In a wholesome way, the Smurf franchise has entered the gender discussions.  Designed not only to recognize that every person has a unique ability, this chapter of the tale also recognizes the

Disney Studios knows how to make human interest stories better than anyone.  William Wheeler (screenplay), Tim Crothers, and Mira Nair (director) have brought to the screen a simple, deeply

The stories we teach children are full of analogies that are not understood until we reach adulthood.  Although it is true that children understand such fantasies at a simple or concrete

In Pan, Jason Fuchs reimagines the character of Peter Pan created by J.M. Barrie in 1902 and 1904.  Rather than a boy who will not grow up, we now have a special child born of a deep love

The Walk is a love letter to New York; a love letter to the World Trade Center before we lost it.  Director Robert Zemeckis, who has brought us such ground-breaking films as Who Framed

Mr. Holmes is a simple but captivating look at an aging Sherlock Holmes, who at 93 struggles to remember names, places, and events that have shaped his life.  Portrayed beautifully by Ian 

Animating the personified emotions within each of us is creative genius.  Although far more complex than any simple structure could explain, each of us have a range of internal emotions 

It was Dante in his Inferno who first described hell as a place where all hope is abandoned.  Conversely then, he infers that heaven is a place of hope and that to have hope is a necessary 

It is unusual for a film to portray the healing we experience through the love of Jesus Christ and His sacramental presence.  To do so requires the story to also show the sorrows and sins that are 

The sequel of John Madden and Ol Parker’s film The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is an engaging tale.  The ensemble cast continues to be its strength as well as the culturally rich setting of India 

McFarland USA may be a small town in California’s Central Valley, but it is ground zero for the feel good movie of 2015.  This is a story on many levels of people who live beneath their 

Into the Woods brings Stephen Sondheim’s classic musical to the screen.  Rarely does a film adaptation of a great stage show ever live up to the magic of the theater, however this may be 

Abraham Lincoln is an American icon and one of the most beloved persons in American history.  His oversized presence in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC is a tribute to the immense 

In this continuing tale that is based upon actual events, we experience a wonderful group of people who care not only for injured dolphins but for injured humans as well.  We see the group 

The theological question of how a loving, all-powerful God would create a world where bad things happen to good people is an ancient conundrum.  The biblical book of Job written around 

As they grow up into adulthood, identical twins have an additional hurdle in finding their own identity.  Looking into the face of another human who looks exactly like you presents an 

Some critics have tried to wound The One Hundred-Foot Journey by claiming it is a confection so filled with sugar it could bring on a case of diabetes.  Others have flocked to it as

Everyone loves movies where the underdog succeeds, whether it is on the streets of India inSlumdog Millionaire or on the streets of the southern United States in The Blindside.  Such films dig

In his début film as director, Robert Stromberg’s Maleficent is not your grandparent’s fairytale.  Affirming the post-modern view that there are no pure heroes or villains, but that each are both,

Belle is inspiring historical fiction.  Based on the first painting to place a black woman at eye level with a member of the British aristocracy, writer Misan Sagay and director Amma Asante note

In Matthew the Bible tells us that “unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”  The

With a few notable exceptions, most Christian apologetics are written for the already believing.  Almost a thousand years ago, Christian theologians

Ben Stiller’s reinterpretation of James Thurber’s famous character first published in the New Yorker Magazine in 1939, is a charming look at the

The morality play of the animated film Frozen is surprisingly sophisticated.  The danger comes not because of evil but because of a sister’s

The integration found in Black Nativity does not stop with the joyful music of the black church with the Nativity story.  Writer and Director Kasi Lemmons also integrates fantasy with

The morality explored in Gavin Hood’s science fiction rests on two foundational questions:  Is it moral to turn children into soldiers?  Is it moral to commit genocide to protect your own people? The answers to

Imagining a teenager who is coming of age in a cave-dwelling family during the stone age is a creative leap.  Using modern understandings of family dynamics with a protective 

The generational differences in parenting are humorously explored in Andy Fickman’s film Parental Guidance.  Our natural tendency is to see the mistakes made by our own parents

There are few films that have been viewed as many times as the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz.  Televised annually since 1958, the baby boom generation has grown up fearing flying