movie Archives - Keith Shields

A Note About Privacy

A recent article in Wired Magazine reviewed and critiqued the various Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered devices known as home assistants or homebots. Tucked into the innocuous article was “A NOTE ABOUT PRIVACY.” It is perhaps the most relevant part of the article and reminds us of something we have all been thinking for more than a…

Doctor Strange

Doctor Strange (2016; Directed by Scott Derrickson), has just become available on Netflix. I decided I would watch it and went in without high expectations. I expected too many fight scenes and not enough metaphor. Perhaps the former was true, but I also found sufficient metaphor and story to keep my interest. I did not…

Rewiring Our Brains

Dr. Louise Banks: If you immerse yourself into a foreign language, then you can actually rewire your brain. Ian Donnelly: Yeah, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. It’s the theory that the language you speak determines how you think and… Dr. Louise Banks: Yeah, it affects how you see everything. Arrival, 2017, Directed by Denis Villeneuve, written by…

We Were Soldiers

The Mel Gibson movie, We Were Soldiers, is one of my favourite movies of all-time, with strong themes of leadership and courage. An example is Colonel Hal Moore’s stunning speech just before the young soldiers ship out under his command? I can’t promise you that I will bring you all home alive. But this I…

We’re Just Here To . . .

Previously I have recommended the Christopher Nolan film Interstellar (here and here) and I will continue to sing its praises even while encouraging us to see it for all it is and look discerningly at its message. As the main character, Cooper, says his good-byes to his family and prepares to leave the galaxy, he…

Exploring Life

New Horizons, Rosetta, Mars Curiosity, The International Space Station, Cassini, Hubble, and Mars Express, many of these missions, spacecraft, and satellites have become well-known to us over the last few years. NASA, ESA, and the international space community have accomplished magnificent feats of exploration and the news media has shown us the significance of these…

Oblivion

Recently, I watched the science-fiction movie Oblivion (2013; starring Tom Cruise and directed by Joseph Kosinski). It is an entertaining movie with a good mix of action, philosophy, and romance. If anything, the writers and director may have been a little too ambitious, for one can readily see threads from several other movies embedded in…

Interstellar 2014

Once again Christopher Nolan (writer and director) and Jonathan Nolan (writer) have succeeded in changing our perceptions with the visually stunning, Interstellar (2014). If you have not seen the movie, you may want to see it before you continue to read this blog which contains elements of the plot (in other words: spoiler alert). From…

Contact

I watched the 1997 movie Contact once again. I love this movie because most of the time it seems to be truly wrestling with questions of philosophy, science, and theology. It asks questions that don’t get answered (just like real life). It recognizes that there are fundamentalist zealot Christians and there are fundamental zealot scientists.…