Category: Movie Review

February 4, 2015

American Sniper: Of Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs

by Ted Giese “There are three types of people in this world: sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs.” In Clint Eastwood’s film American Sniper the central character, Chris Kyle, is a Texan who grew up wanting to live the life of a “cowboy,” content to chase the…

Read More

January 23, 2015

Be careful in the woods

by Ted Giese Rob Marshal’s new adaptation of the Tony award winning musical Into The Woods is Disney’s most recent foray into live-action film musicals. As in the original, Marshal’s Into the Woods finds its story centred on folk tale characters made popular by the…

Read More

January 12, 2015

The Hobbit: Prepare for battle before viewing

by Ted Giese Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: The Battle of The Five Armies concludes his film adaption of J.R.R Tolkien’s novel The Hobbit—or at least begins its conclusion, since an extended edition will come out in about a year. These releases contain scenes with new…

Read More

December 22, 2014

Exodus: Wrestling with God and Scripture

by Ted Giese Darren Aronofsky’s Noah (2013) was an opinionated film chock full of dark cryptic extra-biblical mysticism and environmentalist concerns often feeling like propaganda for something. Ridley Scott’s Exodus: Gods and Kings, on the whole, is a much different film. His “sword and sandal”…

Read More

December 8, 2014

Word and mind-games in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1

by Ted Giese Francis Lawrence’s Mockingjay: Part 1 is the third movie in the film franchise based on the popular young adults book series Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Picking up after the events of the second film, Catching Fire, Katniss Everdeen finds herself under…

Read More

November 21, 2014

Interstellar: Thoughtful sci-fi delivers love, evil, and a black hole

by Ted Giese Christopher Nolan’s new film Interstellar is more like his 2010 film Inception than his trilogy of Batman movies. It’s both cerebral and emotionally intense. This is no Star Trek, Star Wars space opera (space-soap-opera); Interstellar is a more “hard” sci-fi film in…

Read More