Star Trek is a Christian TV show in the same way that the United States is a Christian nation. There’s very little explicit reference to Biblical teachings in the show’s scripts and in our country’s founding documents, but they are baked into the core concepts that gave rise to the various aspects found in each product. Continue reading
I’ve noticed something interesting about myself. The times when I feel angry rarely come as the result of outside influences. I can usually deal with stress, rudeness, and even injustice without losing my temper. No, I tend to get angry when I am not doing my best to keep the commandments. When I’m failing to be right with God, I’m on a sandy foundation, and I become angry when even the smallest thing jostles my precious ego. Continue reading
In the final chapter of the final book in The Chronicles of Narnia, The Last Battle, something mysterious happens. I’m not talking about the destruction of the old Narnia, the sudden super-speed of the humans, their ability to run up a waterfall, or any of the other wondrous things that take place on their journey further up and further into Aslan’s country. Continue reading
I make a lot of definitive statements as the Deja Reviewer, judging this and that movie in ways that I think are reasonable and sometimes daring. But doing this leaves me open to the possibility of having to eat humble pie every now and then. Sometimes my errors are so egregious, I feel the need to go back and correct them. In this case, I figured out (nine years too late) that I was wrong about some movies being better if you skip their first half. Continue reading
When it comes to villains, Elliott Marston is among my favorites. During my recent rewatch of Quigley Down Under in preparation for my Cinematic Chiasmus article, I noticed that Marston is surprisingly sympathetic. I’m not saying he’s a paragon of virtue. He does plenty of villainous things. I’m just saying that his vices are outweighed by his virtues. Here are four reasons why the villain of Quigley Down Under isn’t such a bad guy. Continue reading
This isn’t going to be a typical article for me. It’ll be more personal because I’ll delve into my wife’s private life, while also being outside my wheelhouse because I’ll be reviewing a play instead of a movie. But I promise it’ll be fun. And if you stay with me to the end, you might just read something that will forever change the way you think of one of the main characters of Emma. Continue reading
George Lucas famously said that films are never truly finished, only abandoned. I’ve noticed that that is true of basically everything I do, even though I’m not a filmmaker. I’m a writer, and each article I write feels like it has its own life and rhythm. It’s born, matures, and finally gets sent out into the world to fend for itself like a fledgling from the nest. With this in mind, I’d like to share my thoughts on the painful process of writing, rewriting, and perfecting works of art. Continue reading
Chiasmus occurs in a work of art when the first half of a story mirrors the second half in minute detail. So a chiasmus begins and ends in the same way, and it reaches a crucial turning point in the middle. It can be words in scripture or events in film. And today we are going to show how Quigley Down Under is an example of Cinematic Chiasmus! Continue reading
“It’s really bad,” my wife told me after she watched The Croods: A New Age in the theater. “The jokes were all in the trailer, the characters get really creepy at certain points like when they eat, there’s an annoying message in it, and its story is way too messy compared to the first one.”
I was surprised to hear her criticisms because she really likes the first one. I’m usually slow to try something new, so even though I had heard that The Croods was a great film for years, I didn’t bother watching it until a little over a month ago. And I loved it! It was a How to Train Your Dragon-type experience for me because I had little familiarity with it beforehand, so my expectations of it being good were minimal. And it turned out to blow even high expectations out of the water. I was shocked at how they managed to combine The Flintstones and The Land Before Time into an undeniably satisfying viewing experience.
I didn’t know what they were going to do in the sequel, and I deliberately avoided watching any trailers for it. All I had to go on was what my wife said. A few weeks after she saw it, we checked it out from the library to watch it with all of our kids, and I was expecting to hate it. To my amazement, The Croods: A New Age managed to match the quality of the first film, if not surpass it in some ways. I extolled its positive qualities to my wife until she actually came to like it, too. It must have looked a lot creepier on a big screen.
I’d like to share five main reasons why The Croods: A New Age managed to win me over in spite of my prejudice against it at the start. Continue reading
Last Monday, I logged into Reddit looking for fun things to upvote when I was hit by an admin message informing me that my account has been permanently suspended. No recourse. No discussion. No mercy. And why was I banned? Because I had upvoted something that was deemed to be in violation of the site’s terms and conditions.
I didn’t post anything obscene or say anything against the rules. I simply pushed a button that could mean I was in full agreement with the statement or that I thought it was funny or that I was just trying to be nice by liking as many things as I could. There are any number of reasons for an upvote on Reddit. But apparently there’s only one reason that counts: malicious intent. Continue reading
