During much of quarantine I was helping to co-run an “Equipping Hour” class at my church (our version of Adult Sunday School). The class was called “The Gospel According to Oscar,” which I co-led with my good friend J. D. O’Brien, a filmmaker, documentarian, and videographer (check out his documentary about homelessness in Minneapolis called Out in the Cold on Amazon Prime). This class was sort of a follow-up to one that we did last...
We live in a world full of interesting moments that are captured forever on the internet. Different worlds can collide. For example, the recent viral video of Justin Bieber serenading Dr. Barry Corey, president of Biola University, was captured by paparazzi. While the rest of the world wondered about the “random guy,” the Biola community found this moment of viral fame for Dr. Corey quite amusing. I’m grateful for Dr. Corey’s response in this interview...
Now that summer break is here, I finally had time to binge watch a Netflix show, and discovered Aggretsuko, an anime series based on a Sanrio character. Retsuko is a cute little red panda, and while she is a sweet, compliant, 25-year old accountant by day, she is a death-metal karaoke singer by night. She feels the daily grind of the 9 to 5 day job, with a chauvinistic boss, and difficult coworkers. Because she...
(Spoiler Alert: If you haven’t seen Black Panther, this post definitely has some spoilers.) In most movies, bad guys aren’t usually right. Especially in superhero movies, the hero always prevails against the very evil villain. The theme of good vs. evil is one that resonates with us, because we want to see the good guy save the day, and we want to see the defeat of the enemy. However, the story of Black Panther differs....
I recently binge-watched the original Netflix series, The Crown, during my holiday break. The Crown is a series based on Queen Elizabeth II’s story on becoming queen and facing the many challenges of being the head of the United Kingdom through the decades. As the longest reigning monarch, Queen Elizabeth II has been reigning for more than 65 years since 1952. I started watching the series based on the recommendation of friends and colleagues. Since...
Last week we celebrated Christmas, and later this week we’ll be celebrating Epiphany. Although you wouldn’t know it from the way that Christmas is typically celebrated in America – beginning sometime in November and culminating on December 25th – Christmas is a 12 day celebration (hence the famous song). Christmas (in the West) officially ends with the start of Epiphany on January 6th. What is Epiphany? This is the day in which the church celebrates...
Coco was probably one of the best films I’ve seen this year. The animations and cinematics were just mind-blowing. If I remember correctly, a special sneak peek at Disney California Adventure mentioned that there were more than 8 billion lights used in the Land of the Dead scene–CRAZY. Also, I grew up with folks that honored Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). While I wasn’t involved with the festivities, it was a treat...
SPOILERS AHEAD! RUN FOR THE HILLS! Darren Aronofsky’s new film, mother!, is absolutely stunning. I was mesmerized and blown away. Let me say at the outset that one’s enjoyment of this movie is almost entirely based upon two factors: (a) knowing as little about the film as possible before seeing it, and (b) actually figuring out what you’re watching to some extent. If you know what it’s about beforehand, you may find it predictable. If you...
Photo Credit: https://www.emmys.com/events/fyc/2017/the-handmaids-tale The Handmaid’s Tale, a popular Hulu drama series, just won eight Emmy Awards, including the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series. The series, which is based on the book by Margaret Atwood, follows the story of Offred, a handmaid, during a time where America falls under an extreme fundamentalist “Christian” totalitarian state of Gilead. In this dystopian society, women are enslaved and some are assigned roles of “handmaids,” where they are...
La La Land has landed a historic fourteen Academy Award nominations and if the past is any indication, it may win all of them outside of the acting categories given Hollywood’s adoration for movies about movies (remember when the Academy lost its mind over The Artist, a movie that honestly nobody talks about anymore?). Its place as the darling movie of the moment is certainly well-deserved. Ryan Gosling & Emma Stone are emerging as our generation’s...
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