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Author Archives: John McAteer
“Our lives are not our own. From womb to tomb, we are bound to others, past and present.”
The Wachowski’s ambitious film Cloud Atlas (2012) doesn’t achieve everything it aims for, but it does achieve a lot of what it wants. At least I think it does. Having read the novel by David Mitchell, I’m a little concerned … Continue reading
“Your kids are your legacy.”
I’m tempted to interpret Sinister (Derrickson, 2012) as Scott Derrickson’s confession about his family life. (And I’m not the only one to notice the similarities between Derrickson’s life and the film.) Sinister is a horror movie about a writer named Elliot … Continue reading
Posted in film
Tagged culture, evil, family, fundamentalism, horror, Scott Derrickson, Sinister
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“It’s what I choose to believe.”
At first, faith doesn’t seem to come off very well in Prometheus (Scott, 2012). The film portrays faith as merely an arbitrary choice. If there is no evidence, then how do you know there is a God? You simply choose … Continue reading
“I just keep wishing I could think of a way to show them, that they don’t own me.”
This spring two strikingly-similarly themed movies were released within three-weeks of each other. Joss Whedon’s Cabin in the Woods and Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games both tell the story of teenagers who are trapped in an artificially controlled environment to … Continue reading
Posted in film, philosophy, theology
Tagged Cabin in the Woods, Cthulhu, heroes, horror, Joss Whedon, nihilism, pacifism, The Hunger Games
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“The nuns taught us there are two ways through life. The way of Nature and the way of Grace.”
Whatever else Terrence Malick‘s film The Tree of Life (Malick, 2011) is about, it is clearly about the struggle between Nature and Grace. The relationship between Nature and Grace is a standard theme discussed by all great Catholic theologians from Augustine to Aquinas … Continue reading
Posted in film, philosophy, theology
Tagged evil, grace, job, nature, Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life
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“When Jesus himself wanted to explain to his disciples what his forthcoming death was all about, he didn’t give them a theory, he gave them a meal.”
When Jesus was anointed at Bethany (Mark 14:3-9), the disciples complained that the act was wasteful, the expensive perfume could have been sold and the money given to the poor. But Jesus affirms the importance of the action as a … Continue reading
“Why must women bear so much?”
Medea (von Trier, 1988) is an interesting film in Lars von Trier‘s body of work for at least two reasons. First, and most strikingly, it was made before von Trier’s turn to his charactaristic style expressed in the Dogme 95 manifesto. … Continue reading
“To speak to questions of suffering and injustice Christian thought must uncover its suppressed elements and acknowledge that its symbols, like the divine, cannot be mastered.”
Thoughts for Good Friday 2011: Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking … Continue reading
Posted in art, theology
Tagged Andres Serrano, artist's intention, cross, desecration, fundamentalism, Good Friday, pacifism, Piss Christ, redemption, shame, suffering, symbol
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“That weren’t no man!”
I just watched the pilot episode of Frank Darabont‘s zombie TV series The Walking Dead. I loved the scene where the main character, after learning about the nature of zombies, goes back to the first zombie he met, a woman … Continue reading
