Movie review: ‘The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies’
Peter Jackson’s movie concludes his film adaptation of J.R.R Tolkien’s novel The Hobbit; or at least he begins its conclusion, with an extended edition expected later.
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1. The Movie, “The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies” – Pr. Ted Giese, 1/6/15
Pastor Ted Giese of Mount Olive Lutheran-Regina, Saskatchewan “The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies” by Ted Giese
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” epic is surprisingly restrained, subdued, and filled with a genuine wrestling with the biblical story of Moses. It is Scott’s as a recovering atheist who is agnostically struggling with materialism and the possibility of the Divine.
At first blush the film seems to rest on the razor’s …
Movie review: ‘Exodus: Gods and Kings’
Ridley Scott’s new film can’t be recommended as a “devotional,” but may serve as fertile ground for conversing with others about God.
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1. The Movie, “Exodus: Gods and Kings” – Pr. Ted Giese, 12/18/14
Pastor Ted Giese of Mount Olive Lutheran-Regina, Saskatchewan “Exodus: Gods and Kings” by Ted Giese
2. Expectations for the Movie, “Exodus: Gods and Kings” – Pr. Ted Giese, 12/11/14
Pastor Ted Giese of Mount Olive Lutheran-Regina, Saskatchewan
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 the care and custody of the people of District 13 who are waging a covert war against the Capitol and its leader President Snow.
The District 13 government lives in an underground military facility and is ready to move from its largely covert war efforts to a …
Movie review: ‘The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 1′
Fans of the “Hunger Games” franchise likely will enjoy the film, and it will certainly tide them over until Part 2 debuts in November 2015.
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2. The Movie: “Hunger Games, Mocking Jay, Part 1″ – Pr. Ted Giese, 11/27/14
Pastor Ted Giese of Mount Olive Lutheran-Regina, Saskatchewan “Hunger Games: Mocking Jay, Part 1″ by Ted Giese
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 the vein of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) or Robert Wise’s adaptation of Michael Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain (1971).
Set in a near future where blight is devastating the earth’s food supply and starvation is wiping out the population, a former engineer and NASA pilot, …
1. The Movie, “Interstellar” Pr. Ted Giese, 11/12/14
Pastor Ted Giese of Mount Olive Lutheran-Regina, Saskatchewan “Interstellar” by Ted Giese
Movie review: ‘Interstellar’
Christopher Nolan’s new film is more like his film “Inception” than his trilogy of “Batman” movies. It’s both cerebral and emotionally intense.
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Annabelle: Bad Theology All Dolled Up
by Ted Giese
Annabelle is the follow-up to James Wan’s horror film The Conjuring. This time out, Wan is a producer and not the director; Annabelle is directed by Wan’s cinematographer from The Conjuring, John R. Leonetti. The Conjuring introduced viewers to a creepy doll named Annabelle who terrorized a couple of young nursing students in the 1970s.This b-plot (allegedly based on a true story) proved so popular it garnered the production of Annabelle, a film detailing the origins of the possessed doll.
Annabelle is set in 1970. The film’s central young …
Movie review: ‘Fury’
At its core, “Fury” is not a sweeping epic but rather an intimate portrait of men in war. And those men are never far from their Christian faith.
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IE: The Movie, “Fury” – Pr. Ted Giese, 10/23/14
Pastor Ted Giese of Mount Olive Lutheran-Regina, Saskatchewan “Fury” by Ted Giese
The Maze Runner: A memorable adventure
by Ted Giese
The Maze Runner is a sci-fi action thriller aimed at young viewers. Set in a post-apocalyptic dystopia, the film (based on the book of the same name) catapults its audience into the thick of the action from its first scene. A boy awakes in an elevator moving up quickly. He doesn’t know where he is, he can’t remember anything from his life before that moment and, at first, he can’t even remember his name. The elevator, called the Box, hits the top of its track and opens into …
Who ya gonna call again?
by Ted Giese
“When the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were terrified, and said, ‘It is a ghost!’ and they cried out in fear” (Matthew 14:36). It wasn’t a ghost, though: it was Jesus. In fact, Jesus hadn’t even gone to the cross yet. After His resurrection from the dead, Jesus showed them His hands and side, and they were glad when they saw that it was the Lord and realized that although He’d been dead, Jesus was now alive and not a ghost.
The disciples lived in a …
IE: The Movie, “Annabelle” – Pr. Ted Giese, 10/9/14
Pastor Ted Giese of Mount Olive Lutheran-Regina, Saskatchewan “Annabelle” by Ted Giese
Movie review: ‘Annabelle’
“Annabelle,” the follow-up to the horror film, “The Conjuring,” falls short of its goal. The truly horrifying elements of the film are bad preaching and bad theology.
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IE: The Movie, “The Maze Runner” – Pr. Ted Giese, 10/3/14
Pastor Ted Giese of Mount Olive Lutheran-Regina, Saskatchewan “The Maze Runner” by Ted Giese
Reviewing Boyhood: What if the moment is seizing you?
by Ted Giese
Richard Linklater, in his film Boyhood, asks the question, “What if you aren’t seizing the moment in life—what if the moment is seizing you?”
Boyhood is a unique film shot over 12 years that tells the story of a young boy, Mason, and his family as he grows from boyhood through adolescence into early adulthood. Ellar Coltrane plays Mason throughout the film allowing the audience to watch him mature from being a kid in grade school to a college freshman. Through those years his single mother moves Mason and …
IE: Movie Review: “Boyhood” – Pr. Ted Giese, 9/19/14
Pastor Ted Giese of Mount Olive Lutheran-Regina, Saskatchewan “Boyhoood” by Ted Giese
IE: A 30th Anniversary Review of the Movies “Ghost Busters” and “Amadeus” – Pr. Ted Giese, 9/3/14
Pastor Ted Giese of Mount Olive Lutheran-Regina, Saskatchewan “Ghost Busters” by Ted Giese
Movies, the Family, and the Catechism
by Ted Giese
“All things are lawful,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up. Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbour. (1 Corinthians 10:23-24 ESV)
Parents don’t often think of their children as their neighbours, but they are. In Scripture and the Small Catechism a neighbour is anyone who isn’t you. So “serving your neighbour” is at the heart of a parent’s vocation, including teaching the faith. Each section of Luther’s Small Catechism starts with the opening …
Unlikely heroes want to do better?
by Ted Giese
When it comes to MARVEL it looks like movie-goers are “hooked on a feeling” and the studio’s big gamble bringing the cult comic book Guardians of the Galaxy to the silver screen has paid off. With an opening weekend that dwarfed recent offerings MARVEL proves again it is the studio to watch. Add to that the success of its film Captain America: The Winters Soldier this past March and it’s easy to see that MARVEL has won the hearts and minds of its key audience.
Starting with Iron Man …