Does 'Ender's Game' Tell the Bible Story of Joseph?

THE CHRISTIAN POST
By Tyler O'Neil

HOLLYWOOD---The new film "Ender's Game," based off the book by Mormon writer Orson Scott Card, may carry some Christian themes, and one reviewer claims it mimics the biblical story of Joseph. The film "parallels directly Joseph's dealing with this brothers," Robert Hamel, assistant professor of Theatre Arts at Westmont College and a Lutheran pastor for 29 years, told The Christian Post in an interview on Thursday. Hamel compared the character Ender's crisis of conscience to Joseph's decision to feed the very same brothers who once sold him into slavery. "In a creative way, the movie uses Ender's family dynamic to show how the character of a leader is shaped," Hoose writes. In a society where families are only allowed to have two kids, Ender is the third – but his parents still value him deeply. [link]

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Movie Review: ‘12 Years a Slave’ Holds Nothing Back in Show of Suffering

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Manohla Dargis

HOLLYWOOD---“12 Years a Slave” isn’t the first movie about slavery in the United States — but it may be the one that finally makes it impossible for American cinema to continue to sell the ugly lies it’s been hawking for more than a century. Written by John Ridley and directed by Steve McQueen, it tells the true story of Solomon Northup, an African-American freeman who, in 1841, was snatched off the streets of Washington, and sold. It’s at once a familiar, utterly strange and deeply American story in which the period trappings long beloved by Hollywood — the paternalistic gentry with their pretty plantations, their genteel manners and all the fiddle-dee-dee rest — are the backdrop for an outrage. [link]

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Movie: ‘Gravity’ Stars George Clooney and Sandra Bullock

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By A.O. Scott

HOLLYWOOD---The defiance of impossibility is this movie’s theme and its reason for being. But the main challenge facing the director, Alfonso Cuarón (who wrote the script with his son Jonás), is not visualizing the unimaginable so much as overcoming the audience’s assumption that we’ve seen it all before. Mr. Cuarón succeeds by tethering almost unfathomably complex techniques — both digital and analog — to a simple narrative. “Gravity” is less a science-fiction spectacle than a Jack London tale in orbit. Cosmic questions about our place in the universe are not so much avoided as subordinated to more pressing practical concerns. [link]

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Movie: "Grace Unplugged" Opens in Theaters This Friday!

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS

HOLLYWOOD---Having just turned 18, Grace Trey aspires to more than just singing at her church, where the worship leader is her father—former pop star Johnny Trey. So with the help of Mossy, her dad's former manager, Grace records a cover version of Johnny's old Top-10 hit, runs off to Los Angeles, and begins to taste the kind of stardom she's always dreamed about. Yet with each rung of the ladder she climbs, Grace feels more and more pressure to compromise her values, further straining her relationship with her parents. Will everything she experiences lead her to reject her faith … or rediscover it? See "Grace Unplugged" in theaters beginning October 4. [Trailer]

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Movie Review: "Prisoners" is More Than an Angry-Dad Revenge Drama

THE NEW YORK TIMES 
By A.O. Scott

HOLLYWOOD---“Prisoners” is the kind of movie that can quiet a room full of casual thrill-seekers. It absorbs and controls your attention with such assurance that you hold your breath for fear of distracting the people on screen, exhaling in relief or amazement at each new revelation. If “Prisoners,” written by Aaron Guzikowski, upholds some of the conventions of the angry-dad revenge drama, it also subverts them in surprising, at times devastating ways. The easy catharsis of righteous payback is complicated at every turn, and pain and uncertainty spread like spilled oil on an asphalt road. It’s all very creepy and mysterious, and “Prisoners” is, among other things, a satisfying whodunit, with artfully deposited clues and twists that are surprising without entirely undermining the film’s naturalistic credibility. [link]

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Movie Preview: "Grace Unplugged" -- When Art & Faith Collide

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS
By Ernest Disney-Britton

HOLLYWOOD---"Grace Unplugged" opens in theaters October 4. Having just turned 18, Grace Trey aspires to more than just singing at her church, where the worship leader is her father-a former rock star. So, with the help of Mossy, her dad's former manager, Grace records a cover version of her dad's old Top-10 hit, runs off to Los Angeles, and begins to taste the kind of stardom she's always dreamed about. Yet with each rung of the ladder she climbs, Grace feels more and more pressure to compromise her values, further straining her relationship with her parents. Will everything she experiences lead her to reject her faith; or rediscover it?  [Watch: Trailer]

Opens in theaters: October 4, 2013
Cast: AJ Michalka, James Denton, Kevin Pollack

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