The baseball movie went in decidedly different directions starting in the 1970s and '80s compared to what Hollywood had done 20 or 30 years prior. By the 1970s, movies about baseball had taken a considerably long break for reasons unknown. It took the 1973 movie Bang the Drum Slowly with a young Robert De Niro playing a pitcher to reignite interest in baseball movies after over a decade of nothing. Perhaps the disruption of America through the turbulent '60s didn't put enough people in the mood to celebrate baseball cinematically, despite the game itself still flourishing during the decade. Ten years prior to Bang the Drum Slowly, there was a movie called Safe at Home, which had non-actor baseball greats Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris playing themselves. Perhaps their lack of acting ability killed the baseball movie for the above duration. But that movie was a bit of a set... Continue reading

Has this ever happened to you: you go to the cinema, sit down in front of the big screen and five minutes after the movie starts you feel like you have seen the same film before. OK, maybe not the same but it's very similar to ten's of other. This happens to me a lot because I watch movies regularly but let me tell you something - this is not the case when you watch Fifty Shades of Grey online free and I really like this. The movie is very different and refreshing, not the usual romance or drama, original plot unlike most of the latest hollywood productions. There is a lot of controversy about Fifty Shades of Grey - some people love the film and some think it's no so good and the plot is thin. They are all right on they own, the truth is the storyline is... Continue reading

Some spiritual topics simply can't be done seriously in movies very often. I wrote recently about how Adam and Eve have never been depicted very seriously in film (other than a couple of times), and it seems heaven is the same way. Like Adam and Eve, we can't get our head around what the reality of these spiritual topics may be, and we're probably not supposed to in the grand scheme of life. In the movies, translating the ineffable means bringing plenty of irony, and the depiction of heaven has had plenty. Even though heaven has had plenty of tongue in cheek, one recent film finally took it seriously. It may have kicked off a new wave of more serious heaven depictions that we're seeing now with "Heaven is for Real." The Satires on Heaven: Since the earliest days of films, depictions of heaven have always shown us an ethereal... Continue reading