The Spiritual Practice of Watching Movies
What’s your favorite Christmas movie? Easter movie? Pentecost movie? Casual viewers and movie buffs alike have favorite movies to watch at certain times of the year. But for film critic Abby Olcese, movies with spiritual themes aren't just limited to the holiday season. They’re part of a deep human need to connect our favorite stories to the natural rhythms of our lives, and to let them shape and give meaning to our experience of the seasons all year long.
The life of the church is also defined by stories, which we revisit through the pattern of the Christian year. In Films for All Seasons, Olcese invites us to reflect on the great themes of the church calendar through the lens of film. From superhero movies and Star Wars to classics and arthouse films, she chooses movies for each liturgical season and leads us through them with skill and infectious enthusiasm, exploring how each one can inform and deepen our appreciation of its corresponding season.
Films for All Seasons is more than just a book about movies—it's a model for how we engage with art as Christians.
Includes:
– Explorations of popular, classic, and arthouse films and how they relate to liturgical seasons
– Reflections on the great themes of the church calendar
– Discussion questions after each movie designed to facilitate discussion with small groups and friends
Tabella dei contenuti
Foreword by Josh Larsen
Introduction: Why Watch Films as a Spiritual Practice?
1. Thoughts on Watching Devotionally
Advent
2. Hope: The Last Jedi
3. Faith: The Bishop’s Wife
4. Joy: Paddington and Paddington 2
5. Peace: Joyeux Noel
Christmas
6. War Is Over (If You Want It): Children of Men
7. ‘It’s Love That Won’: The Night of the Hunter
Epiphany
8. The Chosen One No One Expected: Shazam!
9. What Was I Made For?: Barbie
Lent
10. Ash Wednesday: Annihilation
11. Lent Week Two: The Dark Knight
12. Lent Week Three: Logan
13. Lent Week Four: Bad Times at the El Royale
14. Lent Week Five: Groundhog Day
15. Lent Week Six: Lucky
Holy Week
16. Maundy Thursday: The Mission
17. Good Friday: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
18. Holy Saturday: The Last Temptation of Christ
Easter
19. Reconsidering Edmund: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
20. Fear Kills, Love Resurrects: The Iron Giant
Ascension Day
21. A World Built on Top of Ours: Midnight Special
22. Making All Things New: Avatar
Pentecost
23. Imperfect Heroes for an Imperfect World: Guardians of the Galaxy
24. The Turbo-Charged Community of Faith: Fast & Furious 6
All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day
25. Narrow the Way: A Hidden Life
26. Chocolate Cake in Heaven: Dick Johnson Is Dead
27. A Vibrant and Complicated Legacy: Coco
Conclusion: Ordinary Time
Acknowledgments
Suggestions for Further Viewing
Notes
Circa l’autore
Josh Larsen is the co-host of the radio show and podcast Filmspotting, as well as editor and film critic at Think Christian, a faith and culture website. He’s been writing and speaking about movies professionally for more than two decades.Josh’s career began in the mainstream newspaper business, where he started out as a beat reporter for a weekly community newspaper and went on to become the film critic for the Chicago-based Sun-Times Media for more than ten years. In 2011, he joined the Christian media landscape as editor of Think Christian, and in 2012 he joined the long-running weekly podcast Filmspotting, aired on WBEZ in Chicago.A veteran of the Sundance, Toronto, and Chicago International Film Festivals, Josh has given talks on film and faith at various Christian colleges. He also led the “Ebert Interruptus, ” a tradition established by Roger Ebert that analyzes a single film scene by scene over several days, at the University of Colorado’s Conference on World Affairs. Josh lives in the Chicago area with his wife and two daughters.
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