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Just when my parents thought they could begin their "golden years" together, my grandmother was stricken with Alzheimer's. My father, Bud Newman, fulfilled his vow to his dying father-in-law, to bring my grandmother to live with them if she ever became too ill to fend for herself. As he was the retired military officer, and my mother worked full time, my father served as Grandma's primary caregiver. Not too many years after Grandma died, my mother was diagnosed with small-cell lung cancer -- only three months from diagnosis to death. My father fulfilled another vow -- one he made on his wedding day -- to keep my mother in sickness and in health. For as long as he was able, my father cared for my mother at home, navigating the complex regimen that accompanies cancer treatment. My dad is the heroic lover.

The Notebook

Heroic love is scarce in contemporary film. You see glimmers of it in films such as Big Fish and even in the recent zombie love story Warm Bodies, and stupid versions of it in This Means War and the horrible film Savages. Heroic love is the love that everyone wants, but that few know how to give or get. It finds embodiment in the film that has become a Valentine's Day staple, The Notebook. FULL POST

At the close of each year it is customary for film critics and arts pundits to compile “top ten” lists, based on their ideas about what constitutes fine acting, solid screenwriting, or exceptional directing. But most people don’t minutely examine their entertainment choices this way. Often, people will simply say “I liked it.” They might not even be able to articulate just what it is about a film that moves them.

But I think I know.

What really grabs an audience is the truth. That may seem odd considering that all of the films on this list are fiction films, not documentaries; however, all of these films represent aspects of spiritual, moral, or ethical truth that rings true with those who see them. Just to be clear, not all truth is beautiful truth – there are ugly truths in this world that serve as cautionary tales. This list runs the gamut from big to micro-budgets, from musicals to historical drama to science fiction to animation. But the one thing all of these films have in common is that they are spiritually provocative. Here they are, bottom to top:

[Note: FilmTalk Discussion Cards for most of these films can be found at Movie Bible Study] FULL POST

Les Miserables (2012)

You will not soon see a better film about redemption and its effects than Les Miserables. Based on the novel by Victor Hugo, director Tom Hooper has brought the Broadway musical version of this tale to the screen in all of its ethical and spiritual complexity. Sure, there is romance and some revolutionary action (though the story takes place in post-Revolutionary France), but the focus of the tale is Jean Valjean.

Valjean is a convict. After serving nineteen years in prison at hard labor for the crime of stealing a loaf of bread to feed his starving family, he is released -- but can find neither work nor kindness. Valjean becomes a drifter and a vagrant, sleeping on the streets, constantly exposed to ridicule and brutality. But, by an act of grace, Valjean is approached by a concerned local bishop who invites him to come into the church where he might find rest and food for his body and soul. Desperation overcoming wariness, Valjean accepts the kind offer. But in the night, he cannot resist stealing the silver from the sanctuary and running away. What happens when Valjean is arrested for this crime and brought back to face the bishop sets the stage for the remainder of the film. FULL POST

Movie theaters are supposed to be a place of escape – for at least a couple of hours -- from the challenges of everyday living. But for the victims and their families and friends in Aurora, Colorado an act of horrifying violence shattered the illusion. Right now they are the center of attention, feeding a 24/7 news cycle. But when the media senses issue fatigue in the minds of its nationwide audience and shifts away to newer, fresher stories, the pain that began in the early morning hours last Friday will linger. For many, it will never go away.

There might be a time to talk about guns, violence in the media, and appropriate types of punishments for the people who commit such heinous crimes, but right now the best response is to mourn, comfort and pray. For those who have lost a family member, friend, or co-worker, we are truly sorry for your loss. We hope that friends and family members can give comfort to the grieving and the wounded. We pray for strength and perseverance for you. Your grief will still be fresh long after the news reporters fade from view.

How does one make sense of the violence perpetrated upon unsuspecting, innocent people? Where is God when evil appears to triumph? Does He even care about us? If Job, the most righteous man who ever lived, can ask such questions, I think that God may understand if some of us are asking them now. FULL POST

The Amazing Spider-Man

According to S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Nick Fury in The Avengers, sometimes battles are simply too big for us to fight on our own – for those times, we need superheroes to step in and fight for us. But in the universe of The Amazing Spider-Man, it isn’t that the forces arrayed against the humans are too powerful for us to handle, it is that the authorities that should be in place for our protection have failed. The world Peter Parker inhabits lacks potent authority, and, in watching it, one gets the sense that he is – for the most part – on his own. If there are problems, it is up to him to fix it. This might not be the recipe for a feel-good summer film, but it does correctly identify the ingredients that makes The Amazing Spider-Man ring true for some of its viewers.

When Authority Fails

The Amaxing Spider-Man

The problem of impotent authority is global in The Amazing Spider-Man. Early in the film – before a single Spidey-sense is tingling – viewers watch a high school lunch scene as the older, larger, stronger athlete Flash, humiliates a young high-schooler. Peter Parker – who, in this incarnation of the Spider-Man saga, is portrayed as a photographer for the student paper – is ordered by Flash to commemorate the boy’s shame in Kodachrome. When Peter refuses and dares to ask Flash to stop manhandling the other boy, Flash comes unhinged. What follows can only be described as a brutal beating. Flash knocks Peter to the ground and then begins viciously to kick him. Only the intervention of Gwen Stacy – the nerdy/cute debate team captain – saves Peter from a trip to the hospital…or the morgue. FULL POST

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World

You wake up one morning and discover that the only safeguard standing between you and impending death has been obliterated. Death is coming. It is relentless and swift. You have three weeks remaining. Suddenly, years lose their meaning. Every second counts. How will you spend them? This is the scenario constructed in Seeking a Friend for the End of the World.

Critics could easily accuse the film of being confused – it has a hard time figuring out if it wants to be a romantic comedy, a raunch-fest, or a serious drama. In actuality, this array of responses might be precisely how different people might really react if they knew that the world was to be destroyed in the very near future. Seeking a Friend for the End of the World does not provide an answer to the problem of annihilation, it just describes possibilities – and, as a result, for those who see it, it may become one of the most personally illuminating films of the year. What would you do if you knew you were going to die?

Fair warning: the following analysis contains a number of major spoilers that have to be revealed in order for the arguments presented to make sense. The goal here is not a review of the film, but a way to use the film to engage viewers with a discussion about life, death, and what comes after. FULL POST

What are life’s most pressing questions? According to Peter Weyland, head of the Weyland Corporation which is funding an inter-stellar space voyage, they include: “Where do we come from? What is the soul? What happens when we die?” Seeking answers to these questions represents the initial reason behind a trillion-dollar space expedition in the film Prometheus. Millions of theater-goers are encountering these questions this summer for eight to fifteen dollars at their local multiplex. All three questions represent the kind of thought-provoking inquiry that should occupy us in our most introspective moments and amidst our deep conversations with like-minded friends. The answers Prometheus offers represent a cautionary tale, but it does not follow that those who see it must come to similar conclusions. Prometheus, in its quest for God, is looking in the wrong place, searching with the wrong tools, and seeking the right end with a wrong attitude. Fortunately, we need not look to cave paintings to locate an appropriate roadmap to God.

Looking in the Wrong Place

Prometheus

Prometheus tips its hand in the opening, 2001: A Space Odyssey-like creation sequence. An alien craft deposits what appears to be a kind of human on the surface of a water-rich, but otherwise barren, planet. Removing the top of a canister – the top is crafted with a curious design that represents a tree (the tree of life?) – he drinks the contents, convulses, dies, disintegrates, and seeds the planet with the DNA from which all subsequent life springs. FULL POST

What to Expect When You're Expecting

What to Expect When You’re Expecting takes the title of a best-selling non-fiction primer on pregnancy and slaps it on to a generic movie about making babies. Like many of the ensemble cast films such as New Year’s Eve and Valentine’s Day, the hope is that by crowding the screen with a wide assortment of relatable types, everyone will find connection with at least one character. The result – in terms of audience response and box office reception – has been tepid.

It is superfluous to call the film “unrealistic” – this is Hollywood, after all. And What to Expect When You’re Expecting does have a number of positives going for it: babies are celebrated, pregnancy is a good goal rather than a plague to be avoided at all costs, adoption is affirmed, and miscarriages are grieved. But the film also poses dangers by positively spinning some common mythologies about out-of-wedlock births, and portrays men as petulant, whiney onlookers. FULL POST

The Avengers

Like the Hulk, The Avengers, directed by the imaginative Joss Whedon, has smashed all previous weekend box-office records, hauling in over $200M in just three days. So what is it about these kinds of films that draws people to see them over and over? Part of it is the sheer spectacle of it all, some of it is star power – and piggy-backing onto heroes such as Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America, who are or will soon be franchises in their own right, doesn’t hurt.

[Author's Note: Get the MovieBibleStudy FilmTalk Card for The Avengers at www.moviebiblestudy.com]

But I think it goes deeper. Plenty of films with exciting battle sequences tank at the box office. The question always comes down to what’s at stake. People want to see stories about real good and evil, and they are fascinated by superheroes whose existence points up the fact that we cannot always save ourselves. Sometimes, we need someone to fight for us. FULL POST

Think Like a Man

Remember when romantic commitment was followed by a ring, a date, a wedding, a house, kids, and a choice to act in a loving way toward the beloved every day until death parted the lovers? If you don’t, you have probably spent the last ten years or so watching Hollywood’s version of “the love story.” This week, three romantic tales are in the top five at the box office: Think Like a Man, The Five-Year Engagement, and The Lucky One. While the films do a relatively good job identifying the problems facing modern romance, their answers to those problems represent half-solutions unlikely to do much to heal the wounds that have been inflicted in the long-standing battle between the sexes.

Marriage: The Great Hurdle

It is not secret that Hollywood film is hot on romance leading to weddings, but cold toward marriage. A simple test will suffice: Taking the last ten years of film, try to identify ten movies in which married people are depicted as having an exciting sex life. Now flip the assignment and using the last year, name ten films that show single people having an exciting sex life. Even if you found a way to get to ten in the first challenge, it was certainly much more difficult than naming ten for the second. If we were to believe Hollywood, marriage is the sexual death knell. FULL POST