Go ahead, call me a homophobe. But it’s difficult for me not to view a film like Milk as gay propaganda. Yeah, it’s based on a true, fairly compelling story. And many reviewers are calling Sean Penn’s portrayal of the slain, openly gay politician, as one of the year’s best. But a lot of Christians, [...]
Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire has garnered a lot of critical praise, and made not a few year-end “best-of” lists. The film combines gritty realism with whimsical hope as it follows the plight of an 18-year-old Indian orphan named Jamal who’s spent his life in abject poverty, scavenging on the streets of Mumbai, experiencing the worst [...]
Jesus warned, “Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets” (Lk. 6:26 KJV). So is the opposite true? Are we better off being hated by a lot of folks, than being loved? The Bible seems to suggest that having enemies — maybe even [...]
I’m not sure if there’s a term for people obsessed with lists. If there is, add my name to the roster. It’s one of my favorite things about the end of the year. Everybody starts rolling out their lists — Best Films, Books, Widgets, Gadgets and Celebrity Scandals. Oh joy! So I’m adding my favorites [...]
Something doesn’t jive. Within hours of the announcement that new claims for unemployment have hit a 26-year high, the Yankees signed another big-name, over-priced, free agent. From the NY Times: Continuing to spend money as if they were printing it, the Yankees on Tuesday reached agreement with the All-Star free-agent first baseman Mark Teixeira on [...]
“We want to take the hick out of the word ‘evangelical.’” That according to Marvin Olasky, provost of The King’s College in New York City. Olasky’s response was part of an exposé by the New York Times. Their article, In a Worldly City’s Tallest Tower, A College with a Heavenly Bent, asks the question: What [...]
I’ve become quite fond of watching documentaries, and one I’ve been tempted to see is Errol Morris’ Standard Operating Procedure. It examines the alleged incidents of abuse and torture of suspected terrorists by U.S. forces at the Abu Ghraib prison in Guantanamo Bay. Morris is a fantastic documentarian and this film is being hailed as [...]
“Fully democratic open-source networks inevitably get corrupted by loonies.” That according to Andrew Keen in his controversial book on Web 2.0 The Cult of the Amateur. The subtitle of the book is, “How blogs, MySpace, YouTube, and the rest of today’s user-generated media are destroying our economy, our culture, and our values,” which gives you [...]
Another one of those “writing rules” that pedagogues preach is POV. Whose Point Of View is the story being told through? Seeing the story through someone else’s head is important to the consistency, pacing, and feel of the tale. The following POV is told through my protag, Gennel O’Dwyer: Gennel opened the cellar door and [...]
I was all excited about seeing the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still this weekend. The 1951 classic remains one of my all-time favorite sci-fi flicks, what with its galactic peacekeepers and their cryptic Cold War warnings. Fifty-plus years later and its message seems tailor-made for our ever-edgy global relations. Problem is, the [...]
