Journal November 7, 2020: Relief, Elation, and Gratitude I share this as the first in a series of more personal posts, in hopes of expanding the range of subjects I explore at Looking Closer. I hope you enjoy this glimpse of the glory that played out in front of me at the close of this beautiful day.
Journal SPU Voices: Overstreet on meeting movie stars, storytelling, teaching, and faith This week on the Seattle Pacific University podcast Voices, host Amanda Stubbert interviews me about my experiences in film criticism, my encounters with movie stars, my life of storytelling, and my new adventures in teaching. We had a great conversation, and I'm happy that I can now share
Journal New adventures in hi-fi: Check out the new Looking Closer podcast! It seems inevitable: a Looking Closer podcast!
Journal Hard times are good times for Auralia's Colors The people of House Abascar have been betrayed by false promises and robbed of colors, robbed of hope. But there are rumors of a girl in the woods who gathers colors that no one else has ever seen. And now, you can hear those colors. During these stay-at-home days, you're invited to a reading of Aur
Journal In the midst of trouble and grief... a joyous day! Celebrate with people from 40 countries, in 25 language, as we announce the Good News to the world.
Journal My #1 Christmas gift recommendation — and five reasons why I've been asked to recommend five highlights from my many years of reading Image, my favorite literary arts journal. I had difficulty limiting my answer.
On Books & Writing In the Cosmos of the Arts, a Christian Cosmonaut Is Born Again “NASA Twins Study Confirms Astronaut’s DNA Actually Changed in Space.” That’s the headline that makes you choke, then narrow your eyes, and forget what you were searching for.Come on. This isn’t The Twilight Zone. A man left earth and came back as somebody else? If you
On Movies & Media Three professors profess their love for The Secret of Kells Listen as Jeffrey Overstreet welcomes Dr. Christine Chaney and Dr. Brian Bantum from Seattle Pacific University to a conversation about the many wonders of the movie The Secret of Kells.
Journal A tale of two podcasts: my visits to Forma and Libromania In which I find myself as a special guest on two separate podcasts, both of them hosted by David Kern, for conversations about Madeleine L'Engle and the best movies of 2018.
On Movies & Media Dead Poets Society and the Legacy of Dr. Luke Reinsma Four years ago this week, I wrote about how I had changed my mind about "Dead Poets Society." This week, I re-post it as a tribute to my favorite professor.
Journal Three qualities of beauty I think I might just scrap all of my syllabus explanations regarding how I grade essays and short stories in my writing classes. I'll just replace those with this passage from Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose: For three things concur in creating beauty: first
Interviews The Theology of the Coen Brothers? A Conversation Between Matt Zoller Seitz and Jeffrey Overstreet Originally titled "O Coen Brothers, Where Art God?", this is my conversation with Matt Zoller Seitz about theology, Raising Arizona, morality, Fargo, good and evil, The Big Lebowski, and so much more.
Jim Caviezel The Passion of the Christ: Revisited Would I now disagree with the review I wrote ten years ago? Would I flinch to read what I wrote back then?
On Movies & Media It's a Fourth of July. Enjoy it. It occurred to me that the Fourth of July was about to pass us by without anybody bothering to post an image of...
U2 Happy 30th Anniversary to a Man and a Woman! Last Tuesday marked the 30th anniversary of the marriage of Paul Hewson and Ali Stewart. If those names aren't familiar to you, then you're probably not much of a U2 fan. Here’s an article at The Independent about the two of them published last year
On Movies & Media The Passion of the Christ - A Letter to Christians about Mel Gibson's Film This commentary is a follow-up to my review of The Passion of the Christ. Most Christian press publications will lavish praise upon Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. They will celebrate the arrival of a film rich with spiritual power, rendered with riveting and even excruciating detail.
On Movies & Media The Golden Compass (2007): Looking Closer at Christians, Controversy, and Phillip Pullman And so it begins. The first review of New Line Cinema's The Golden Compass, which is based on the first book in Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, has been published in The Daily Telegraph. Telegraph reviewer John Hiscock says: … an early screening of The Golden
On Movies & Media Here We Go Again: Malick and "The Tree of Life" I know, I know, I'm late to this party. But I'm not really. I reported on Terrence Malick's Tree of Life project ages ago, and was quickly corrected and informed that I was merely perpetuating rumors about a project that was abandoned long ago.
U2 While U2 prepares to record, Bono is taking piano lessons. ☠️2026 Update: This post is past its expiration date. The relevant link to JAM! Showbiz no longer works. A similar story with the same quotations from Bono is still up at Stereoboard. I’m preserving this post for archival purposes. JAM! Showbiz reports that U2 is preparing to go back
Steven Greydanus Pastor Mark Driscoll of Seattle’s Mars Hill Church hurls outrageous accusations at the Catholic Church… from the pulpit —THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED. Check out the input from Steven Greydanus.— … at least, that’s the allegation made in a student editorial in SPU’s student newspaper The Falcon on the issue of division within the church. If the student’s report is accurate, well, I can only applaud.
On Movies & Media Doug Cummings on Howl's Moving Castle from filmjourney... I find the mystery in Miyazaki’s films to be one of their greatest pleasures, expanding their worlds with each viewer’s imagination. When I was a kid, I loved to scratch my head. Not that Miyazaki crafts puzzling films; his cinema is highly accessible and entertaining at
On Movies & Media Are you a Narniac? Today's Reel News is up, featuring your big opportunity to work for Disney for no pay, promoting a "masterpiece" that nobody's seen! P.S. Narniacs aren't the real problem. The real problem comes from nicknamaniacs who must put a label on everything
Spring cleaning No, I haven’t posted my full review of Howl’s Moving Castle yet, nor have I posted any of the interviews I’ve been promising for so long. (The interview with producer Ralph Winter is finished, and it'll be posted at CT Movies soon.) In fact, I
