[Something Irish for Saint Patrick’s Day!] Movie Review: Once

A romance broken down to its basic elements, rebuilt with the utmost conviction, and then given a much more forward-thinking ending than you might expect: this is Once, a modern musical set in Dublin where intimacy is expressed through devotion and attention, not through shed clothes. Two people become acquainted, spend time with one another, work hard to create something greater than what either could have done alone, and respect and appreciate one another no matter where their lives happen to lead. And sometimes that’s all a movie needs to be an utter success.

Movie Review: Noah

What better way to end the year than with an ‘end-of-the-world’ film?

The single biggest question I think worth asking about director Darren Aronofsky’s Noah is whether the viewer is willing to appraise the movie in terms of the story it wants to tell, or if its rather wayward treatment of the Biblical inspiration invalidates the whole production out of hand. It’s worked well before. One of the first stories recorded in the ancient text is also one of its most bittersweet, where man and beast alike are wiped from the earth because of the extreme evil filling it, as shown in Genesis 6. The Lord God in his grace is willing to give a few last souls and the animals another chance, but first come the rains …

Movie Review: God’s Not Dead (marked minor spoiler)

Bleaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrgh!

Kevin Sorbo (yep, Hercules) plays a smug, evil, atheistic college professor who belittles and antagonizes Josh Wheaton and anyone else who dares stand up for the idea that God exists. As a result, the young student Wheaton’s duty–which is literally forced on him by Professor Radisson–is to defend the existence of God or risk failing a philosophy class that rarely if ever discusses much philosophy.

God’s Not Dead has a few isolated but truly precious successes that keep the film from being a total waste, but they don’t outweigh the vicious and cliched writing, the mediocre acting (except from Sorbo, of course, and a few others), or the excessive running time of a story that ends well before its movie does.

Movie Review: Premium Rush

A movie that fulfills its title in every way, Premium Rush is a quickly paced, thrill-a-minute New York trip in which bike messengers frantically evade pedestrians, vehicles, and the occasional cop. The delivery boys and girls and the police are sometimes (not always) just doing their jobs, but both sides’ actions have powerful consequences for themselves and others. Even though this film has some major content issues and too many ends-and-means questions to count, this is a ride well worth seeing to the end.