Mediaculture: Reflections on the effect of media and culture on our faith

FILM REVIEWS

Moonrise Kingdom (PG-13) is a sweet, funny film about two 12-year-olds who fall in love and run away on an island off New England in 1965. Various factions of the town mobilize to search for them, and the town is turned upside down. Director Wes Anderson has crafted another of his fables, but he includes telling if eccentric detail and shows respect for all his characters.—Gordon Houser

Brave (PG) is the first Pixar movie to feature a female character. Merida, an aspiring archer and impetuous daughter of Scottish royalty, makes a reckless choice that unleashes unintended peril. The film focuses on the mother-daughter relationship and includes humor and drama.—gh

DVD REVIEW

The Sunset Limited (NR) is based on a play by Cormac McCarthy. Two men, Black (Samuel L. Jackson) and White (Tommy Lee Jones), spend 90 minutes in an apartment talking about God and belief. Black has just rescued White from suicide and wants to convince him to choose life. Though McCarthy often portrays bleakness, he represents belief well.—gh

BOOK REVIEWS

God and Charles Dickens: Recovering the Christian Voice of a Classic Author by Gary L. Colledge (Brazos Press, 2012, $19.99) argues that Dickens was “a novelist who possessed deep and passionate Christian beliefs and who wrote from a thoroughgoing Christian worldview.” Furthermore, for Dickens, “Christianity was about imitating Jesus in the concrete realities of everyday life.—gh

Journey to the Heart: Christian Contemplation Through the Centuries, edited by Kim Nataraja (Orbis Bools, 2012, $35), is an illustrated guide to this rich tradition that goes back to Jesus himself. This excellent tool provides not only much information but inspiration in its 30 chapters by various authors.—gh