Well, they did it again. No, it’s not their best trailer ever, but as usual it’s a lot of fun and makes a lot of uncomfortably good points. I still love the film a lot, but doggone, it’s easy to make fun of.

Be warned if this sort of thing offends you, there’s a crude reference to the male anatomy at the end.

Next month, Philadelphia Film Society & Geekadelphia will present six days of celebratory screenings of the original Star Trek films on 35mm, entitled STAR TREK – 35 Years on 35mm: A Retrospective.

From Friday, December 5th through Wednesday, December 10th, the first six films in the franchise will be presented at the PFS Roxy Theater in downtown Philadelphia.

Individual tickets for each screening are $10.00. An all-access pass for all six films with reserved seating is $50.00. There is also a $35.00 general admission pass that will allow the buyer into four films of their choosing.

Man…

Katniss is a hero because she has no desire to be a hero. “I never wanted any of this, I never wanted to be in the Games,” she says during the film. “I just wanted to save my sister and keep Peeta alive.” Her mission isn’t one of power, wealth, or fame; it’s of love. With a film industry still reluctant to give us a strong, female superhero (at least one with her own movie), Katniss is one of the better heroines in recent young adult memory. She’s not perfect, but she thinks for herself (certainly the opposite of a damsel in distress). She can’t stand to see her loved ones hurting and…

Most Christians think that holiness in art can be achieved superficially. As in, if it is “safe for the whole family,” then it is free from impurity. This is incorrect. Pure art is not necessarily safe art. Sometimes purity of heart demands a vulgar expression. And judging art on the basis of a superficial rating is misguided. Some of the most innocent-seeming children’s movies are chock full of unholiness. And some of the most disturbing, unsettling, and seemingly “vulgar” things are included in the Bible for our edification.

This is a fantastic article from Michael Minkoff (co-host of

Here it is guys, the Star Wars: The Force Awakens teaser trailer we’ve been waiting all week for. I had a little bit of a fit when I first thought it would only show in NINE THEATERS across the U.S. and nowhere else. Then they opened up the kimono a little and revealed it would be in quite a few more theaters than that, including a theater I generally like to go to in Franklin (though I probably would have driven 50 or 60 miles to some theaters somewhere in or around Nashville to see this teaser). But I had nothing to fear because it’s on iTunes Trailers, and on YouTube.

I’ll have some…

James Gunn took to Facebook recently. He did not have kind words for the direction many studios have been headed with their universes. But I didn’t feel that he was overly crtical. And I share his conerns. This is a really short read and worth your time.

CARTS BEFORE HORSES & HOLLYWOOD’S NEW LOVE OF SHARED UNIVERSES

Listen, I love big ass shared universes in movies, as well as huge franchises. But I’m a little worried about the numerous shared universes being planned by the studios, without having a strong base film to grow from - or in some cases, NO base film to grow from. Star Wars had…

UPDATE: More theater chains other than Regal have announced plans to screen the trailer this weekend, though have not specified which theaters. Check below for a list of chains, including AMC Theatres, that have announced their involvement in the theater roll out.

Yes! My theater in Franklin, TN is on this list (the Carmike, Thoroughbred 20)! I’m excited. Guess I’ll be making the drive into Franklin for my film this weekend though I haven’t been driving that far lately. Here’s the list:

Phoenix, Arizona–Harkins, Tempe Marketplace
Los Angeles, California–AMC, Century City
Los Angeles,…

We take a look at the impressively large-scale sci-fi adventure of Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar. While well-documented as Nolan’s “most ambitious” project to date, it does remind us a lot of things he has done before. Interstellar, although technically brilliant, didn’t blow us away from a storytelling point of view, but it does force us to wrestle with questions about human potential, limitations, society, anti-intellectualism, “our place in the sky”, and “our place in the dirt.” Due to the incredible scope of the film, we increased the scope of the panel– so we are flush with…

Read The Rest

The story of podcasts suddenly being “back” strongly suggests, and mostly requires, that they had been big at one time and had since gone away. That New York Magazine article even cites a “bottom” time: 2010. But that never really happened.

Podcasts in 2010 were a lot like podcasts in 2007, which were a lot like podcasts in 2004, which are a lot like podcasts in 2014. There’s a lot of tech shows (and a lot of tech listeners), but most of the biggest are professionally produced public-radio shows released as podcasts, with other strong contingents in comedy, business, and religion, followed…