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Between the One Year Bible and an Old Testament class I'm attending this year I'm hearing quite a few stories multiple times in relatively short order. And when you get to know them better they start to sink in, make more sense, the connections become more apparent. Last week in class we went through the beginning of 1 Samuel, with the birth of ancient Israel's last judge and first major prophet, his call etc. The high priest at the time was a man named Eli, who was righteous

In the past I've liked to write about bits of culture that have a profound effect on the kids, especially when there are songs involved. It's been a little while, though, since I've added anything to the KidsStuff tag. Well, this summer our kids got obsessed with the soundtrack to the Angel Studios animated film David, which came out last year. They only saw the movie twice, both within a week I believe (my mom has the required subscription and we do not), but the requests to

In anticipation of Nolan's upcoming film, and because I wanted to read it anyway (especially after the Iliad), I recently consumed the classic epic the Odyssey, one of humanity's most enduring and oldest surviving stories. I went for Robert Fagles translation from the 90s and it's incredible. It largely keeps the format and timing of the original verse yet uses language utterly readable to us in the modern age. Something would be lost in reading this in prose. The biggest hur

Most years around Easter as a kid I'd see at least a chunk of the 1956 epic The Ten Commandments, as it was always on TV. I had assumed this longtime tradition must've ceased at some point, but apparently even in the year of our Lord 2026 it was on ABC, as it has every year going back to 1973, the night before Easter Sunday. The long and the short of why we, as Christians, are a fan of this timing is the connection between Passover (portrayed in the film during the Exodus) an

READ THIS BEFORE YOU WATCH THE TRAILERS! Next year a sci-fi movie called Project Hail Mary starring Ryan Gosling will hit theaters. It's an adaptation of another book by Andy Weir, author of The Martian. That book came out in 2011, the film in 2015. Project Hail Mary the book released in 2021 and will be a movie in early 2026, about the same timeline. I never did read The Martian but have to say I enjoyed it on screen, my desire to dislike (Team America voice) Matt Damon

The Lord of the Rings has been a borderline obsession since I first finished it in 8th grade. The timing worked out great too, as the next year was the release of Peter Jackson's The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), the beginning of the movie trilogy. On my blog here I've written about Tolkien's legendarium on a number of occasions. As part of that I've kinda sorta been making my way through the main Lord of the Rings story, with several detours along the way. So far I've cov

I don't often say movies change my life, but it's possible that can actually be true. Before we get far down that line of thinking, however, right now I'm referring specifically to the music I seek out. Music has never been an obsession, like movies or books might be, but obviously I do like it. My tastes just don't shift all that much. The last example of this, I think, was Walk the Line (2005) . I remember when Johnny Cash died a couple years prior, and knew it was a big d

A couple years ago, when I picked a favorite movie per year , a great experiment btw, there was one recent choice that, at the time,...

I started reading the Iliad (Fitzgerald translation) last year, well before learning about Nolan and the Odyssey , part of a prolonged...

This year I started reading some longer, more advanced books to our eldest (and the two others if they sit still and be quiet), who's taken a keen interest. It's been a special kind of bonding to get to read books I'm actually interested in, whether for the first time in a long time or for the first time ever. This started with The Hobbit and has included two of the Narnia books, for a few examples. Over the summer another was Treasure Island. Robert Louis Stevenson's classic

The Olympics are over, but there's still a good story to tell and you'll have to pretend this was more timely. This year, for the XXXIII...

Until very recently I knew the name Burt Reynolds, but to be honest I think I'd only completed one of his movies, the original The...

Dune: Part 2 (2024) is in theaters now and I made sure to see it in IMAX opening weekend. It was great fun to attend an event movie with...

It's cliche right now to say that this or that movie couldn't be made today. There are cases where it's true, however, though it's...

As a kid Spider-Man my favorite superhero. I liked whatever cartoons he appeared in and, as a teen, loved the Sam Raimi live action...

John Carpenter's The Thing (1982) is now classic horror, but seems a whole lot less known than the various slashers with too many sequels...

Much like Moana and Frozen, see those two previous posts, my kids (two this time) have become obsessed with Disney songs and have been...

10 years ago a friend suggested making a list, selecting a favorite movie from every calendar year. It's a fun idea, and one that...

Ridley Scott has been a prolific movie maker the last 25 years or so, something increasingly impressive as he pumps out big movies well...

With Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny out (and bombing at the box office it looks like) it's high time I take a closer look at my...