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The 10 Most Redeeming Films of 2008
What do irresistible robots, racist curmudgeons, and sensitive pachyderms have in common? They're all key characters in the year's best redemptive movies.
| posted 1/27/2009

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U23D

This live U2 concert, projected onto IMAX screens, treats moviegoers to the best seats in the house for a show of breathtaking power and inspiring songs. To borrow one of Bono's lyrics, it may be "even better than the real thing." Unlike those 80,000 exuberant fans in the crowd, you can put on your 3D glasses and soar over the audience, glide across the stage, and look over Larry Mullen shoulder as he pounds the drums—all while Bono's lyrics inspire people with real hope. In word, melody, and gesture, he constantly reminds us that this music is about something more than feelings, more than thrills. It's about love, peace, hope, and the Almighty who inspires them to sing. (Our review.)
—Jeffrey Overstreet

Wendy and Lucy

A woman with very little money runs into some problems on her way through Oregon: her car won't start, she's arrested for shoplifting, and—most significantly—she loses her dog. The remarkable thing about Kelly Reichardt's latest film is that it elicits not mere pity for its marginalized protagonist, but compassion, as it draws us into Wendy's desperate, terrifying, and occasionally hopeful experiences and compels us to ask how we would act in her place, and whether we would reach out to her, as one or two characters do, if she happened to cross our path. (Our review.)
—Peter T. Chattaway

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Anonymous

Posted: October 15, 2009 7:06 PM


Great site. Keep doing.

kobby

Posted: September 30, 2009 5:32 AM


well, george, I really agree with SDB cos sometimes the HolySpirit prompts you cannot watch certain movies because of the weaker brethren. The fact that someone enjoys listening to certain kinds of music or watching certain movies does not mean its right. A movie like Dark Knight can is not a movie that I'll recommend to anyone. I dont see fireproof on the list either. WOW!!

Mark NPH

Posted: September 27, 2009 8:52 PM

I appreciate CT's movie page as a parent of teens. I hate, hate, hate, taking my kids into Blockbuster or any other video store -- the titles, covers, seduction of the media culture is truly evil. I am not offended by swearing in movies, exposure of the human body, or violence in the service of a "TRUE" story, one that portrays the world as it is or helps us see an aspect of it in a fresh way, and also includes some hope of redemption, some parable of the Gospel. Don't let your kids read the Bible if you want to protect them from violence, nudity, corruption. It's far more complicated than SDB's seemingly the black/white thinking. Many classic Disney movies and even Christian themed movies are "false" and dangerous because of the inadequate view of the human condition and what real redemption costs. THe High School Musical films are far more dangerous to youth than Dark Night and other films like Gran Torino listed here.