Logan's Look at Mortality: CT Entertainment

[Also: Seeing yourself in the dark stuff.] Also: Seeing yourself in the dark stuff. | [View online]( [ChristianityToday.org]( [Christianity Today Entertainment Newsletter]( Friday, March 17, 2017 Logan's look at mortality. Each week CT's most prestigious critics will offer suggestions for art and entertainment they found encouraging, valuable, or generally reflective of the good, the true, and the beautiful in God's world. Not every suggestion is suitable for everyone, and each reader is encouraged to investigate the ratings and accompanying content warnings of each suggestion. Today's recommendations are slightly depressing, maybe to suit the mood of an extended winter, maybe to give us something to revel in when we feel less than understood by those around us. Either way, I think these more bleak works have a role to play in our lives. Sunday I was feeling down. I hadn't gotten quite enough sleep over the weekend, and I couldn't motivate myself to do anything fun, much less any of the chores that needed to get done around the house. After hours of attempting to cast light on my day through Bible reading, time with my son, and conversation with my wife, I gave in to the darkness and started binge-watching The Americans (now streaming on Amazon Prime). I should be clear that delving into the paranoia and relational strife one finds in The Americans was not the answer to my problems. But it did, however indirectly, acknowledge them. And, I think, that was good for my soul. It allowed me to wake up on Monday with a very real sense of self-awareness and to move on to the next thing with confidence that I am, in fact, not alone or out of the ordinary. The Americans may about an extraordinary situation, but it's successful because its characters' conflicts and struggles are universally understood. I'm super curious: What do you watch when you want to feel known? Send it along to rclark@christianitytoday.com. [Richard Clark](mailto:rclark@christianitytoday.com) [Richard Clark](mailto:rclark@christianitytoday.com) [Richard Clark](mailto:rclark@christianitytoday.com) Online Managing Editor Christianity Today, [@TheRichardClark]( Disgraced | Documentary Disgraced is a terrifying example of a psychological pattern that even those identifying as Christian are not immune from: Tell a lie often enough and you yourself begin to believe it. After Baylor University basketball player Patrick Dennehy was murdered in 2003, assistant coach Abar Rouse secretly recorded head coach Dave Bliss coercing and cajoling him and Baylor players into smearing Dennehy as a drug dealer so that the NCAA would not be able to prove Bliss had paid Dennehy and other players (in violation of NCAA rules). Although Bliss resigned, he subsequently received a book deal and (eventually) another coaching job. Rouse, on the other hand, got a public scolding from coaching greats Mike Krzyzewski, Kelvin Sampson, and Jim Boeheim and remains out of coaching to this day. Director Pat Kondelis miraculously got both Rouse and Bliss to sit for interviews, and the contrast in demeanor and credibility between the two is impossible to overstate. Disgraced should make a lot of Christian sports fans—and I include myself in that description—very, very uncomfortable. But if you celebrate March Madness this year, perhaps spare a moment to remember Patrick Dennehy and reflect on what his murder and its aftermath says about our priorities. — [Kenneth R. Morefield]( [Available on Showtime beginning March 31] Logan | Film In its look at human frailty and death, James Mangold's Logan is unlike any superhero film ever produced—and it just may change the genre for good. As it happens, Logan also works as a spiritual sequel to the director's 2005 Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line . Making a name for himself with songs that exalted "[heroic all-American Lazaruses](," Cash reveled in larger-than-life legends and outlaws whose grand exploits and staggering fables live long past their deaths. Later in life, however, a newfound humility would come to dictate the country singer's twilight recordings. For example, in his 2002 cover of Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt," Cash laments an Ecclesiastian life lived in pursuit of future and fame. And, in one of the last songs he penned before his death, "The Man Comes Around," the Man in Black concedes to a greater Man that all—legend and gunslinger alike—will eventually be held accountable to. Like the characters in Cash's early discography, Hugh Jackman's comic-book mutant, Wolverine, is a Lazarus of sorts, too. Armed with metallic claws and regenerative ability, over his eight previous film appearances in the X-Men franchise, audiences have seen him shot, stabbed, and drowned—only to gaze in awe as he rose moments later. — [Wade Bearden for CT]( [Now Showing in Theaters] Big Little Lies | TV Show As a show premised on human deceit, Big Little Lies questions the stories we tell ourselves and whether we are willing or able to let go of lies (big or little) about our identity. The central characters deal with different roles—wife, lover, friend, professional, mother—sometimes attempting to juggle them all, sometimes setting certain ones aside, and sometimes having very little choice in the matter. The miniseries does the compelling work of looking at each woman as a person whose identity is forged at this busy intersection of possibilities, obligations, and roads not taken. — [Laura Kenna for CT]( [Now Playing on HBO] ['Big Little Lies' Tells the Truth]( How the new HBO murder-mystery series gets motherhood right. Laura Kenna [In 'Logan', Wolverine Confronts the Wages of Sin]( Hugh Jackman's final performance as the iconic mutant brings him face to face with his own mortality. Wade Bearden [The Story Behind the World's Most Complete Graphic Bible]( A conversation with the Kingstone Comics editor who oversaw the massive effort to adapt sacred Scripture into comics form. Interview by Jelani Greenidge [Does 'The Image of God' Extend to Robots, Too?]( On-screen depictions of artificial intelligence like 'Westworld' complicate our understanding of the imago Dei. Douglas Estes Follow Us [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Google+]( [RSS]( [Subscribe to this newsletter]( IN THE MAGAZINE [Current Issue]( [The Benedict Option's Vision for a Christian Village]( [Gene Yang: A Graphic Novelist Caught Between Two Worlds]( [In the Image of Our Choosing]( [View Full Issue]( [Subscribe Now]( More from Christianity Today [Trump's Policies Are Keeping Hispanics Away from Church]( Pew finds fear even among 7 in 10 Christian green card holders. [Gene Yang: A Graphic Novelist Caught Between Two Worlds]( The graphic novelist and MacArthur Grant recipient sees his life as an outsider as a blessing. [Shut Up and Dance! The Intersection of Freedom, Art, and Gospel Expression]( Artist and evangelist believes all art carries a message. Related CT Newsletters [The Galli Report]( Weekly must-reads from the editor of CT. [Sign Up Now]( [CT Connection]( The official newsletter of the global media ministry. 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