Zachary Lee

Heretic is a litany of theological inquiries wrapped in the skin of a horror movie. Like Legion, the frights of directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods’ film are many, but its biggest scare isn’t demonic or paranormal or gory: It’s the unique terror of being caught in a theological conversation with a self-righteous man.

Heading into an election year, directors Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss knew the importance of chronicling how young people, especially young women, are working through political disillusionment. The directors follow up their 2020 release of Boys State with a “sibling” documentary in 2024’s Girls State, which follows the week-long experience of 500 high school girls who gather for a mock-government camp in Missouri.

COLE ARTHUR RILEY never wanted to write a prayer book. But when she went looking for liturgical practices that centered Black emotion, Black literature, and Black bodies, she couldn’t find much. Now, for nearly four years, Riley has been curating the Instagram page @blackliturgies, which integrates the truths of dignity, lament, rage, justice, and rest into written prayers. Her new book, Black Liturgies: Prayers, Poems, and Meditations for Staying Human, expands on that work. Typically, prayer books are not page-turners, but once I started reading this one, I couldn’t put it down.

By interpolating corporeal language into her prayers, Riley offers a refreshingly accessible entry into contemplative literature. She has a gentle way of encouraging readers to engage with her prayers. “Turn them over in your hand. Take a deep breath,” she writes. “There is no demand I will make of you, apart from staying near to yourself, your body, your own soul, and the stories that dwell there.”

In Priscilla, which is based off Priscilla Presley’s 1985 memoir Elvis and Me, we don’t primarily see Elvis through the eyes of his manager or adoring fans, instead, we see him through the eyes of the only woman he ever married, who he began courting when he was 24 and she was 14.

For Christians, AI poses its own set of questions: Is it bad to use AI to write a prayer or outline a sermon? Is AI able to provide counseling and spiritual direction for congregants seeking discernment and spiritual care? Can AI achieve personhood, and if so, what should our commitments to caring for them be? I found some guiding answers in Noreen L. Herzfeld’s book The Artifice of Intelligence: Divine and Human Relationship in a Robotic Age.

EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE, the absurdist sci-fi cinematic romp through the multiverse by a Chinese American laundromat owner in the L.A. mega sprawl, garnered seven Oscars this year, including for Best Picture. I’ve seen Everything Everywhere eight times. I’ve introduced it to friends. I did not think my favorite film could do anything wrong. What could be better than to be wrapped up in the spectacle created by directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert and their amazing cast?

The directors’ over-the-top approach embraces the “too muchness” of its title. Laundromat owner Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh) lives with her husband, daughter, and recently-arrived-from-China elderly father in a small apartment above the family business. Their dining room is cluttered with the American dream — workout equipment, inspirational business books, beeping electronic kitchen gadgets, a TV droning in the background, and a live security feed to the washers and dryers downstairs. “The Daniels,” as the directors are known, wrote in the original script, “It is a still life of chaos.”

Evelyn and her family are slowly spinning apart, and now the IRS is auditing the Wangs and their business. The forces of chaos are spreading beyond their little apartment. Later, while Evelyn is explaining to an IRS auditor (Jamie Lee Curtis) why her receipts are not in order, she gets a message from her husband (well, an alternative version of him) that she may be in grave danger and that she may hold the key to saving not only her own world but also the worlds in multiple universes and parallel time frames.

Despite its zany premise and on-screen absurdities (from anthropomorphic racoons and talking rocks to people with hot dogs for hands), Everything Everywhere never lets the spectacle eclipse the emotional story at its center: Evelyn is learning to find contentment in her own universe with her real family, even if she has the power to be elsewhere all at once.

Can blowing up a pipeline be a form of nonviolent protest? Director Daniel Goldhaber’s new film, How to Blow Up a Pipeline, makes a strong case in the affirmative — even if the activists at its center could care less about being called “terrorists” by the American empire.

IT WOULD HAVE been tough to be both a disciple of Jesus and a foodie. Don’t get me wrong, Jesus certainly valued food — his earthly ministry was filled with meals: The gospel of Matthew describes Jesus as one who “came eating and drinking” (11:19). As Robert J. Karris wrote in Eating Your Way Through Luke’s Gospel, Jesus was “either going to a meal, at a meal, or coming from a meal.” But what the Chosen One had in meal frequency, he lacked in meal diversity.

A “foodie” is someone who eats food as a hobby — a passion, even. The more exotic the better. If you pull up to your local boba shop, why settle for regular milk tea when you can order one infused with butterfly pea flower that turns it bright blue?

However, for Jesus’ meals, at least the ones recorded in scripture, the fish is served broiled (Luke 24:42), not creatively deconstructed. And if you’re rolling with Jesus, you better like eating bread.

Though his plate may have lacked the splendor of the centurions’ or high priests’ spreads, Jesus viewed the table as a radical place of inclusion. For many powerful religious leaders of the time, dining was yet another way to shun the outcasts. In contrast, Jesus intentionally invited those very same “unclean” people to dine with him, breaking bread (because of course it was bread) with tax collectors, sinners, and prostitutes.

In the past year, several films have articulated a hunger for the type of table Jesus championed. Flux Gourmet, Triangle of Sadness, and The Menu critique class inequality through stories revolving around fine dining. In each movie, wealthy people have rich flavors but a dearth of meaningful relationships. The exclusivity of the table seems more important than the actual food served on the plates. Jesus’ table, on the other hand, lacked variety but overflowed in inclusivity — a true palate cleanser to meals that symbolized selfish consumption.

I’ve watched the recent horror films below with one (sometimes both) eye(s) closed, but also with a posture of curiosity and hope: What might my disturbed feelings reveal? May watching these films lead to, as author Brandon Grafius writes, “an openness to what the experience of horror might be able to teach us.”