It’s been a giant summer season for the flicks. After three years of declining ticket gross sales and lackluster choices on the theater, the summer season of 2023 appeared to have turned issues round. And in case you nonetheless haven’t seen a few of the largest films of the season, you possibly can catch a break from the warmth and get a deal on ticket costs on August 27 with National Cinema Day at Regel and AMC Theaters.
In partnership with Plugged In, a Focus on the Family publication devoted to offering leisure evaluations for households, right here’s an inventory of the largest blockbusters of the summer season and what to know earlier than you go to the theater.
Subscribe to have the Higher Ground publication delivered to your inbox each Sunday.
NEW IN THEATERS FRIDAY: The Hill
At instances, Christian films can really feel formulaic and compelled, generally preferring sermonizing to storytelling. “The Hill” usually avoids that strategy, permitting the story to talk for itself.
Where the film succeeds can also be the place it would blunder for some households. In its efforts to maintain issues as genuine as potential, “The Hill” isn’t afraid to make use of some profanity in addition to substance references, content material that may make this faith-focused movie a bit too gritty for its assumed viewers.
That mentioned, Rickey’s story is highly effective. Not solely does the film talk an inspiring message about overcoming obstacles, it additionally demonstrates what it seems wish to maintain your religion regardless of discouragement from different believers.
Although James Hill is a Baptist preacher, and his profession is a central a part of the story, “The Hill” avoids preaching. Instead, we see how God’s energy and faithfulness are extra successfully illustrated by a film that focuses on this narrative relatively than making an attempt to evangelise a sermon.
And you realize what? God’s hand is testimony sufficient.
Read the remainder of the evaluation right here.
Watch The Washington Times Higher Ground video interview with the actual Rickey Hill and film director Jeff Celentano.
Sound of Freedom
Let’s be blunt: “Sound of Freedom” is a brutal movie to observe. But it additionally is likely to be an important film you see this 12 months.
Sex trafficking, we hear within the movie, is the fastest-growing worldwide crime community the world has ever seen.
“You can sell a 5-year-old kid five to 10 times a day for 10 years straight, every day. Ordinary people don’t want to hear it. It’s too ugly for polite conversation. But meanwhile, over 2 million children a year are being sucked into the deepest recesses of hell.”
“Sound of Freedom” isn’t a film you look ahead to leisure or escape from the summer season warmth. It’s film you purchase a ticket to since you’re prepared to enter into the ugliness of this societal scourge. It’s a film you give consent to shock you out of complacency. It’s a film that may’t assist however gentle the fuse on the query, “What can I do?”
Most of us received’t, most likely, go to the lengths that Tim Ballard did. But a film like this, as exhausting as it’s to observe, may function a searing catalyst to search for methods that you could assist fight human trafficking in your metropolis, your state.
Because, as Ballard says, “God’s children are not for sale.”
Read the remainder of the evaluation right here.
Watch The Washington Times Higher Ground video interview with Tim Ballard and actor Jim Caviezel:
The Hiding Place
In this new stage-to-screen tackle that story, Corrie ten Boom isn’t its hero. That title goes to her father. Her sister. To God Himself.
No, Corrie is much more like … me. Perhaps you. When somebody’s unkind to her, she needs to be unkind proper again. When somebody demeans her religion, she needs to lash out. When she’s known as to take a harmful stand for righteousness, we will see the nervousness in her. The pragmatism. The “wait a minute” hesitation.
Watching the manufacturing, I used to be struck by the distinction within the ten Boom sisters. They jogged my memory of Jesus’ buddies, Martha and Mary: Betsie as Mary, sitting on the toes of Jesus whereas Corrie, as Martha, bustled about.
And that bustling is smart, in a method. Corrie, not Betsie, was an actual watchmaker. She was licensed as such in 1922—the primary lady within the Netherlands to obtain such a distinction. Her livelihood was predicated upon precision and cautious consideration and time. She understands the work that it takes to maintain the watch going. She is aware of that the watch will cease until you wind it.
In “The Hiding Place,” we see Corrie distracted by life’s gears, the springs, the myriad issues that may throw the entire works off. She loves that Betsie loves her flowers—however she, like Otto, can generally lose sight of their necessity.
That makes Corrie, within the film, not an unreachable hero of religion, however a girl that we will perceive and sympathize with. So when she makes vital choices and sacrifices — even within the midst of doubt and ache — possibly someplace deep inside us, we notice that we will make a distinction, too.
Read the remainder of the evaluation right here.
Listen to actress Nan Gurley focus on how she ready to play Corrie ten Boom within the new movie on the “Higher Ground Podcast with Billy Hallowell.”
NEW IN THEATERS FRIDAY: Gran Turismo
As a racing film with a online game coronary heart, Gran Turismo picks its lane and hits its line very effectively.
The movie relies, remarkably, on a real story that passed off in 2011. It’s enjoyable, tightly paced and provides viewers an actual sense of the pace of a race and the unbelievable effort wanted to be a real-world professional racer. I additionally loved how director Blomkamp sweetened the visible pot with CGI particular results and graphics designed to enchantment to the players within the crowd.
However, viewers revving their engines for a household outing have to understand that there are some things right here that could possibly be worthy of a yellow flag. As you would possibly count on, there are fiery automobile wrecks and automobiles hurtling into spectators and surroundings. But you won’t count on the fiery language that hits viewers at pace, able to scorch younger ears within the household pit crew.
Too dangerous the PG-13 rated film’s makers didn’t take a cue from the E-rated recreation’s creators on that entrance.
Read the remainder of the evaluation right here.
Barbie
Ever since “Barbie” was first introduced, I couldn’t assist however suppose “Welp, I wonder how Hollywood is going to ruin my childhood this time?”
But the movie defied my expectations, even because it had some issues I hadn’t anticipated.
By bringing Barbie to life, she begins to embody what it really means to be a girl. She voices how uncomfortable objectification makes her. She shuts down makes an attempt to flirt together with her. She discusses the unimaginable requirements anticipated of girls by society. And she begins to really feel a way of dread as a result of though she’s accomplished nothing to warrant this remedy (and the whole lot to show she’s one way or the other “worthy”), she and the ladies round her are nonetheless topic to it.
But therein lies a significant issue with the movie. At its core, I actually imagine “Barbie” needs to show ladies to face up for what’s proper, to carry true to their beliefs and particularly to help different ladies. And these are nice aspirations. Unfortunately, the best way the message is delivered shines Ken (and all males) in a extremely dangerous gentle.
Because “Barbie” makes use of excessive stereotypes to make a degree, it fails to point out how the typical man behaves towards ladies. And it even sorta blames guys for all of the destructive feelings ladies have ever felt about themselves or different ladies.
Read the remainder of the evaluation right here.
READ NEXT: Barbie’s blunder: A more in-depth take a look at what went improper with the icon
Oppenheimer
“Oppenheimer” paints a bleak image of the way forward for humanity. But let’s be clear: A bleak worldview isn’t why Nolan’s newest drama has an R-rating. That’s the place the content material is available in.
For a movie set primarily throughout World War II, the violence of the bomb is just hauntingly hinted at right here. Jean Tatlock’s suicide by drowning also needs to be famous.
But “Oppenheimer’s” largest content material points come up from its sexual content material and crude language, the latter of which is as a result of movie’s many makes use of of the f-word. A few scenes comprise express intercourse and nudity—most prominently when Oppenheimer has a nude dialog together with his ex-lover, the digicam exhibiting off the girl’s breasts and barely hiding the 2’s decrease bits.
That’s to not say that “Oppenheimer” doesn’t present some fascinating and essential perspective right into a monumentous second in American historical past. It positively does. But potential viewers might want to put together themselves for a movie that, whereas not world-ending, actually leans into content material that simply may have been steered far much less graphically.
Read the remainder of the evaluation right here.
–
Plugged In is a Focus on the Family publication designed to shine a lightweight on the world of common leisure whereas giving households the important instruments they should perceive, navigate, and affect the tradition by which they dwell. Through our evaluations, articles and discussions, we hope to spark mental thought, non secular progress and a want to observe the command of Colossians 2:8: “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.”
Article excerpts written by Adam R. Holz, Director of Plugged In; Paul Asay, a Plugged In employees member since 2007; Emily Tsiao, Plugged In contributor; Kennedy Unthank, a Plugged In contributor; Sarah Rasmussen, a Plugged In contributor; and Bob Hoose, a Plugged In contributor.
Content Source: www.washingtontimes.com