This morning, with my wife at work, my four-year-old daughter at pre-school and my infant son asleep in the next room, I watched the 1955 Danish film Ordet directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer, recently voted the #1 film religious or “spiritual” film in a poll facilitated by Image and voted on by forty critics and…

Part One of my Conversation with film critic Steven Greydanus about the film The Secret of Kells was published in a Good Letters post on Friday. Here is the conclusion of that conversation: Jeffrey to Steven, #4 In your review, you wrote, “It must be admitted that The Secret of Kells somewhat short-changes Brendan’s Christian…

Have you ever seen The Book of Kells? I mean, really seen it with your own eyes? I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a more breathtaking work of art. Photographs can’t capture the way light plays across the vibrant, reflective ink. Nineteen years ago I stood in Dublin’s Trinity College and leaned over a glass…

This post is my first for Good Letters—hi, everyone!—and I’m going to start with something that is small but, I think, important. “Small but important” describes a lot of what I plan to do in this space—describe little moments of religious reflection and representation in film, TV, books, and music, and see if we can…

So much of Exit Through the Gift Shop is shrouded in mystery. The documentary film’s (purported) creator, Banksy, is an elusive British graffiti artist whose identity is unknown, even though he’s the darling of the international art world who routinely sells screen prints for six figure prices. In his first foray into film, Banksy presents…

One of the things I like about jazz, kid, is I don’t know what’s going to happen next. Do you?                                 —Bix Beiderbecke The name Jim Jarmusch was all I needed to see. My browse through Blockbuster Video ended there, and I carried a DVD of The Limits of Control home. I wasn’t disappointed. Jarmusch…

Do you hear that buzzing sound? That’s the chatter that serves as prologue to the Academy Awards. With the 2010 ceremonies just a few days away, people are tossing around the usual questions: which film will win Best Picture? Will Hollywood veterans take the acting awards, or did newcomers charm the Academy? Then there are…

[Caution: This article on The Wolfman contains significant plot spoilers.] I’ve just seen The Wolfman, Hollywood’s 2010 treatment of the classic nineteenth-century horror story. If I recommend it, those who believe that all God-fearing people should steer clear of horror movies will come after me with torches. They’ll be joined by my film-reviewing colleagues, who…

[Caution: This article on The Wolfman contains significant plot spoilers.] I’ve just seen The Wolfman, Hollywood’s 2010 treatment of the classic nineteenth-century horror story. If I recommend it, those who believe that all God-fearing people should steer clear of horror movies will come after me with torches. They’ll be joined by my film-reviewing colleagues, who…

I’ve just seen a hell of a film. Corneliu Porumboiu’s Police, Adjective—hailed as the latest masterpiece of the Romanian New Wave—is likely to convince American moviegoers that they should avoid the Romanian New Wave. The movie moves at a snail’s pace. (The most energetic scene in the film is a ponderous conversation in an office.)…