{"id":1203,"date":"2004-08-17T16:50:29","date_gmt":"2004-08-17T20:50:29","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=1203"},"modified":"2009-01-16T17:26:55","modified_gmt":"2009-01-16T21:26:55","slug":"movies-about-the-afterlife","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2004\/08\/movies-about-the-afterlife\/","title":{"rendered":"Movies About the Afterlife"},"content":{"rendered":"

There have been some particularly heavy discussions here lately, so I thought I’d offer up something ultralight. Now I like books as much as the next person, but I’m not one of you bring-a-book-on-a-date-so-I-have-something-to-read-while-she’s-powdering-her-nose guys. I will, however, admit to viewing some 37 movies in the last six months (according to my Netflix<\/a> records). Anyway, I was ruminating this morning about the best movies about the afterlife.
\n
\nI am including in the category only those movies which depict the existence of an important character after his or her death. (I exclude “The Others” and “The Sixth Sense” because the protagonists in those don’t know they are dead.) It’s actually a fairly small category of movies, so the pickin’s are pretty slim. Here are my top five:<\/p>\n

5. What Dreams May Come (cheesy, sappy Robin Williams vehicle, but some interesting ideas and visuals)<\/p>\n

4. Heaven Can Wait (I know it’s a remake of some inevitably better movie I haven’t seen, but it’s a classic in its own right)<\/p>\n

3. Beetlejuice (yuppies in purgatory)<\/p>\n

2. Defending Your Life (as a kid, this is exactly<\/i> how I imagined Judgement Day)<\/p>\n

1. Field of Dreams (heaven as a ballpark; a game of catch as a redemptive act — perfect)<\/p>\n

Any quibbles? What are the great movies about the afterlife that I haven’t seen? Do I need to rethink the deep meaning in “Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey”?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There have been some particularly heavy discussions here lately, so I thought I’d offer up something ultralight. Now I like books as much as the next person, but I’m not one of you bring-a-book-on-a-date-so-I-have-something-to-read-while-she’s-powdering-her-nose guys. I will, however, admit to viewing some 37 movies in the last six months (according to my Netflix records). Anyway, I was ruminating this morning about the best movies about the afterlife.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[29],"class_list":["post-1203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-politics","tag-popular-culture-and-media"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1203"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5673,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1203\/revisions\/5673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}