Greenflame
Jottings on science, religion, technology, pop culture, photography and faith from the Aotearoa New Zealand
Category: Pop Culture
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Last time we did Greeks, gangsters and gargoyles. Today we turn to some pulp heroes of yesterday, namely The Spirit, Dick Tracy, and Modesty Blaise for a blast of nostalgia.
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After a longish break from blogging, it’s time to start again. First up, a series on films that came from comic and graphic novel-based properties. Everyone knows about the films based on comic books like Superman, Batman, Spider-Man and the Avengers, but what about other films that you might not know were originally based on…
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A dinner table discussion about television shows that scared us witless when we were children prompted this particular post similar in some ways to the Childhood Science Fiction: Television series from a while back now. What follows is my top 5 children’s shows I grew up with in New Zealand that genuinely played with horror…
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A few years back I started thinking about the relationship between popular culture and contextual and public theologies. Firstly, how popular culture might serve as a site for doing contextual theology and, secondly, how popular culture might provide avenue for for public theological engagement. My initial thinking in this area can be found in the…
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Easter is the central point of the Christian calendar and religious and secular broadcasters often put on Jesus films at this time. Most commonly these include Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, the 1977 TV mini-series Jesus of Nazareth with Robert Powell starring as Jesus, or one of the many versions of the musical…
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The watching one or more Jesus films at Easter is a common activity for Christians individually or as communities. These might be documentaries or one of the many versions of cinematic Jesus that have cropped up over the years. (For some examples, see my list here at Jesus films – updating media). But while these…
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Finding a little peace and distraction while self-isolating can be helpful. Here are three games that I’ve found provide that, and as a bonus, are cheap and cheerful: Flower; Melody’s Escape; Islanders;
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Following on from Meaningful games (Part 1) from a few days ago, here is an additional selection of games that might fall into the category of games that move us in some way, and demonstrate one or more of these dimensions: Meaningful choices; Flow; Social play of some form. (See previous post for more details on…
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In her book, How Games Move Us (The MIT Press, 2016), Katherine Isbister suggests that, Compelling games don’t happen by accident, any more than do gripping novels, movies, or music. In all these media, creators draw from a well-defined set of strategies and techniques to create a specific emotional experience. (Isbister, 1) Isbister distills these strategies…
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Urban fantasy is one of my favourite fictional genres, juxtaposing the fantastic with the mundane (Urban Fantasy with a real character; Urban fantasy on my mind). The world the stories create is one we can imagine ourselves living within, with mystery and magic just around the corner if only the veil hiding it could be…