A friend and filmmaker told me this week that "Project Hail Mary is the finest American film of the past two decades…" I was taken aback. Did we watch the same movie, I thought? 

Today, we'll explore the first step in the Framing Stories approach - Listen to God's Echoes. Jerram Barrs refers to this presence in our stories as echoes of Eden. “It seems that among every people on the face of this earth,” he writes, “there is a recollection of the original good creation; there is awareness that the world we now live in is broken and fallen, and there is recall of the promise and hope of restoration of what is good” (Echoes of Eden, 74). 

"Is this a joke on God?" That’s what a soldier says when he discovers a convent run by weed-growing nuns! And it's not the first odd subversion of Christian theology in One Battle After Another (2025). 

Here is an approach to biblical integration pieced together through years of teaching and thinking called Framing Stories with God’s Story (or just Framing from now on). The goal of the Framing approach is to help you “see” the stories you’re thinking about against the backdrop of God’s Story. Like a set for a play, God’s Story frames the action on stage, placing the actors and their story in proper context. 

Listed below are some of the movies I saw in 2025. They were also released in 2025, and I have ranked them from poorest to best.

A House of Dynamite (2025) traces a fictional day in which a nuclear missile is fired at the United States. No one knows who is responsible for the act of aggression and when the safety measures fail to stop it from barrelling to the states, the terrible question of “how” to respond is the question up for debate.

Roofman is a clever and delightful story about Jeffrey Manchester (Channing Tatum), a man who resorts to robbing McDonald’s to support his family, and he does so by cutting holes in the roofs. When he’s caught and placed in prison, he escapes and secretly lives in a Toys “R” Us for six months. A ridiculous plotline, right? Well, brace yourself; it’s based on a true story.

Sunset Boulevard was one of the first classic films to truly capture my attention—thanks to my mother! I rewatched it a few weeks ago, hoping to catch something fresh, and I wasn’t disappointed. Two images stood out, one from Dickens and the other from Scripture, and they’ve both helped me better understand this excellent film.

Se7en (1995) is a very dark film—a haunting story about two detectives hunting a killer whose crimes mirror the seven deadly sins. While it’s not a movie I’d recommend for everyone, it forces a sobering reflection: are we really that different from the evil we condemn?

I usually engage with films based on three categories: craft, content, and impact, and unfortunately, it scored poorly in all three for Megan and me. Neither the quality of the film nor the storytelling stood out. The worldview felt very much like something from Quentin Tarantino—fueled by revenge and hatred.