Monday, December 24, 2007

Hollywood: The Neglected Mission Field.

(Note: This article was first published in Missionary Church national publication, then called Emphasis Magazine, in the summer of 2002. It appears here with it's original source notation and bibliography. I felt it might be good to address some of these issues on this blog early on. - MJW)
Millions of Americans attend movie theaters every week. Film has become an almost unavoidable aspect of the North American culture. Millions of dollars are invested in the making of a single motion picture. Year after year, Christians across the country complain amongst themselves of how the film industry is becoming more and more blatantly sinful. Yet, I raise this question: By complaining within the Christian subculture, what has been accomplished to reverse the corruption of Hollywood?

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Children of Legend

Cultural Nightmares.


Last Friday night, sitting in the theater, watching I Am Legend, an idea struck me about three-quarters of the way into the film. I suddenly felt this incredible urge to draw some thematic comparisons between the film I was then watching, and another film, Children of Men. That urge gave birth to this blog. I should point out that I don’t think cinematically and artistically I Am Legend is of the same quality as Children of Men. Alfonso Cuaron’s directing and Emmanuel Lubezki’s camera work in Children are worthy of a whole entry of their own, which I’m sure I will get around to at some point. Back to the matters at hand: I had low expectations for I Am Legend, and as such was more or less pleasantly surprised with the film.

Saturday, December 15, 2007

An Introduction.

"The kind of seeing we experience in the cinema is emotional seeing--the seeing of emotions with emotions. Eye and heart are locked inextricably together, just as they are in dreams. This is not disinterested, clinical seeing, but seeing charged with feeling."
- Colin McGinn, The Power of Movies: How Screen and Mind Interact, pg 105.

Why Blog About Film?

I've been asking myself that question lately. I've had this urge to write, to set down in words thoughts and conversations about the medium of film. This is an experiment truly geared at expanding my own understanding of cinema, philosophy, theology, and culture. I'm not here with answers, I'm actually here with questions. The exercise of writing is a sort of mental weight lifting that helps sharpen one's intellect and better equips one to understand the world around him or her. That's why I'm blogging about film.