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Booksmart
Booksmart has been on our radar since its release in May. With a 97% Rotten Tomatoes score, it’s one of the best-reviewed films of the year. But now, it’s our turn. Does the movie live up to the hype? Booksmart is the directorial debut of actress Olivia Wilde. Whatever faults Wilde brings to her first…
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If Beale Street Could Talk
Barry Jenkins and Damien Chazelle both directed Oscar-nominated movies this year. The last time that happened was in 2017 when Chazelle’s La La Land was mistakenly announced as the Best Picture winner only to be supplanted by the true Best Picture winner — Jenkins’ Moonlight. The debacle was a distraction from what should have been…
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Eighth Grade
Anyone who says they loved eighth grade is lying. It’s the perfect storm. Bullies, hormones, rejection, fear, doubt, and self-loathing. Rinse, repeat. But what was hell on earth is cinema heaven. Enter stand-up comedian Bo Burnham. Eighth Grade is Burnham’s feature film debut, and he couldn’t have picked a time in our lives more rife…
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Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
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13th
Social justice advocate and attorney Bryan Stevenson has stated that Americans need to greatly challenge the present narrative on race that has historically informed the way our criminal justice system functions primarily with regard to the imbalanced and disproportionate imprisonment of people of color (particularly males). Stevenson, author of the bestselling nonfiction work A Just…
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Queen of Katwe
Disney’s Queen of Katwe remains within the tradition of unintentional Christian filmmaking that prefers subtle nuances and unspoken demonstrations of conviction over tired clichés, recycled tropes, wooden characters, and soap-boxy platitudes positing overly simplistic answers to the complexities of life lived in a fallen world. In veteran director Mira Nair’s vision, we see strands of…
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The Light Between Oceans
Lighthouses hold a romantic fascination for most of us. Standing on the edge of civilization, broadcasting a beacon of light to those struggling to get back home, showing the way in the fiercest of storms and warning off ships from dangerous reefs. How many of us have heard our ministers use lighthouses as an analogy…
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Birth of a Nation
Few films arrive with as much controversy as Birth of a Nation. A promising run on the festival circuit (complete with a standing ovation at the Toronto Film Festival) gave way to scandal when disturbing details emerged about writer/director/star Nate Parker’s past. The movie is here now, but is it any good? Birth of a…
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Star Trek Beyond / The Infiltrator / Jason Bourne / Captain Fantastic
At Cinema Faith, we wish we could provide feature-length reviews for every movie that hits theaters. Unfortunately, some films fall through the cracks. To compensate, we’re introducing a new series called “Mini-Review Roundup” where we present smaller reviews of several movies at once. In this inaugural edition we review Star Trek Beyond, The Infiltrator, Jason…
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The Gospel According to Batman v Superman
