Everyday Liminality

As a child, we learned that there were words that you just didn't say because they were "bad words." At the same time, we were taught that "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me." So which is it? Do words have power and so should be used carefully, or are they arbitrary combinations of vowels and consonants with assigned meaning?

Movies based on the Bible are all the rage these days. With multi-million dollar productions, Christians should be glad to see their holy book on such a popular stage, right? In this episode, Brothers Tito and Casey discuss how we can evaluate the merit of biblical movies and the merit (or detriment) that they offer to faith.

We are a sports-crazed society to say the least. We love sports so much that we're willing to make movies about them, essentially watching fake sports. What does this say about us, and what can we learn from this infatuation?

Documentaries can be great tools for sharing factual information. Unlike works of fiction that are scripted, set up, and crafted to show an imaginative world, documentaries consist of raw footage from historical events, giving the viewer a sense of objectivity. But are they really objective?

While the protagonist is usually someone that we can identify with and emulate, sometimes they are not. In these cases, "anti-heroes" present an image of what we shouldn't do, and what might become of us if we make the wrong decisions.

Sometimes, movies and television present a fantastical view of reality in which everything works out for the best. Some might criticize them for being unrealistic or overly optimistic, and that might be a fair critique, but there might be something else at work: rather than portraying the world as it is, grim and depressing, some works portray the world as it could be, aspiring to be more and inspiring us to make a change.

We often think of comedy as something we seek when we want to avoid serious issues and check out of the world. The reality is that comedy is one of the most effective devices in getting people to engage these very issues they want to avoid.

Few movies capture the depths of despair of feeling alone, or the weight of an existential crisis like Christopher Nolan's Interstellar. In this episode, Br. Tito and Br. Casey discuss how a movie with such an overwhelming premise can actually be so thought-provoking. 

This season we've talked about many topics. In this final episode of the year, we bring them all together to look at the new movie Green Book.