Stan Lee, Comic Fairytales, and Spirituality
I enjoy interviews with creative and artistic people, and one of the venues for this is a series called “The Directors” which appears on the Reelz Channel. Normally this series interviews film directors, but this last weekend they had a chance of pace when they interviewed comic book legend Stan Lee. The last question of […]
Star Wars Turns 30: Reflections, and Reasons for Success
I was reminded tonight through television advertisements, and through a program broadcast live from southern California, that 30 years ago today the first Star Wars film began in U.S. theaters, and several months later it was on its way to becoming an international popular culture phenomenon. I thought I’d use the occasion to touch on […]
Pan’s Labyrinth: A Grand Fairy Tale and Key to the World of Wonder
When I heard late last year that film director Guillermo del Toro had created a dark fairy tale, titled Pan’s Labyrinth in its international distribution, a film which he not only directed but wrote the story for, I couldn’t wait to see it. However, this involved a problem for me. While I am a fan […]
Christianity and Horror Redux: From Knee-Jerk Revulsion to Critical Engagement
Some of the more interesting responses I get to the inclusion of my interests in horror, science fiction, and fantasy in my Blogger profile are disgust and concern from evangelical and fundamentalist Protestants. Some have labeled such interests “macabre,” and others have wondered how someone professing a commitment to Christian spirituality could enjoy such things. […]
The Body and Horror
With my graduate studies drawing to a close I have finally had some time to expand my reading list, and one of the areas I have been exploring is religion and film, primarily as it relates to horror, science fiction, and fantasy. As part of my reading I have a stack of articles from The […]
Planet of the Apes and Social Dynamics
I am preparing for a “Faith and Film” course I will be co-teaching for Salt Lake Theological Seminary this summer, and one of the films I will be using is The Planet of the Apes (1968). I am reviewing various materials connected with it, and one of the resources I looked at again recently was […]
Halloween in April: Rocky Point Haunted House Finale
Growing up in northern California I had a difficult time finding events and attractions associated with the Halloween holiday. Things were especially difficult in my home town of Stockton, but they got a little better when I moved to the Sacramento area as I entered military service and was stationed at Mather Air Force Base. […]
1960s Counterculture, Dark Shadows, and New Mythologies
I have been reading a number of book on the historical and cultural context of the 1960s counter-culture in American, and one of the books I have found helpful and relevant to this blog’s context is Robert Ellwood’s The 60s Spiritual Awakening: American Religion Moving from Modern to Postmodern (Rutgers University Press, 1994). Ellwood includes […]
The Birds as Precursor to Nature Apocalypticism?
I am have been so busy with my graduate studies at seminary as the semester winds down and my writing projects need to be completed that I have not been able to devote nearly the attention to posting comments here on this blog. I’d like my posts to be substantial and academically sound, but in […]
Cautious Consideration of Christ-Figures
In a previous post I discussed the notion of alien Messiah or Christ figures that scholars and other commentators have seen in science fiction films. Of course, they have been seen in other genres as well, but my interest for the purposes of this blog is in relation to science fiction and related genres. I […]
