Category Archives: Film

50 Films to See Before You Die

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The Sunday Mail from the UK has published a list of “50 Films to See Before You Die.” The list was compiled by David Puttnam (producer of Chariots of Fire and Midnight Express) and others to mark digital channel Film4 going free-to-air.

The list has many of the films that you typically find on such lists, but it also has quite a few that typically don’t. There are some huge gaps as well. There is no overlap with my “Essential Films for Theologians: The ‘Director’s Cut’â€? so the list is clearly flawed! (see also my Essential Films of 2005 for Theologians – Extended Edition)

I have seen over half of the films, so I guess I have a bit of work to do before I die. (I have marked the films I have seen with an “x”)

  1. Apocalypse Now (x)
  2. The Apartment
  3. City of God (x)
  4. Chinatown (x)
  5. Sexy Beast (x)
  6. 2001: A Space Odyssey (x)
  7. North by Northwest
  8. A Bout de Souffle (Breathless)
  9. Donnie Darko (x)
  10. Manhattan
  11. Alien (x)
  12. Lost in Translation (x)
  13. The Shawshank Redemption (x)
  14. Lagaan: Once Upon A Time in India
  15. Pulp Fiction (x)
  16. Touch of Evil
  17. Walkabout
  18. Black Narcissus
  19. Boyz’n the Hood (x)
  20. The Player (x)
  21. Come and See
  22. Heavenly Creatures (x)
  23. A Night at the Opera
  24. Erin Brockovich (x)
  25. Trainspotting (x)
  26. The Breakfast Club (x)
  27. Hero (x)
  28. Fanny and Alexander
  29. Pink Flamingos
  30. All About Eve
  31. Scarface (x)
  32. Terminator 2 (x)
  33. Three Colours: Blue (x)
  34. The Royal Tenen-baums (x)
  35. The Ladykillers (x)
  36. Fight Club (x)
  37. The Searchers
  38. Mulholland Drive (x)
  39. The Ipcress File
  40. The King of Comedy
  41. Manhunter (x)
  42. Dawn of the Dead (x)
  43. Princess Mononoke
  44. Raising Arizona (x)
  45. Cabaret
  46. This Sporting Life
  47. Brazil (x)
  48. Aguirre: The Wrath of God
  49. Secrets and Lies (x)
  50. Badlands (x)

(HT Arts and Faith)


Now for Something Completely Different…

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For your Friday enjoyment, now I bring you something completely different (than textual criticism!):

Peter Chattaway has highlighted a couple hilarious video clips. The first is a collection of Darth Vader clips with audio dubbed in from James Earl Jones’s other movies, and the second is a collection of Star Trek clips edited to fit a famous Monty Python song.


The God Who Wasn’t There?

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GodNotThere.jpgThe other day I watched the straight to DVD documentary by Brian Flemming, The God Who Wasn’t There (Buy from Amazon.ca | Buy from Amazon.com). The promotional blurb promised that what Bowling for Columbine did to the gun culture and Super Size Me did to the fast food industry, this film will do to religion. This is what the official website says about the film:

In this provocative, critically acclaimed documentary, you will discover:

  • The early founders of Christianity seem wholly unaware of the idea of a human Jesus
  • The Jesus of the Gospels bears a striking resemblance to other ancient heroes and the figureheads of pagan savior cults
  • Contemporary Christians are largely ignorant of the origins of their religion
  • Fundamentalism is as strong today as it ever has been, with an alarming 44% of Americans believing Jesus will return to earth in their lifetimes
  • And God simply isn’t there

Dazzling motion graphics and a sweeping soundtrack propel this uncompromising and taboo-shattering documentary that Newsweek says “irreverently lays out the case that Jesus Christ never existed.”

While I am not going to bother to provide a thorough review, I figured I’d offer up a couple impressions. First, I was underwhelmed. My faith remained intact after viewing. In fact, I thought that I could do a better job raising questions about the Christian faith and the biblical accounts of Jesus contained in the gospels. It is clear that Brian Flemming was a very, very, very conservative Christian (I daresay a fundamentalist) who really seemed to react to his upbringing rather than seriously consider some of the historical problems scholars throughout the centuries have had with the biblical witness. Second, despite its facile and sometimes silly interpretation of the gospel accounts, the documentary was pretty well done. It looked professional and had its entertaining moments. I enjoyed the use of clips from Jesus films throughout, especially the characterization of Jesus Christ Superstar, The Last Temptation of Christ, and The Passion of the Christ as “the singing Jesus, the horny Jesus, and the bloody Jesus.”

If you see it at your local video store you may want to rent it, otherwise I wouldn’t bother with it.


The Real Old Testament?!

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In my web waderings, I came across a film called The Real Old Testament produced and directed by Curtis and Paul Hannum. From the trailer available on the website, this film looks like a somewhat/very irreverant (so be warned) — yet funny — retelling of select stories from the book of Genesis in a way that reminds me of the sitcom The Office (it is based on the style of MTV’s “Real World” series, which I haven’t seen). It was only shown at a few film festivals, has no rating from what I can tell, but has an IMDb entry. Cool.