Category: Film
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Sabbath Day Media and Touched by An Angel
I have fond memories of Sunday evenings spent watching Voyager and Deep Space Nine with the family growing up. My wife’s home was more restrictive in regards to Sabbath day media, but that paradigm has been adopted by our own home as I’m gradually realizing the benefits of being more intentional and explicitly devotional for…
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The Gospel Plan of Happiness Explained in Movie Quotes
If we listen carefully, and squint hard enough, we can find the gospel plan hidden throughout Hollywood. There, on the big screen, we can find nuggets of truth, or at least, poetic lines to illustrate the plan of happiness. Consider:
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The Princess Bride (As You Wish)
The Princess Bride’s relationship to the scriptures. Bear with me here. This is not one of those “William Goldman [the author of the book and screenwriter for the movie] was LDS” things (like “Yoda is President Kimball” or whatever from other franchises). When I first read the book (which came before the movie), it shocked…
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(Almost) Everyone Gets Battlestar Galactica Wrong….
The most cited article I’ve ever written was also my first professional publication: “Why Your Mormon Neighbor Knows More About This Shows Than You Do” in Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy from Open Court Press (not to be confused with the Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy from Blackwell Press). One reason I wrote that article was that…
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Trials, Tribulations, and a Movie: An LDS-themed Discussion of the Coen Brothers’ A SERIOUS MAN
A well-known axiom in both life and storytelling states that the matters we find most personal are also the most universal. Whether it’s film, literature, or some other medium, stories with the most specific and distinctive settings and points of view are usually those an audience will find most relatable. In the words of Robert…
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Expectations and Meet the Mormons
Early in my book publishing career, I worked for an innovative publisher of high-quality childrens picture books. One day, in conversation with my boss, the publisher, I criticized the Little Golden Books, a long-running line of cheaply produced picture books with very simple (and, I thought then, not very notable) stories. To my surprise, my…
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For the Beauty of the Earth
The latest move by the Church on the environmental front is the production of a beautiful, 94 second spot on the Mormon Channel.
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MR: Samurai Jesus: A Review of Takashi Miike’s “Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai”
The Mormon Review vol. 5 no. 1 is presented here, with Jonathon Penny’s review of Takashi Miike’s 2011 film Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai. By Jonathon Penny Open on a gaunt, intelligent looking man—Tsukumo Hanshiro—seeking the indulgence of a retinue of samurai at the palace of a feudal lord. He claims to be a ronin, a…
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MR: Exquisitely Loud and Indelibly Close
The Mormon Review vol. 4 no. 1 is presented here, with Jonathon Penny’s review of Stephen Daldry’s 2012 film Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. By Jonathon Penny I’m late with this, as with so much in my dog-eared, half-buttoned, last minute, Subway-sandwiched, twenty-first century life. I wrote the other day, on reflection about the harried…
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Mormon filmmaker explores sex and singleness at Duck Beach
The topic of sex and the Mormon single is a perennial favorite in the bloggernacle, and recently it has drawn national attention as well. No treatment of the topic would be complete without a look at the Duck Beach phenomenon, an informal annual gathering of east coast LDS singles in North Carolina that is equal…
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BYU Man Whose Grades Your Grades Could Be Like
This promotional video from BYU’s Harold Lee Library is so well done it deserves it’s own post at Times & Seasons. That’s how good it is.
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A Mormon Image: Joseph’s Birthplace Memorial At Dusk
“I was born in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and five, on the twenty-third day of December, in the town of Sharon, Windsor county, State of Vermont.” Joseph Smith History 1:3 By Gary Boatright Jr. ___ This picture is part of our ongoing series highlighting Mormon images. Comments to the post…
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Corianton – An Unholy Review
Short review of Corianton: By today’s standards, it wasn’t a very good movie. But by 1931 standards? Well, it wasn’t a very good movie.