Risen movie review: when habeas corpus gets weird
Here’s something we don’t see often on the big screen: a detective story set in the ancient world. There are lots of novels, but I can’t think of a single other movie in the...
‘God Willing’: Filmart/Hong Kong Review
Winner of the 2015 David di Donatello Award for best new director (aka the ‘Italian Oscar,’) God Willing, a comedy-drama directed and co-written by Edoardo Falcone, screenwriter for Massimiliano Bruno (Nessuno mi può giudicare,...
Why Religious Movies Are Luring Mainstream Stars
But even with more marketable star names, faith-based films face a challenge — Heaven Is for Real, for instance, drew much of its audience from the Bible Belt, cities in the South, the Midwest...
Voices of Muslim Women from the US South
When one thinks of the American Deep South, the image of veiled Muslim students strolling the University of Alabama campus is the last thing that comes to mind. VOICES OF MUSLIM WOMEN FROM THE...
Unearthing the undead: What the zombie stands for
Of course, the zombie is a metaphor. It starts with the church, because it has to, a symbol of Christian morality and order. The film is ‘Dawn of the Dead’ (there are two, and...
Articles added to filmandreligion.com in March 2016
In the month of March 2016 I added this 49 articles to filmandreligion.com that discusses aspects of film/TV and religion. About half of them are from the last few months, but the rest is...
The Confirmation Theatrical Review
The Confirmation opens with a child and his mother waiting outside a church. As the first lines of dialogue were spoken, I felt a sudden pang of shock, thinking I had unwittingly sat down...
Seth Rogen’s animated film Sausage Party is provocative food for thought
Rogen presented his unfinished new film – a crude comedy that questions the existence of God – with This is the End co-writer Evan Goldberg at SXSW … Sausage Party also offers food for...
When the Devil was hot: how Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey seduced Hollywood
For a brief period in the late Sixties LaVey was rubbing shoulders with movie stars and Satanism took on a glamorous edge. But the brutal Manson murders changed everything …. The actress Jayne Mansfield,...
Long road for Reza Aslan’s ‘Of Kings and Prophets’ from Bible to TV
Ten years ago, Reza Aslan and his business partner Mahyad Tousi established BoomGen Studios, which consults with Hollywood on content about the Middle East. BoomGen is now a production company with two hit television...