Joseph Holmes

4 weeks ago | religionunplugged.com | Joseph Holmes

(REVIEW) People have a lot of opinions about religion — whether they're religious or not — because religion affects everyone’s life in one way or another. Unfortunately, many of these opinions are based more on folk wisdom than solid data. For example, some believe the rise of the “nones” (those who don’t identify with a particular religious group) means people are becoming more secular — it’s more complicated than that.

1 month ago | religionunplugged.com | Joseph Holmes

(REVIEW) Angel Studios has had some big highs and lows over the past few years. It launched the global phenomenon “The Chosen” and released the surprise mega-hit “Sound of Freedom”. But it also keeps getting hit with controversies (like accusations of violating agreements with filmmakers, which lead “The Chosen” to part ways with the company) and has had difficulty recreating the financial success of its bigger hits with its other projects.

1 month ago | religionunplugged.com | Joseph Holmes

(REVIEW) Religious representation in film is, obviously, not at all equal. While faith-based movies constitute a big industry nowadays, it’s notable that when we’re talking about such movies, the vast majority are focused primarily on one faith: Christianity. Despite this, many filmmakers of different religious backgrounds have made films discussing their faith, though the style of such movies is often very different. Take representations of Jewish faith in films.

1 month ago | wng.org | Joseph Holmes

There are substance directors, and there are style directors. Substance directors, like Steven Spielberg, don’t have an instantly recognizable filmmaking signature but fit their style to each project based on what the story needs. (Indiana Jones isn’t at all like Schindler’s List, and neither is like West Side Story.) Others, like Michael Bay, are style directors. The individual movies he makes can be pretty shallow on their merits, but his signature style is so bonkers that you don’t care.

1 month ago | religionunplugged.com | Joseph Holmes

Warning: This review contains spoilers. (REVIEW) There’s something dehumanizing about modern war movies that puzzles me. It’s not that war itself is dehumanizing — that’s hardly news. What’s striking is how recent war films — from “Dunkirk” to “All Quiet on the Western Front” to “Warfare”— tend to create emotional distance between the audience and the protagonists. In such films, we barely get to know the characters, making it hard to connect with them on a human level.