Good writing tells a story about its characters. Great writing tells a story about its audience. Pan’s Labyrinth is a great movie. It is a movie that is not only interesting, engrossing, and entertaining, but also deeply introspective: it forces the viewer to step back and evaluate not only the movie itself, but also their own reaction to its themes.
Directed by Guillermo del Toro, Pan’s Labyrinth is an adult fantasy, a “fairy tale” for grown-ups. Like most fantasy, Pan’s Labyrinth is filled with strange creatures, magic, and new worlds, and like traditional fairy tales, Pan’s Labyrinth has a lesson to teach its viewers. However, just as the views and beliefs of an adult are more complex and subtle than the relatively simple worldview of a child, the messages and themes in Pan’s Labyrinth are far more subtle, complex, and interpretable than anything you would read in Mother Goose. Read the rest of this entry…
The following is an article I wrote for my church newsletter. It’s a review of the movie Walk the Line from a Christian perspective.
Walk the Line is a movie about the life of Johnny Cash. The Man in Black is played by Joaquin Phoenix, and Reese Witherspoon plays the role of June Carter, Cash’s longtime touring mate, friend, and eventual wife. Johnny Cash’s life is a tale of success mixed with failure, accomplishments tainted by shortcomings. Beginning with his childhood, Johnny’s life is marked by inadequacy: in an early scene, Johnny asks his older brother Jack, who hopes to become a preacher, why he’s able to be “so good.” Johnny sees his own affinity for memorizing music from his mother’s hymnal as less valuable or meaningful than Jack’s love of the Word.
When Jack tragically dies in an accident with a saw while Johnny is off fishing, it becomes clear that Johnny’s father feels the same way. Johnny’s father is angry with God, demanding to know why Jack—the “better” one—was taken from him, instead of Johnny. This leads Johnny into deep-seated feelings of unworthiness, feelings which are intensified over the course of his life as he struggles with making a living as a door-to-door salesman and has difficulties in his first marriage.
I’m taking a quick break from celebrating my father’s 50th birthday to bring you some breaking news:
If you have an iPhone or an iPod Touch, drop everything you are doing, open up the App Store, and BUY iDRACULA AND PLAY IT NOW!!
I was browsing the App Store’s “popular items” yesterday and saw iDracula sitting near the top of the list with a price of $0.99. It looked interesting and the screenshots looked unique, so I snapped it up.