Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Religious Music and Entertainment

Archives

--Year-- 2026 2025 2024 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 --Month-- December November October September August July June May April March February January

March 2025

March 17, 2025

The Substance (2024): All Style, No Substance

The Substance: Substance Wanted If someone whose brain were turned on eight hours a day...

March 11, 2025

Mickey 17: The Art of Literalism

I have seen three Bong Joon-ho films (Snowpiercer, Parasite, and Mickey 17). In each case,...

March 02, 2025

Salò and the Libidinal Horror of Fascist Power

Salò, or the Circles of Hell During a break from a graduate seminar, I once...

February 2025

February 23, 2025

The Cremator: Neat, Orderly, Fascist

What kind of person do you imagine became a Nazi? The manly, the droves of...

February 19, 2025

Man Bites Dog: And Then What?

Some movies seek to entertain. Others have the gall to make one think. The truly...

February 12, 2025

Heart Eyes: Trump Deux, Folie à the Entire World

Way back in the early 2010s, when the world was coming to terms with the...

February 02, 2025

Hairspray (1987): John Waters’ Frictionless Fantasy

Hairspray: Simply Divine What do Ric Ocasek, Debbie Harry, Sonny Bono, and Ricki Lake have...

January 2025

January 27, 2025

Cecil B. Demented: Make Good Movies or Die!

John Waters’ Cecil B. Demented (2000) asks the tough questions like “what kind of shlock...

January 22, 2025

David Lynch, Mystic

“Mystics” get a bad rap these days. Casting a wide net as I prepared to...

January 19, 2025

Last Year at Marienbad: Nausea in the Courtyard

This really ought to be about David Lynch. But I can’t bring myself to give...

January 12, 2025

Tokyo Godfathers: A Christmas Miracle

I had a bad week. I mean a really bad one. This was a Stroczek...

January 01, 2025

Eggers’ Nosferatu: What Means the Count’s Mustache?

Great expectations sour easily. And, no matter what John Crowe Ransom would have us believe,...

December 2024

December 21, 2024

Herzog’s Nosferatu: The Vampyre Strikes Back

As much as I love Max Shreck’s portrayal of Count Orlok in 1922’s Nosferatu, the...

December 20, 2024

Dracula: What Music Does Nosferatu Make?

Why you! Yes, you! What day is today? Unfortunately, not yet Christmas Day, when we...

December 10, 2024

Verhoeven’s Turkish Delight: A Real Treat

Our Horace? Paul Verhoeven, or so stands his reputation. His Hollywood run from Robocop (1987)...

December 06, 2024

Mr. Vampire: Give Me Goofy or Give Me Death!

I’m late to the party. Ricky Lau’s Mr. Vampire (1985) spawned several sequels and seems...

November 2024

November 25, 2024

Shame: No Such Thing as an Anti-War Movie?

War is one of our favorite abstractions. I grew up playing map-based strategy games, the...

November 17, 2024

Persona: Through a Projector Darkly

All but the most conceptually adventurous movie-watchers experience meta-cinematic devices as an imposition. I don’t...

November 11, 2024

Conclave: Divine Thrills

We all like to, as they say, be seen, no? None of us enjoys what...

November 03, 2024

Kubi: Feudalism of Comedians

Based on a novel of the same name by the director, Takeshi Kitano’s latest film...

October 2024

October 29, 2024

House: Show Me the Way to Go Home

When I was TA’ing a course on American Television, several students told me their favorite...

October 22, 2024

Dark Water: The J-Horror of My Youth

Like most kids of a certain age, I went to Blockbuster often. I’d beg my...

October 10, 2024

Joker 2: Joke’s on You

I will fight a pitiful rearguard action. Usually, nothing could be braver than skirmishing...

October 07, 2024

The Exorcist: If Evil’s Real, Then What?

The first time I watched William Friedkin’s The Exorcist (1973) I became sluggish. Who’s to...

September 2024

September 30, 2024

Megalopolis, or the Old Man’s Fever Dream

There is no getting around it: Megalopolis (2024) is an elderly man’s fever dream. Its...

September 24, 2024

Empire Records: At the Heart of Gen X

Empire Records (1995) is a cult hit. Having been born in 1993, I missed out...

September 13, 2024

Hoffman’s Capote Deserved the Oscar

My dive into Rochester’s own Laurence Olivier continues, this time with Bennett Miller’s Capote (2005)....

September 09, 2024

AfrAId of What?

The critics are wrong again. Or at least, the critics who aren’t me. Christopher Weitz’s...

September 03, 2024

The Savages’ Ravages

It’s ten years since the death. Not my mother, who’s been dead longer (13 years)....

August 2024

August 26, 2024

Lesser Bergman?

After a week of travel and sickness, this will be more an exhortation than a...

«
2
3
4
5
6
»