St. Patrick's Breastplate

[via apirecords]

And We're Off!



First Orbit, recalling and recreating Yuri Gagarin's *first* human orbit ever. Has it really been 50 years? Maybe warp drive will be next, to go where no one has gone before. :)

(I Wanna Go)Where The Wild Things Are



[via Jonathan Mann at therockcookiebottom or ROCK COOKIE BOTTOM]

Star Trek: Science Fiction for Progressives

[via Levellers]

Matrix Revisited

[via xkcd.com]

A Few Lessons from THE WATCHMEN

[via Levellers]

Once Again, Once More

Once: Friendship, Romance, and Ordered Desires

Once: Brokenness and Goodness and Yearning for More

[via Faith Dance]

Rocky Balboa: Hollywood & Cross Gender Friendship

[via Faith Dance]

Under The Radar

I’ve seen more emotive Marys at Christmas pageants in preschools.

Often this is what we have to pick from when it comes to cinematic Christmas tales. If it’s not an inert and literal Biblical drama such as “The Nativity Story,” it’s a soulless contemporary comedy such as “Four Christmases.” If we’re not being pandered to, we’re being lampooned.

“Children of Men” takes neither of these familiar approaches, which may be why it flew under the radar for so many audiences, including religious ones. True, it’s not the sort of endearing Christmas movie you’ll want to cuddle up with each year as part of your family’s yuletide tradition, but in its own way it’s an Advent picture to treasure.

[via ThinkChristian.NET]

OVERSOLD: Pastor David Cowan, Hosea and Gomer, and the Story of Crissy Moran

[via Grace and Truth to You]

"Is The Meaning Lost?"

Halloween? Reformation? Which is it?

[vika Kevin Powell]

The Psychology of The Dark Knight: Batman, superheroes, popular culture,art, Friederich Nietzsche, terrorism and the politics of George Bush

[via Encefalus]

In The Darkness, The Battle Wages

there is something very believable in the epic of the dark knight - misunderstood, flawed, torn between the desire to do right and the compelling race for the easy exit.

i feel a great affinity with the dark knight.

gone is the white knight, the hero in shining armor died with the 20th century. we do not relate any longer to the stainless, spotless hero who will not, nay cannot be tempted by the darkness that pervades our lives....

many of us can relate to the man in black. we are misunderstood... people believe they know our intentions and can understand our motivations, but they cannot. they jump to conclusions when they speak of us, believing we have given ourselves completely to the dark night. but they do not understand that it is in the darkness that the battle wages. gone are the days when we could encounter evil without getting our hands dirty... maybe we never could. some of us have marginal personalities, are socially inept, have made decisions that have castigated us, seemingly for all time.

we want to make a difference but are forced to wear a mask.

[via Scott Williams]

The Forces That Are Near

In contrast to the simplistic opposition of good guys and bad guys, spy thrilers with artistic pretensions display all the "realistic psychological complexity" of the characters from "our" side. Far from signaling a balanced view, however, this "honest" acknowledgement of our own "dark side" stands for its very opposite, for the hidden assertion of our supremacy: we are "psychologically compex," full of doubts, while the opponents are one dimensional fanatical killing machines.
~ Slavoj Zizek, In Defense of Lost Causes

The same, I think, could be said of superhero movies with artistic pretensions. Take The Dark Knight. Batman's psychological complexity, his struggle with the moral ambiguity related his own actions, and his status as a "Dark Knight", do not level the playing field between Batman and the evil he resists. For the Joker is, in his own words, "a dog chasing cars", he is evil and violent, simply for the sake of being evil and violent. He promotes chaos for the sake of chaos. The Joker has not psychological complexity, no internal moral struggle, he is a "fanatical killing machine". He is thus completely, and utterly, insane. Hence, Batman's inner turmoil functions as a sign of his supremacy over the forces he resists, personified in the Joker.

Of course, many people have noted that this moves Batman from the realm of the heroic, into the realm of the anti-hero, and that's all well and good (i.e. that's where Batman has always belonged), but it doesn't take us very far. {continue...}

[via poserorprophet]

‘Dark Knight’ of our souls

[via ThinkChristian.NET]

Of His Kind

It's strange that two robots could illustrate something about humans, but these did. Wall-E, a robot designed to be an (as his acronym explains)"Waste Allocation Load Lifter: Earth Class" works all day long compacting human trash. When he goes home he's got a robotic cockroach buddy (that he regularly accidentally runs over).

Wall-E is alone on earth (all humans have left because the trash and pollution have made earth unliveable), but even his cockroach pal doesn't help his loneliness. Wall-E is the only one left, alive, of his kind. And he longs for someone like him. It made me think of Genesis after Man is done naming all the animals, how he realizes he's sort of a lonely guy, no one around like him (Gen 2:20). Wall-E's so lonely that he practices holding hands with himself and watched "Hello Dolly" ceaselessly. There is no companion for Wall-E either.

Until EVE arrives....EVE makes Wall-E stronger. And Wall-E changes EVE, too. {the rest}

[via Jonalyn Grace Fincher]

The 10 Worst Movies About Jesus

[via The Wittenburg Door]

#249. Backsliding, a Christian thing or an Indiana Jones move?

[via Stuff Christians Like]

Indulgence

I haven't seen Prince Caspian yet, but since it was the "No. 1 Movie" this weekend, let's revisit what that wonderful little book was about:

Prince Caspian is about beer. {continue...}

[via slacktivist]

a time for burning

[via The Carnival In My Head]