Pierced to the Heart

They Who See God’s Hand: The Tree of Life as an “Upbuilding Discourse”
[Ed. note: A very, very welcome guest post from Nicholas Olson] The very moment everything was taken away from Job, he knew it was the Lord who’d taken it away. He turned from the passing shows of time. He sought that which is eternal. Does he alone see God’s hand who sees that He gives? [...]…

The Avengers (Whedon, 2012)
  Caution: The following review was written by a moviegoer who has been suffering from superhero-movie fatigue since X-Men 3 back in 2006. You have been warned. Don’t worry — I get it. My review of The Avengers won’t make a dollar’s difference in the box office results. The best stunt you’ll see now that [...]…

Last Fast Ride: The Life, Love, and Death of a Punk Goddess (Ayers, 2011)
Since becoming a parent, I’ve become acutely aware of movies that deal with the impact that parents, and particularly fathers, have on their children’s lives, for better or worse. Hirokazu Kore-Eda’s Still Walking fascinated me so because of that theme. Malick’s The Tree of Life left me shaking and undone because of it. It explains why, [...]…

A Monster in Paris (Bergeron, 2012)
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The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (Billy Wilder, 1970)
In most of these essays, I try to keep a pretense of critical distance. That is, I point out whatever loose sally of thought the movie in question inspires and then proceed from there, without venturing much comment on the quality of the movie itself. The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, however, must stand as [...]…

Martha Marcy May Marlene (Durkin, 2011)
“Cult” as a label has recently re-entered national conversation on the heels of conservative voters trying to figure out how to best think about Mitt Romney’s Mormon religious affiliation. The ensuing confusion expressed at times in this debate is a good example of how fluid and misunderstood this term often is. For recent generations, the [...]…

The Secret World of Arrietty (Hiromasa Yonebayashi, 2011)
The Secret World of Arrietty, the new Studio Ghibli film, isn’t really a Miyazaki, but you could easily mistake it for one. Disney’s marketing has carefully pitched the film as being “from the studio that brought you Spirited Away and Ponyo,” both Miyazakis, and it could happily fit somewhere between those films and another of [...]…

Fish Story (Yoshihiro Nakamura, 2009)
The film is ultimately an examination of how even seemingly random events are subtly connected in ways that nobody can truly foresee, and how even the most insignificant or arbitrary decision or action can have far-reaching consequences.…

A Separation (Farhadi, 2011)
By the third time out or so, you realize that a filmmaker you’ve only been vaguely or even just accidentally keeping up with clearly deserves more particular notice –  and so you sit up and pay attention, remember the name, start looking for it on festival schedules, indeed, choose that name over others, becoming attuned [...]…

Punch-Drunk Love (Anderson, 2002)
(Ed.: Today we have a welcome guest post from Nicholas Olson, who pens The Moviegoer.) Audiences were largely unsure about what to make of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch-Drunk Love when it was released almost a decade ago. Part of the quizzical reaction was that it was not a standard Adam Sandler film. Even critics found [...]…

Updated: 20 May 2012, 21:00 UTC

Chariots of Fire (1981)
I’ve written a two-part reflection on the 1981 film Chariots of Fire, which is appearing at Good Letters, the blog hosted by IMAGE. Part One Part Two It’s not really a film review. It’s more of a personal consideration of the film: what I remember of its reception among Christian moviegoers, what I loved about [...]…

Take Shelter (2011) and movies about the end of the world
In “At World’s End: The Age of the Apocalypse Movie,” an article published at Seattle Pacific University’s Response magazine, I consider Take Shelter and other films that show an increasing obsession with the end of the world.…

The Avengers (2012)
My review of The Avengers is published at Filmwell.…

1920-2011: Overstreet’s Favorite Film Lists
AN INTRODUCTION: This is a work in progress: a running list of my favorite films. Organizing any film list is a challenge. Should I catalog films by year, like most people? If so, how do I  determine the release date? By its first screening anywhere in the world? By the first film festival screening? By [...]…

Lourdes (2009)
My review of Lourdes is published at Good Letters, the blog hosted by IMAGE.…

Blue Like Jazz (2012)
My review of Blue Like Jazz, published at Filmwell, has ballooned into something bigger than I’d intended…

The Cabin in the Woods (2012)
A review by Jeffrey Overstreet. • Director – Drew Goddard; writers – Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard; director of photography – Peter Deming; editor – Lisa Lassek; music – David Julyan; production design – Martin Whist; costumes – Shawna Trpcic; producer – Joss Whedon. Starring - Kristen Connolly (Dana), Chris Hemsworth (Curt), Anna Hutchison (Jules),…

The Kid With a Bike (2011)
My review of The Kid With a Bike is published at Good Letters, the blog hosted by Image.…

The Hunger Games (2012)
My review of The Hunger Games is up! It’s actually a collaborative review with Seattle Pacific University’s Response magazine editor Hannah Notess, published at Response. UPDATE: Some responses to the review are starting to show up on my Facebook page.…

Casa de Mi Padre (2012)
A review by Jeffrey Overstreet • Director – Matt Piedmont; writer – Andrew Steele; director of photography – Ramsey Nickell; editor – David Trachtenberg; music – Andrew Feltenstein and John Nau; production design – Kevin Kavanaugh; costumes – Trayce Gigi Field and Marylou Lim; producers – Will Ferrell, Adam McKay, Emilio Diez Barroso, Darlene Caamaño…

Updated: 18 May 2012, 21:00 UTC

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Like the boy that shares its name, the Harry Potter series stumbled from the gate, saddled not entirely unexpectedly with inexperience and immaturity. But then, as with the boy, something truly wonderful—even magical—happened. It grew into something to be immensely, colossally, button-poppingly proud of. Unlike nearly every adaptation Hollywood produces, the Harry Potter films, taken [...]…

Transformers: Dark of the Moon
It is no secret that I disliked the first two Transformers films. In fact, I employ no hyperbole whatsoever in admitting that I, for lack of a more expressive word, utterly loathed them. There are those who claim Transformers: Dark of the Moon is light years better than its predecessors. Do not believe their rancid [...]…

Larry Crowne
Several years ago, one of my dearest friends starred in a national CitiCard commercial in which a woman Feng shuis her house (the ancient Chinese system of aesthetics that teaches that greater spiritual energy can be derived from a proper orientation of your material belongings) but discovers that what she really needed to do was [...]…

Cars 2
It was bound to happen. No one can keep a winning streak like that going forever. A 25-year perfect game isn’t exactly shabby. In fact, it just might be unprecedented. There is no other creative entity in Hollywood with as unblemished and sterling a record as Pixar. This makes the stumble that is Cars 2 [...]…

The Green Lantern
When I was young, I accidentally punched a hole in the side of our garage wall with a wayward snow shovel. Terrified at the implications once my mother returned from work, I did the only thing I could think of: I taped a piece of notebook paper across the sizable gouge and painted over the [...]…

Super 8
Nostalgia is defined as “a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.” One thing that is abundantly clear while watching Super 8 is that writer/director J.J. Abrams’ nostalgia for his early teenaged years—an era defined by the films of Steven Spielberg (also a producer [...]…

X-Men: First Class
In a summer unfortunately glutted with superhero movies, every one an origins story, X-Men: First Class not only eclipses its competition, but also each of its franchise predecessors. Psychologically complex, thematically rich and emotionally layered, this is the best, smartest and classiest of the X-Men series by leagues. This is a comic book movie that [...]…

The Tree of Life
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Kung Fu Panda 2
Kung Fu Panda 2 is disappointing only because it is not the original Kung Fu Panda, a rare animated action-packed adventure that managed to delight adult filmgoers as well as kids not by injecting sophisticated humor but by making a story of a fat Panda bear incontestably exciting. The second entry in the trilogy (this [...]…

The Hangover: Part II
To dispense with a lengthy plot synopsis for The Hangover: Part II would be a profound waste of the time it would take me to write it and you to read it. The Hangover: Part II is the exact same movie as its predecessor down to nearly every single narrative beat. While there’s certainly something [...]…

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
Fan fiction is an awkward literary subset written not by the original creator of a given work, but rather by fans. Nearly always disavowed by the originating artist, fan fiction is both defined by and exists outside the canon of whatever universe is being depicted, especially due to the fact that the quality of work [...]…

Bridesmaids
It is both artistically dishonest and embarrassingly naive to grant the status of “classic” to something only newly born. For a film to be called a classic, it must first stand the tests of longevity, critical reception and…oh what the hell, who am I kidding? Bridesmaids is an instant classic. Annie (Kristen Wiig) has a J.D. [...]…

Priest
Priest is the sort of movie you walk into knowing full well its IQ is significantly less than the bucket of popcorn balanced in your lap. About all you can hope for in this situation is that it will also be fun. And when it turns out to not be any fun at all, you [...]…

Thor
The problem with the current crop of superhero movies is that once you’ve exhausted the A-list (Superman, Spider-Man, Batman), you begin reaching for the second string personalities who may be every bit as worthy, but do not have the same sort of populist street cred. Thor is one such superhero. (The Green Lantern is another.) [...]…

Fast Five
The Second Law of Thermodynamics states roughly that there is a universal tendency for all things to progress from order to disorder. The longer a particular system goes, the greater its tendency toward entropy and decline. If only that principle could explain Fast Five, the fifth entry in the wearying, middling Fast and Furious franchise—clear [...]…

A personal note from Brandon Fibbs:
Recently, while wandering in Frost’s proverbial yellow woods, I came to a fork in the road and decided to take the one less traveled. After a half dozen years as a professional film critic writing about other people’s movies, I have decided it is time to start letting them write about mine. To that end, I [...]…

Hanna
In the Brandon Fibbs Book of Movieisms it is stated: “A bad film is not the worst kind of film. A bad film is simply bad. It does not aspire to be anything better. But a film with potential to be great that squanders its promise by either action or inaction is a far more [...]…

Happythankyoumoreplease
Observant and heartfelt, the gentle comedy Happythankyoumoreplease is certainly not the most polished film you will see this year, but it is a breath of fresh cinematic air all the same. When was the last time you saw a film populated with young people on the cusp of adulthood who traded reflexive cynicism for vulnerable [...]…

Source Code
A version of this review first appeared in The Colorado Springs Gazette. To read this review at its original source, click here. Proving definitively that his remarkable freshman effort, Moon, was anything but luck or chance, director Duncan Jones returns with Source Code, a less meditative and ambitious film than his last outing, but one which [...]…

Sucker Punch
A version of this review first appeared in The Colorado Springs Gazette. To read this review at its original source, click here. An ambitious, epic, operatic action delirium, the dark and intensely violent Sucker Punch is One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest on acid. The film is a glorious disaster, a mind-bogglingly messy, perversely gorgeous piece [...]…

Updated: 20 May 2012, 21:00 UTC

Catholics in Media Awards: honorees announced
19th Annual Catholics in Media Awards c/o Catholics in Media Associates 12400 Ventura Blvd. PMB 228 Studio City, CA 91604 818.907.2734 www.catholicsinmedia.org catholicsinmedia@aol.com 19th Catholics in Media Awards to Hugo, Modern Family, I Am & The Way at April 29th Awards Program “Bold and Beautiful” Star John McCook to MC Ubiquity Pictures CEO Barbara M. Gangi is Honorary Chairperson…

Jesus at the Movies
      Movies featuring the life of Jesus have been around almost since the beginning of cinema. The first narrative film about his life was a series of shorts edited by Lucien Nonguet. Historian Charles Keil described these early attempts as a “series of tableaux, autonomous units.” It was up to the viewer to [...]…

“Bully: will break your heart
For Lent this year, my resolution was to look into the face of every person I encountered who was begging. If I could, I gave that person something, greeted them and said “good morning” or “good afternoon.” And I intentionally thought: “This is some mother’s sweet baby.” It makes it so much easier to love [...]…

We Have a Pope – REEL TALK with Stephen Farber special screening and panel April 2 Landmark, Westwood (Los Angeles)
Monday, April 2 at 7pm: WE HAVE A POPE. This wry comic drama from Italian director Nanni Moretti takes us inside the Vatican as the College of Cardinals struggle to elect a new Pope. Unfortunately, the man selected for the post—played by veteran French actor Michel Piccoli—is not at all certain that he wants the job. Guest speakers: [...]…

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen … is a delight
The trailer from GODTUBE: SALMON FISHING IN THE YEMEN By Sr. Rose Pacatte, F.S.P. Source: St. Anthony Messenger/On Faith and Media Dr. Alfred Jones “Fred” (Ewan McGregor) is a staid civil servant in London, an expert in the fisheries division of the government. He leads a quiet life with his mostly absent professional wife Mary (Rachael [...]…

The Vow
When I learned that Rachel McAdams was going to play the lead role in what looked to be another tearjerker film about marriage I wondered if the story would be based on a Nicholas Sparks novel such as “The Notebook.” No, this new film is based on a very true story that was told in [...]…

Hallmark hits a home run with ‘A Smile as Big as the Moon’
My review in the National Catholic Reporter: Hallmark hits a home run with ‘A Smile as Big as the Moon’.…

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen opens March 9
I’ve seen this and will be reviewing it soon. I must say, I really liked it. It’s a dream that imagines faith and possibility.  …

Tree of Life screening in 35mm + panel Jan. 14, 2012, UCLA
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War Horse review
Among the many themes that emerge or converge in the films of director, producer, writer Steven Spielberg are lonely children and war, specifically World War II. From the kids in “E.T”: the Extra-Terrestrial” (1982) to the Oscar-winning “Schindler’s List” (1993),  a black and white film but viewers may remember the little Jewish girl in a [...]…

Updated: 20 May 2012, 21:00 UTC

W.E.
As the last scene of this movie faded away, replaced by a screen reading “Directed by Madonna,” I asked my companion, “If you’d known ahead of time that Madonna was the director, would you have enjoyed this movie as much?” He replied, “Honestly, no.” …

The Adventures of Tintin
I have 11 grandchildren. I see plenty of children’s movies. I have acquired a jaundiced eye. As autumn leaves drift into piles, as souvenir teacups proliferate around a royal wedding, thus do crass, crude, cynical children’s movies pile up around the family DVD player. Until now. The Adventures of Tintin is superb. Grandparents everywhere will babble tearful thanks: it’s so much better…

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
This might be an excellent movie; it certainly looks impressive. But I’m only a little less baffled now, after reading up on the storyline, than I was when I walked out of the theater. Suffice it to say that reviews by people who had already read the novel, or viewed the 7-part BBC series, regard the movie with great appreciation. Those who didn’t already know the storyline range from appreciative-but-puzzled…

Main Street
Playwright Horton Foote (1916-2009) made the comment a few years back, “The people hardest on [my work] always say that not a lot is happening.” Oh, but what delectable nothing it is. Foote won Oscars for Tender Mercies (1983) and To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), and was nominated for The Trip to Bountiful (1985)—all works of great tenderness and insight. (Let me recommend too the little-known…

There Be Dragons
First the bad news, for adolescent viewers, anyway: there don’t be any dragons. Not the leathery-winged kind, at least. The title refers to a medieval map-making custom of inscribing the warning “Hic Sunt Dracones” on unexplored regions. In this case the warning refers to the unexplored regions of the psyche, where destructive emotions may lurk. …

In Time
And that’s the happy ending.   It’s this unintentional resonance that threatens to turn In Time from a nifty thriller into an unintentionally obtuse message-movie, one that seems to say that an international financial disaster would be the best thing that ever happened to the poor. There may have been eras in the last few decades when a saucy statement along those lines might have…

PBS Interview: Higher Ground
[October 8, 2011] Here’s a link to my interview on the PBS show, “Religion and Ethics Newsweekly,” about the movie Higher Ground: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/episodes/october-7-2011/higher-ground/9668/   …

Interview with Vera Farmiga, "Higher Ground" Director
Here’s what happens. You prepare for a phone interview with an actor or director by thinking up a list of questions. Really, you only need one or two good ones, and the conversation takes care of itself.   But the person being interviewed has a different perspective. There are certain points they want to get across, regardless of which questions you ask. They may have been reiterating these…

Higher Ground
When evangelicals hear that there’s a new movie about their brand of Christianity, they get nervous. All too often they are presented as idiots or villains. Stereotypes about narrow-mindedness, intolerance, cultish mind-control, and harsh subjugation of women abound.   Carolyn Briggs’ 2002 memoir, This Dark World: A Memoir of Salvation Found and Lost hit a number of those notes. When…

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, the eighth and final film in the Harry Potter series, opens today in a blaze of special effects: castles burning, bridges collapsing, dragon-fire blasting, stone knights clunking stiffly to life, giants whacking smaller figures off the earth like tiny golf balls. This is not the first fantasy-action film to suffer under a Disproportionatus Curse, in which…

Larry Crowne
Picture Tom Hanks. Got it? OK, now picture a guy whom Julia Roberts would find so overwhelmingly yummy that she would not only kiss him with the enthusiasm of a golden retriever, but even try to jump up and wrap her legs around his waist. Now, very slowly, try to merge those two images.   If you can’t do it, don’t feel bad. Almost no one can come up with a result they find plausible.…

The Illusionist
[National Review Online; Feb 10, 2011] The Illusionist has been nominated for Best Animated Feature (I mean the new animated film, of course, not the 2006 live-action movie by the same title), and no one who has seen it was surprised. It is simply a beautiful motion picture. Our protagonist, slipping past middle age, watches mountains and rivers flow past his train window; rain is drizzling, summer…

Life As We Know It
How bad can a blind date be? When Eric Messer (“Call me Messer”) shows up an hour late at Holly Berenson’s apartment, invites her to climb onto his motorcycle in a sheath dress and high heels, then answers his phone and makes a date for later (“11:00”—a glance at Holly—“no, 10:30”), it could hardly be worse.  Who thought these two would mesh?…

Expecting Mary
Fans of Bella and Juno will be glad to welcome Expecting Mary, another film showing how an unexpected pregnancy can lead to a happy ending. This time around the mom-to-be is Mary, a 16-year-old runaway; she is headed for California and her dad who, she thinks, will be more understanding and “cool” than her uptight mom. “I’m only having it because they [her mom and stepdad] don’t…

Toy Story 3
Toy Story 3 is as good as any movie Pixar Studios has made, and better than a few of them. But when you consistently achieve excellence, there’s this problem: people start expecting more. A merely excellent movie is not enough. Each one must be more suspenseful, surprising, original, hilarious, and emotionally satisfying than the last. Each success becomes a rack on which the next attempt is…

Updated: 20 May 2012, 21:00 UTC

Film Break: “John Carter”
My review of the new sci-fi blockbuster, John Carter, is posted at CT. I’ll happily go on record saying that this is a better film than many of its critics would lead you to believe– far from great, but consistently entertaining.…

Ten Favorite Films from 2011
Just in time for Oscar Week. I shan’t bore you with any Academy Award will win/should win talk– though you can make some inferences from my selections here– and I’ll also dispense with commentary about whether I found 2011 year to be a great year or a bum year at the movies. I only know [...]…

Film Break: “The Descendants”
My take on Alexander Payne’s quite good new movie, The Descendants, is now up. Between this one, The Muppets, and, I expect, this weekend’s screening of Hugo, I’ve been catching up with a lot of superb films lately. Might be time for another movie round-up at some point next week.…

Film Break: This Year’s Favorites
I have seen fewer movies this year than in any previous year that I can remember. It’s not that I’ve lost interest in film, just that life and work have gotten in the way—plus, in my ever-evolving perception of what this blog is, I’ve tried to put even greater effort into writing thoughtfully and thoroughly [...]…

Film Break: “Tower Heist”
Silly, but not at all unpleasant.…

Film Break: “The Three Musketeers”
File this one under Morbid Curiosities, I suppose, but my review of the new Three Musketeers movie is posted at CT. You can pretty much determine how silly (and loosely adapted) this one is just from the trailer, but I will say that it has its moments of fun, despite an overall poor execution.…

Film Break: “The Ides of March”
A rare interlude for film this morning– and a mighty good one, at that. George Clooney’s The Ides of March is riveting, and surprisingly cynical. A very strong recommendation here, but perhaps not for those who who prefer to cling to some sort of political idealism.…

Film Break: “Cars 2″
I reviewed the latest from Team Pixar for CT; you can read my take here. Wish I could say that Cars 2 was yet another addition to Pixar’s rather incredible winning streak, but I’m afraid this is squarely a bottom-tier Pixar offering, down with A Bug’s Life and the first Cars. I did like it [...]…

Film Break: “Rejoice and Shout”
Rejoice and Shout is a terrific new documentary– out in limited release today– that functions as a sort of whirlwind tour of the 200-year history of black gospel music. The film’s historical perspective is fascinating, and the vintage performances are outright inspiring. You can read my full review of the film here– but of course, [...]…

Film Break: “Hanna”
My review of Joe Wright’s new movie Hanna is posted at CT Movies. I’m afraid the visual stylishness of this one wasn’t enough to compensate for the rather hollow storytelling, at least in my experience.…

Updated: 20 May 2012, 21:00 UTC