religion

• Da Vinci Code, The by Dan Brown (2003)

  [7/10]

  "Dan Brown has created a fast-reading mystery story with some interesting speculation about the nature of the Holy Grail and the origins of the Catholic church."

• Da Vinci Code, The directed by Ron Howard (2006)

  [5/10]

  "The Da Vinci Code has some better than average chase scenes and a few tense moments, but doesn't deliver the major punch at the end one would expect from all the hype."

• Embraced by the Light by Betty J. Eadie, Curtis Taylor (1992)

  [5/10]

  "Publicity for Embraced by the Light touts this book as the most complete life-after-death experience ever written, but as a Latter-day Saint, I found Eadie offered nothing new or surprising -- except for a few items that seemed in direct conflict with accepted doctrine."

• Harvest of Fire directed by Arthur Allan Seidelman (1996)

  [6/10]

  "A pleasant family movie that earns, rather than manufactures, its warm-and-fuzzy emotional effect."

• Papa Married a Mormon by John D. Fitzgerald (1955)

  [7/10]

  "Fitzgerald relates a touching story about how his father and mother met, married, and started a family in a frontier town of rural Utah."

• Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson (1992)

  [7/10]

  "Stephenson smoothly conflates religion, linguistics, and programming into his storyline. Obviously, he did a lot of research for Snow Crash and much of that research appears in large blocks of exposition. I found the information interesting, but readers who like steady action will probably dislike the information dumps."

• Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein (1961)

  [7/10]

  "Often, Heinlein's characters get so carried away discussing philosophical implications that all the action stops for pages and pages at a time."

• There Will Be Blood directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (2008)

  [7/10]

  "I think Upton Sinclair would approve of this adaptation of his novel. We watch the self-destruction of the main characters as they focus on their greed and lust for power, and we see these empty lives -- like black holes -- draw the goodness and life unwillingly out of the people who happen to cross their path."

• Vita è Bella, La [Life is Beautiful] directed by Roberto Benigni (1997)

  [10/10]

  "Benigni and Cerami have finely woven all the plot elements together as you would expect in a superb short story. The story never denies life's harsh realities, yet still encourages us to live with more joy, regardless of our situation."

• Wicker Man, The directed by Robin Hardy (1973)

  [7/10]

  "This original production far suprasses the recent remake."

• Witness directed by Peter Weir (1985)

  [7/10]

  "Witness creates good suspense and shows the contrasting culture of the Amish without making any judgements. The script lays on the religious symbolism quite thick: John (an apostle of Christ), Book (a synonym for the Bible), and John knows carpentry (Christ was the son of a carpenter). With this setup, you must expect that John Book will function as some sort of savior figure, but that savior figure also has romantic inclinations."

  Average score: 6.82