The Wall Street Journal had an article the other day about the flurry of Bible stories that are now being produced by Hollywood. Erica Orden writes:

There are compelling economic reasons for Hollywood to embrace the Good Book. The studios are increasingly reliant on source material with a built-in audience, something the Bible—the best-selling book in history—certainly has. And like the comic-book superheroes that movie companies have relied on for the past decade, biblical stories are easily recognizable to both domestic and the all-important foreign audiences. What’s more, they’re free: Studios don’t need to pay expensive licensing fees to adapt stories and characters already in the public domain.

In addition to “Noah,” Time Warner’s Warner Bros. Pictures is developing a movie about Moses, tentatively titled “Gods and Kings,” which Steven Spielberg is in talks to direct, according to people familiar with the matter. Warner Bros. also recently acquired the script for “Pontius Pilate.” Another Moses project, “Exodus,” is in development at News Corp.’s 20th Century Fox, with Chernin Entertainment producing and Ridley Scott expected to direct. (News Corp. also owns The Wall Street Journal.)

Sony Pictures is developing “The Redemption of Cain,” a supernatural film loosely inspired by the fratricidal tale of Cain and Abel, a project slated to be Will Smith’s directorial debut. And Lionsgate will distribute “Mary, Mother of Christ,” which is being billed as a prequel to “The Passion of the Christ.”

Many Christians might shudder thinking of how Hollywood will twist and manipulate these stories for their own purposes pockets. This trembling is justified. But the fact that Hollywood will be coming out with more Bible stories is not necessarily a bad thing.

As with most things, there is an opportunity here.

It may provide some more open dialogue in the public square about Christianity, Scripture, truth, and redemptive history.

The movies look stellar for Christmas 2012.

Les Miserables

The Great Gatsby (apparently this got pushed back and is no longer coming out on Christmas Day)

The Hobbit

Django Unchained

There is something quirky, fun, and strange about Wes Anderson movies.

With the saturated colors, the odd camera angles, the close up shots, and the dark humor many are drawn to his films. (On “Stuff White People Like” Wes Anderson ranks #10)

Others walk away scratching their heads. Needless to say, it is not a typical movie experience.

The latest Wes Anderson film “Moonrise Kingdom” features two adolescents and their young love. And although the plot is simple, to the point that a few might assume shallowness, every shot and perfectly placed rug is precise and planned.

SETTING

The “runaway” takes place on a small island off the coast of Maine called “New Penzance” in 1965. Here the focus begins on a dysfunctional family and their three children. Both the parents are lawyers (Bill Murray and Francis McDormand) and they have what they describe as a “troubled” eldest daughter (Suzy) and two bratty younger sons. Although their place looks externally put together as the camera pans across the family, it is evident that their marriage is rocky and the children are un-happy. In a similar way Camp Ivanhoe is outwardly in order. The tents are all in a row and impeccably kept. Their uniforms are the same color and equally impressive in their neatness. The morning regimens are set and led by the inept scoutmaster Ward (Edward Norton) who runs the children’s camp as military base. The islands only cop Captain Sharp (Bruce Willis) is lives in his trailer beside his cop hut and his life is similarly dismal.

But the plot focuses quickly on Sam and Suzy. They meet in a dressing room during a play of Noah’s Fludde with Suzy dressed as a raven. (The raven is most likely symbolic for how the adults view her. They would not choose her for the dove.) Sam and Suzy then begin to write to one another and decide to as Edward Norton says “fly the coop.” They run off, camp, enjoy one another, get involved in some questionable acts, and fall in love. The “grown-ups” of the island find them and try to separate them, but they run off again and have a little marriage ceremony.

OUTWARD

The movie contrasts the dysfunctional life of the parents to the children who find innocent love. The Khaki Scouts are the ones who seem to have it together, although they need direction, which the grown-ups fail to give them. Captain Sharp is miserable and looking for affection in all the wrong places. Scoutmaster Ward finds his identity in leading these 12 year olds in pointless tasks and ends up losing his entire troop. Bill Murray’s character is coping with his disintegrating marriage by indifference, while his wife deals with it by having an affair with Captain Sharp. Suzy watches all of this through her binoculars.

Sam’s life is also filled with chaos. He is an orphan with foster parents who do not want to continue the “contract” and all the Khaki Scouts hate him.

Therefore Sam and Suzy decide it time to escape this chaotic life together. Interestingly, they encounter some of the same problems, but end up reconciling and coming together.

THE FLUDDE

But behind all this is the flood theme. Sam and Suzy meet at the local church during the play “Noah’s Fludde” and the movie ends with the great storm of 1965. The message is how the torrent can wash all things new and create a new world. The island, and the inhabitants need to be washed clean and towards the end of the movie we see some of this reconciliation taking place. Interestingly, it is not through the parents initiative, but through Sam and Suzy’s devotion to one another. The movie leaves one thinking either a new kingdom is coming to “New Penzance,” or the only peaceful kingdom there will be is the the one the children created.

1. The cast. From Leonardo DiCaprio, to Jamie Foxx, to Christopher Waltz, this cast is top notch.
2. The characters. Tarantino will not let actors play their “typical” role, he always has his own character in mind, and the actors must conform. Already from the preview you can tell these characters have style!
3. The dialogue. Tarantino has a gift of making simple lines sing. It is not just what they say, but how they say it. He rearranges words for effect, and the effect is eventful.
4. The music. I can’t say enough about the music Tarantino picks. Already in the preview it ranges from Johnny Cash to James Brown. I want to sit down and ask him how he finds the perfect music for every scene from every genre of music you can think of, and a couple you did not know about. I went and listened to the James Brown song from the trailer, needless the say, I would have never thought of picking that, but it worked uniquely well for the trailer.
5. The lack of Super-Heros. We need more original stories. Yes, I am more excited about this than Batman.
6. The cinematography. Tarantino focuses on things in the scene that very few would think to put attention on.
7. The spaghetti-western. This is what we need, less Super-Hero’s, more genres.

The trailer you will find below. I am hoping it will major on the things above rather than some of the other things Tarantino is known for (language and violence).

Here is my justification for the previous post from Ross Douthat about the bad news that The Avengers is good. I am listing all the super-hero movies since 2000 and putting them in two categories. I have not seen all of these but basing it on the reviews and my opinions about the movies.

Needless to say, because The Avengers is good, we are now set up for a load of bad movies in the future.

Below Average/Average

• The Specials
• Unbreakable
• Blade II
• Spider-Man
• Daredevil
• Hulk
• The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
• Hellboy
• The Punisher
• Spider-Man 2
• Catwoman
• Blade: Trinity
• Elektra
• Son of the Mask
• The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D
• Fantastic Four
• Sky High
• Superman Returns
• My Super Ex-Girlfriend
• Lightspeed
• Zoom
• Ghost Rider
• Spider-Man 3
• Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
• Underdog
• Superhero Movie
• The Incredible Hulk
• Hancock
• Punisher: War Zone
• The Spirit
• Hellboy II: The Golden Army
  
• Watchmen
• X-Men Origins: Wolverine
• Scott Pilgrim vs the World
• Jonah Hex
• RED
• The Green Hornet
• Thor
• Green Lantern
• Captain America: The First Avenger
• Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance
• X-Men: The Last Stand

Above Average

• X-Men
• Batman Begins
• X2: X-Men United
  
• Iron Man
• The Dark Knight
• Kick-Ass (does this even count)
• Iron Man 2
• X-Men: First Class
• The Avengers

I couldn’t agree more with Ross Douthat on the “bad” news that The Avengers is good. That means more superhero movies to come, which is all in all, a bad thing. Douthat says:

This was exactly the reaction I had to the original “Iron Man,” whose success enabled Marvel to set in motion the multi-movie build-up to Whedon’s “Avengers.” It, too, was a well-written, well-directed blockbuster, but one that filled me with a kind of creeping despair — because its success guaranteed that the superhero era in American cinema, which then seemed to be waning a bit as lesser franchises failed to do Superman-Batman-Spiderman business, would continue as long as studio executives had semi-well known properties to greenlight (or, in the case of this summer’s completely unnecessary “Spiderman” movie, reboot). If “The Avengers” hits as big in the United States as it’s hitting overseas, its influence will doubtless be even more enduring, guaranteeing us superhero sequels and prequels and reboots and re-reboots as far as the eye (wrapped, of course, in 3-D glasses) can see.

This is also why I was disappointed by how completely the Mars-set, Andrew Stanton-directed blockbuster “John Carter” bombed earlier this spring. I haven’t seen the movie, and perhaps it deserved to join “Ishtar” and “Cutthroat Island” on the list of misbegotten box-office disasters. But it was a rare contemporary case of a studio putting serious money behind a popcorn movie that didn’t come “pre-sold,” as the expression goes. And because it failed so completely, it probably lowers the near-term odds that any studio will greenlight any project with a chance of joining a “Back to the Future” or an “Alien” or a “Matrix” — or an “Inception,” to take the one of the very few prominent recent examples — on the list of blockbusters that hit it big not because they made something entertaining out an already-iconic story, but because they showed us something new.