Gospel.com Blog

The third Narnia film, Voyage of the Dawn Treader, is due out later this year. Are you excited about it?

It’s been years since I last read it, but Dawn Treader is my favorite of the Narnia books. Its episodic island-hopping plot means that there’s always a strange new encounter waiting in the next chapter, and although some of the island adventures teach obvious Biblical principles, the Christian allegory is more subtle than that of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. If the plot is looser than many of the other Narnia stories, Dawn Treader compensates by simply narrating a series of good old-fashioned imaginative adventures.

And it doesn’t hurt that one of the main characters is a brave, swashbuckling mouse.

So I’m certainly looking forward to the Dawn Treader film, although with the usual concerns about how the “Hollywood treatment” will change the story and characters. If you want to keep up with news and developments related to the film (and stress out about whether or not they’ll be faithful to the novel), NarniaWeb and NarniaFans are both posting regular movie updates as details emerge.

How about you? Are you excited about this movie? Does anybody else count Dawn Treader as their favorite Narnia book, and if so, what makes it so special to you?

How do you react to movies whose messages are contrary to Christianity?

I got to thinking about this after watching a recent video clip from Marc Driscoll in which he says that Avatar is the most Satanic movie he’s ever seen (Driscoll’s video is below). His main point is that Avatar‘s worldview is diametrically opposed to the Christian worldview:

James Cameron (the writer and director of Avatar) was clearly trying to make a pantheistic point about our own world. The closest thing to Christianity Avatar exhibits is a sort of messiah-figure in the main character, Jake.

I’d rather not debate the merits of Avatar, but it does provide a good starting point for a discussion of anti-Christian philosophies and worldviews in movies. Like it or not, Avatar isn’t the only movie that stands in opposition to the basic tenants of Christianity. In fact, the majority motion pictures—even the one’s without trashy content like nudity, crude humor or excessive violence—produced these days contain elements or messages that are decidedly unChristian.

What about you? Do you see a spiritual problem with watching movies that contradict Christian beliefs?

Recently, I’ve been reading and watching stories that deal with time travel. It hasn’t been a wholly intentional move; in particular, the last book I read snuck it in without warning a hundred pages from the end. Interacting with so many stories with time shifting elements has made me start to wonder why it’s such a popular trope.

I think the reason we keep telling story after story of returning to the past is because it allows us to envision a world without guilt and regret.

We can go back and say “yes!” when we said “no!”, save ourselves or others from making a terrible mistake, or maybe even keep ourselves from sinning. We think it would allow us to keep tweaking our lives until we were perfect—or at least what we think is perfect. It’s an attractive proposition because it might even let us manufacture a life that didn’t need forgiving. We could, in short, create a sort of simulacrum of God’s grace cobbled together through an alternative timeline of correct choices.

Yet, as many of the characters in these stories realize, attempting to recreate the world to your own design usually introduces more problems than it originally had. Most time travel stories end with the characters foreswearing the ability to mess with the past. There’s an admission that our problems and mistakes are worthwhile in the light of a future guided by a small minority’s whims and ideals.

Also, it’s interesting to me as a Christian to read stories where secular authors come to the conclusion that, in the end, the original Creator’s intention with His Creation is better than anything humanity could come up for it. It’s a strong statement about man’s place in relation to an all-knowing God.

What about you? Why do you think people are fascinated with time travel? Or do you personally find it uninteresting?

New Moon, the second film in the ultra-popular Twilight series, hit movie theaters this weekend like a juggernaut.

It’s been interesting to read Christian responses to the Twilight books and movies; as they were with the Harry Potter tales, many Christian critics seem uneasy with this new and tangled vampire love story… but where it was shades of the occult that made some Christians nervous about Harry Potter, concerns about Twilight are focused on the melodramatic (but chaste) relationship between protagonists Bella and Edward.

Stephen Greydanus’ review of New Moon at Christianity Today explains why Twilight‘s primary love story feels emotionally and spiritually unhealthy. He’s not the only one to take that approach; and it’s not just Christians pointing this out, either: see this article explaining why the relationship between Bella and Edward is troubling.

Do you agree with these critiques—that the love story presents an unhealthy model for a relationship? Do you worry that Twilight‘s young fans will take away a misguided lesson about love? Or do you think these critics are over-thinking things, and that we should instead be grateful that Bella and Edward’s relationship isn’t reduced to gratuitous sex (a rarity for a cinematic romance these days)?

What do you think?

Christianity Today’s added a new blog to their growing blog community! The new Christianity Today Movies blog is authored by CT editor Mark Moring and film blogger Peter Chattaway (of FilmChatBlog, one of the staples of my daily blog reading), and seems an excellent companion to the film discussions that CT has hosted over the years.

If you haven’t checked in at CT lately, they’ve been expanding their blog presence quite a bit over the last several months. In addition to their established Out of Ur blog, they added a Politics blog last year to cover the 2008 election cycle (among other things) and more recently a Christian History blog. They’ve got some solid Christian writers driving the blogs—well worth adding to your list of daily reads.

Next month is the 2009 Academy Awards ceremony, when the best films and performances of 2008 will be chosen and honored. While the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences does the actual voting, that hasn’t stopped every film geek and blogger in the world from weighing in with their opinions. Here are a few Christian film critics with some interesting thoughts on the nominated films. How do their opinions match with your own?

• First, what films have been nominated? Hollywood Jesus helpfully lists all of the nominations. Elsewhere on the HJ site, critics Tim Berroth and Darrel Manson share their picks for the best films of 2008.
• Jeff Walls and Greg Wright from the Past the Popcorn crew weigh in with their own lists as well.
• Film critic Peter Chattaway’s thoughts on the Academy’s list of nominees.
• Jeffrey Overstreet of Looking Closer doesn’t think much of this year’s nominations, and proposes something different for Oscar night.

Enjoy the Oscars tonight (or not), and browse around these critics’ websites to see what else they’ve got to say about faith and film.

Image by flickr user Anne Siegel.

Note: this post originally mis-stated the date of the Oscars ceremony. The correct date is February 22.

Each week, Past the Popcorn offers a thorough look at the latest round of films opening on big screens.

Hollywood must know what its doing. We have a long holiday weekend coming up, which would sure seem like a good bet for boffo boxoffice; but ticket sales are as low right now as they’ve been all summer. So maybe it makes sense that the studios haven’t given us anything to get excited about this weekend.

(more…)

Each week, Past the Popcorn offers a thorough look at the latest round of films opening on big screens.

The gloves appear to be off as the studios dump the last of their summer fare on us at the tail end of August.

The lone bright spot in wide release is, somewhat surprisingly, an adult-oriented Hitchcockian thriller starring Woody Harrelson. Jeff Walls calls Transsiberian “a terrific thriller. Anderson and co-screenwriter Will Conroy kept me on my toes and I was never quite sure where the film was taking me next. The snow-covered, barren landscape is photographed beautifully, reminding me a bit of Fargo“—as does the rating. Even the best film this week is rated R. (more…)

Each week, Past the Popcorn offers a thorough look at the latest round of films opening on big screens.

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, says Mike Smith, is the rare beast: a sequel that improves on the original. The secret? More mature actors, he says… and a director that really gets the material. “Call me sexist,” Smith writes, “but Sanaa Hamni gets the chicks. Sorry, Mr. Kwapis—you’re a guy (like me), which pretty much prevents us from really ‘getting’ the psyche of the target audience convincingly. The original enjoyed some success, but I expect the sequel will outdo the first—it is simply the better film.”

Meanwhile, three of this week’s releases begin with the letter B. (more…)

Each week, Past the Popcorn offers a thorough look at the latest round of films opening on big screens.

One of the funnest films of the summer, says Greg Wright, is a gentle political satire… starring Kevin Costner, of all things. Swing Vote, going into release today is “a skewering of lax parenting, national politics of all stripes, political correctness, blue-collar stereotypes, and network news,” says Wright. “If you’re at all apathetic about voting, or if you’re at all fed up with the state of politics in America—and you don’t mind a little hayseed stuck between your teeth or up your shorts—get out and see Swing Vote. I’m very glad I did.” (more…)