Articles
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2003-04-20 06:38:15
Moral and spiritual issues raised by the Star Wars
phenomenon range from the problem of where to draw the line on
Star Wars tie-in products all the way to the
theological problems associated with the concept of "the
Force."
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2003-04-20 06:38:15
(Written by Jimmy Akin) "Hey Arnold!" — the television series — is different. It
manages to keep its low-key, kid-friendly tone while still
turning in episodes that are entertaining and even witty.
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2003-03-14 00:29:55
Open letter to the mother sitting in front of me at last week’s
Cradle 2 the Grave screening: Your daughter seemed to be about 8 years old, with her white dress and her hair done up in braids. I wonder what she thought when the people in this
R-rated movie kidnapped a little girl about her age, duct-taped her mouth shut and shoved her into a van, planning to kill her later.
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2003-02-10 04:25:26
Still others, trying to strike a happy medium, opt for a
tolerant ecumenical openness to various interpretations. "Pray
for ’pre’ but prepare for ’post,’ " advised Fundamentalist singer
Keith Green when asked about his views on the timing of the
rapture and the tribulation. Many likewise feel that the
interpretation of end-times prophecy is an inessential matter
regarding which Christians may legitimately hold different views.
(Incidentally, if you’re already having trouble with terms like
"pre" and "post," try this
summary to get up to speed.)
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2003-01-28 04:01:12
But there were positive trends too. For instance, it was a
better year for families at the movies than in quite some time.
Despite some disappointments and failures (Spy Kids 2, Big Fat Liar, Hey
Arnold!, Scooby-Doo),
there were solid successes (The Rookie, Stuart Little 2,
Lilo &
Stitch) and a sizable number of decent efforts (Jonah: A VeggieTales
Movie, Powerpuff Girls,
Return to Never
Land, Tuck
Everlasting, Treasure Planet,
Wild
Thornberrys).
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2002-09-16 07:01:48
What, then, defines morally acceptable use of good magic in fiction? Where, and how, do we draw the line? How do we distinguish the truly worthwhile (Tolkien and Lewis), the basically harmless (Glinda, Cinderella’s fairy godmother), and the problematic or objectionable (“Buffy,”
The Craft)? And where on this continuum does Harry Potter really fall?
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2002-08-24 05:12:47
The first line of the film’s closing credits read,
"Introducing S1m0ne as Herself." At the time of the early-look
screening I attended, no further information about "Simone" was
readily available. The movie’s production notes, website, and
Internet Movie Database entry were
all silent about who, or what, Simone might be.
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2002-07-18 08:23:36
Just as no writer or editor can do without a
copy of Strunk and White’s
The Elements of Style, so no
child’s library is complete without one or more of the latter
writer’s beloved trilogy of children’s books:
Stuart
Little (1945),
Charlotte’s Web (1952), and
Trumpet
of the Swan (1970).
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2002-06-23 17:32:06
“Hi, Internet,” Steven Spielberg says affably.
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2002-05-05 16:01:03
It was only last week, though it seems like a lifetime ago, that I was standing on top of the Empire State Building, squinting to the south with my two older children toward the proud twin towers of the World Trade Center.
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2002-03-02 04:34:32
(Co-written with Chris Otsuki) "Those who made us," Joe explains to David, with a glance at the statue of the Blessed Mother, "are always looking for the ones who made
them."
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2002-01-28 04:01:14
That said, 2001 was still a pretty lackluster year for film.
All spring and all summer, only a tiny handful of worthwhile
flicks stood out in a vast wasteland of dreck. The summer’s big
special-effects extravaganza, Tim Burton’s Planet of the
Apes, was big on effects and short on absolutely
everything else, including excitement, humor, charm,
characterization, and narrative logic. The annual Disney animated
release, Atlantis: The Lost
Empire, continued the studio’s dismal slide into modest
entertainment values and increasingly glaring New-Age rot. Then
the end of the year came with such an onslaught of new releases
that it hardly seemed possible to do them all justice. And,
unfortunately, Hollywood continued to reap the rewards of its bad
behavior with ever-higher box-office returns.
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2001-10-27 13:15:53
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2001-09-18 12:06:50
What is it about this film that’s pulling in ordinarily
subtitle-phobic U.S. audiences and eliciting cheers and applause
from jaded American critics and festival audiences, yet leaves
the kung-fu fans of the East cold? Is this a good martial-arts
movie, or not?
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2001-09-13 18:27:25
Does he think of himself as being part of a generation of
filmmakers? Smith reflects. "If I am part of a generation of
filmmakers," he says with typically self-depracating candor, "it
would be the generation that got in too easily." He recounts the
epiphany he had after seeing Richard Linklater’s 1991 low-budget
indie comedy Slacker: "I thought to myself, ’This counts?
This is a movie? ’Cause I think I could do that!’"
The result of this epiphany was Smith’s first film,
Clerks, a cheerfully obscene comedy that Smith admitted he
"never expected to play outside Monmouth County" in New
Jersey.
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2001-01-28 04:01:14
Movies this year were so bad that theater attendance was at an
almost ten-year low; yet, paradoxically, box office revenues hit
record highs — thanks largely to increased ticket prices. Never
before have so few paid so much to see so little.
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