, it has stuck with me longer than I expected—thanks to Flannery O’Conner. Sight’s narrative come in two parts: One focused on a young, bright aspiring doctor named... Read more
The summer blockbuster movie season is here, and Hollywood’s “biggest” films are making their way to theaters. But after you’ve gotten your fill of Fall Guys and power-hungry apes and, this weekend, imaginary friends, you might want to check out something on a smaller scale: The poignant, powerful We Grown Now. The film, directed by Minhal Baig and distributed by Sony Pictures Classics, focuses on two kids—Malik and Eric—growing up in Chicago’s Cabrini-Green housing project, circa 1992. Seen through their... Read more
When The First Omen crawled into theaters this month, it arguably scared up more press than people. Perhaps it could’ve learned a thing or two from its nearly 50-year-old forebear. Critics have been kind to The First Omen (giving it an 81% freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes), and it earned a level of notoriety for a disturbing birthing sequence that nearly garnered it an NC-17 rating. But despite the praise and some fine performances (especially from Nell Tiger Free, who... Read more
Dune: Part Two is out in theaters today, and it’s pretty spectacular. Sure, the film as its content issues (which you can read about in my review), but if you can keep up with Dune’s dense, detailed story, you’ll be rewarded with the sort of grand cinematic saga I’ve not seen since The Lord of the Rings films. And the film has a lot of interesting spiritual folds to it. Indeed, the saga of Paul “Muad’Dib” Atreides is inescapably tangled... Read more
I really liked Suncoast, a quirky coming-of-age dramedy hitting Hulu tomorrow. This semi-autobiographical dramedy from writer/director Laura Chinn, has some great performances and real heart behind it. And I especially liked how it dealt with two oft-entangling issues: cultural warfare and quiet faith. And it uses one of the biggest flashpoints of America’s so-called culture wars as its anchor. [Warning: The following contains some minor spoilers.] ‘Every Life is Precious’ Right off the bat, Suncoast introduces us to Doris (Nico... Read more
In a quiet week at the box office, an unassuming film called Freud’s Last Session might’ve made its way to a theater near you. It’s likely not going to be a blockbuster. But just because people haven’t seen it doesn’t mean they shouldn’t. For anyone interested in faith, Freud’s Last Session might be a must-see. Freud’s Last Session, based on a play that was, in turn, based on Armand Nicholi’s book The Question of God, takes us into Sigmund Freud’s... Read more
A decade ago, 12 Years a Slave was stirring the Oscar stew. Though the Best Picture field included some outstanding films (Including American Hustle, Gravity and The Wolf of Wall Street), most prognosticators pegged Steve McQueen’s searing historical epic as the film to beat. Sure enough, it won Oscar’s highest accolade, and took home two other Academy Awards as well—for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress (for Lupita Nyong’o’s searing performance as a horrifically abused slave). It also... Read more
Even though we’ve got just a few more days left of 2023, it feels as though the year is ending a little too early. I need to see more movies. Oh, I’ve seen plenty of movies—more than 130, easy. And I’ve liked and appreciated many of them. But I’ve not loved very many—a wildly subjective but, for me, important criteria. And here at Watching God, most of the movies that land on my top 10 should ideally come with a... Read more
We hear a lot about our “calling” in evangelical circles. We look in the Bible and see that it’s filled with pretty normal people who did some amazing things through God. And we assume that we, too, have parts to play in God’s overarching story. He might ask us to do something we love and feel like we were made for. Or He might ask us to do something unexpected or uncomfortable or even dangerous. But we trust that God... Read more
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