Roger Ebert on Lars von Trier's 'Antichrist'

Roger Ebert's comments about 'Antichrist' by Lars von Trier

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Angels and Demons

An article by Tony Watkins on Angels and Demons, directed by Ron Howard and based on the novel by Dan Brown.

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Angels and Demons - discussion guide

This discussion guide was first published on Culturewatch in 2009. Summary Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is woken by the ringing of his telephone in the early hours of the morning. The caller is Maximilian Kohler, Director of CERN, the largest particle physics research facility in the world. He wants Langdon’s help because of the murder […]

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Being Charlie Kaufman

Jeffrey Overstreet interviews Charlie Kaufman for Image Journal (10 November 2008) Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York finally reaches UK cinemas this week. I'm really looking forward to this, though I know it will be somewhat weird and bleak. Kaufman is best known for writing the screenplays for Being John Malkovich (dir. Spike Jonze, 1999) and […]

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Scaring kids

Some quotes from Lewis and Tolkien on fairy tales.

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Star Trek

Article by Tony Watkins on Star Trek.

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Coraline

Article by Tony Watkins (first published on Culturewatch) about Henry Selick's film adaptation of Neil Gaiman's book, Coraline

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Reflections on Movie Nazis

Mike Hertenstein, 'Movie Nazis & After the Truth', Filmwell, 28 April 2009 Mike Hertenstein writes a very interesting piece about 'Movie Nazis' over at Filmwell. Primarily it's a piece reflecting on After the Truth, a film written by Americans but finally made by German filmmakers in the late 1990s. But in a long introduction, Hertenstein […]

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X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Article on X-Men Origins: Wolverine, focusing particularly on the struggle within Logan/Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) between his 'animal' and 'higher' natures.

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State of Play

Cal McAffrey (Russell Crowe) is covering the story of an apparently random shooting in Washington DC for his paper, the Washington Globe, when he sees an old friend of his on the news. Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck) is a rising star in Congress. He’s handsome, bright and ambitious, and is chairing a committee investigating defence spending. What catches McCaffrey’s attention is that Collins’s attractive young research assistant, Sonia Baker, has died – and Collins is clearly very cut up about it. McAffrey is irritated when a very junior colleague, the Globe’s political blogger Della Frye (Rachel McAdams), comes to ask if Collins was having an affair with Sonia. McAffrey rebuffs her enquiries, but before long their demanding editor, Cameron Lynne (Helen Mirren) has them working together on the story. It’s a story of deceit, corruption and murder. Apparently unrelated events turn out to be connected, and nothing is quite as it first seems.

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50 Dead Men Walking

The troubles in Northern Ireland are a very sensitive subject for a film. The worst of the violence is still a recent memory, with many families across the province continuing to live with the grief of having lost a loved one to guns and bombs. A film which takes one side will be anathema to the other, and one which tries not to take sides stands a good chance of annoying everyone. But staying neutral was exactly what writer/director Kari Skogland believed she had to do with her retelling of the true story of Martin McGartland (Jim Sturgess). Skogland is a Canadian and so very much an outsider looking in. Being an outsider has the advantage of allowing one to stand back and reflect coolly on what both sides of the conflict are saying. But it can also lead to an inadequate understanding of the complexities of the situation. Skogland felt that by maintaining neutrality, she would force the audience to make up their own minds about what happened, but her film has prompted criticisms that it is too pro-IRA, most notably from McGartland himself.

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Good

Directed by Vicente Amorim, starring Viggo Mortensen and Jason Isaacs (Lionsgate, 2009) This article was first published on Damaris's Culturewatch website, and is used with permission. © Copyright Tony Watkins, 2009 How does an ordinary, decent man become part of one of the world’s greatest evils? This enigma is at the heart of Good, and […]

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The hidden foundations of C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia

I wasn't able to see The Narnia Code on BBC One yesterday, but I watched and enjoyed it this evening. Directed by Norman Stone, it profiles the discovery of Michael Ward who, while working on his PhD on Lewis, stumbled onto a secret no one had ever seen before. He was reading Lewis's poem about […]

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To really see what's going on in a movie, you need to look

Bob Davidson, 'Eyes Wide Open', Christianity Today Movies, 14 April 2009 It's good to see Christianity Today Movies publishing an article about getting beyond the surface level of film-viewing. CTMovies has some great reviewers, some of whom are online friends and very active in the Arts&Faith forum, but Bob Davidson's article helps people to engage […]

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Do Twitter and Facebook pose a moral risk?

Daily Telegraph, 13 April 2009 Today's fast-paced media could be making us indifferent to human suffering and should allow time for us to reflect, according to researchers. They found that emotions linked to moral sense are slow to respond to news and events and have failed to keep up with the modern world. . . […]

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The Young Victoria

The Young Victoria begins in 1837, when Victoria (Emily Blunt) is seventeen. She is heir to the throne of her uncle, King William IV (Jim Broadbent), and so is protected to an extraordinary degree. She is not allowed to sleep in a bedroom on her own, but must sleep in her mother’s room. She is […]

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Revolutionary Road

This article was first published on Culturewatch.org. © Tony Watkins, 2010 With Revolutionary Road, director Sam Mendes returns to the territory of his Oscar-winning film, American Beauty. Ten years after that film explored the dissatisfaction, emptiness and desperation behind suburbia’s tranquil facade, Mendes is once more giving us a window into the shallow lives of […]

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Slumdog Millionaire

Slumdog Millionaire is an exuberant, emotional and uplifting film from Danny Boyle. Sukhdev Sandhu, writing in the Daily Telegraph (9 January 2009), compared it to Usain Bolt’s world record-breaking performance at the Beijing Olympics: ‘funny, shocking, spectacularly turbo-charged. It takes your breath away at the same time as it makes you want to holler with […]

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Agenda Squabbles – Filming The Golden Compass

There’s nothing like controversy to promote a film. A row in the media grabs the public’s attention more effectively than official publicity campaigns ever can. So New Line Cinema and director Chris Weitz must be delighted at the fuss being made over The Golden Compass which opens in cinemas next week. There was already a […]

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The Golden Compass: Parents’ Briefing

Click here for a printable version There’s nothing like controversy to promote a film. A row in the media grabs public attention better than official publicity campaigns ever can. So New Line Cinema and director Chris Weitz must be delighted at the fuss being made over The Golden Compass. There was already a great deal […]

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Atonement - Joe Wright's adaptation of Ian McEwan's brilliant novel

Just back from the press screening. Oh my word, I'm traumatised all over again. The book traumatised me for weeks, and now the film has left me a broken man once more. Why do I put myself through this kind of thing when I know what it will do to me? I'm a huge McEwan […]

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Focus: The Art and Soul of Cinema

Once more good intentions of keeping up with blogging have gone the way of most good intentions. Anyway, the book, Focus: The Art and Soul of Cinema was officially published last Friday. My copies arrived on Monday - always an exciting moment to see the results of so much hard work nicely printed (11 pt […]

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The book

Well, I'm behind schedule with just two weeks to go and a lot of revisions to do as well as writing appendices and other stuff. I'm pleased with what I've done, though, and hope it will make a valuable and distinctive contribution. More soon - when I have some time again! tony Related posts: No […]

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Dan Brown's Secrets

Why is Dan Brown the biggest-selling author in the world after J.K. Rowling?1 After all, Brown’s writing is not high quality literature (in fact, that’s probably in his favour – many readers prefer light fiction to sophisticated, intellectual literature). But The Da Vinci Code in particular is one of those books that get even reluctant […]

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© Tony Watkins, 2020
The Tony and Jane Watkins Trust oversees and supports the ministries of Tony and Jane Watkins in Christian training, education, and communication. It is a charity registered in England and Wales, no. 1062254.
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