Today, Good Letters — the blog published by Image at Patheos — posted my reflections on Empire of the Sun, a Steven Spielberg film that I love more and more as the years pass.
I’m grateful for the opportunity to write about it for Good Letters, as I’m grateful for the whole four-year experience there.
As I wrote earlier, I am taking a long sabbatical in order to focus on other projects. Here is an index of all of the Good Letters posts I turned in. Some of the time I offered reluctantly at the deadline, as I still wasn’t quite satisfied after half a dozen drafts. Others I wrote in one swift draft and was completely satisfied. But overall, when I look back at two decades of film reviews, this is the body of work that best fulfills the goals I’ve set for myself as a reviewer.
And as I think back through these columns, I’m struck by how rarely my post was ever actually about “critiquing the film.” It was more about testifying, bearing witness to what the film reflected back to me about my life, the world I live in, and all of the ways in which I still need to grow.
These are my favorites…
The Muppet Movie – Part 1, Part 2
Chariots of Fire – Part 1, Part 2
The Arts and Faith Top 100 Films
The Arts and Faith Top 25 Horror Movies
And here are the rest of the adventures…
“The Actor in Question”: On Talent and Celebrity
“The Mystery in Materials”: On the Value of the Real and the Handmade in Movies
Fast, Cheap and Out of Control
Films About Women – Part 1, Part 2
Films of 2008: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Films of 2009: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Inglourious Basterds – Part One, Part Two
Meeting Andrei Tarkovsky – Part 1, Part 2
On Sequels, Nostalgia, and Redundancy
Sound Designer Pete Horner – Part 1, Part 2
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
The Films of Jim Jarmusch – Part 1, Part 2
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
The Road, The Girlfriend Experience
The Secret of Kells – Part 1, Part 2
The Tree of Life – Part 1, Part 2
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
Watching Movies at the Glen Workshop