The Christian Rationalist

Category Archives: Movies

Why I Care That See You Again is Currently the Most Watched YouTube Video Ever

Leave a comment Posted by Sam Elder on July 14, 2017

It’s official. As of this Monday, July 10th, 2017, just short of five years after it hit the world by storm, Psy’s Gangnam Style has been dethroned at the top of the YouTube view count leaderboard. The most viewed video on YouTube is now “See You Again” by Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth.

How to Predict Recent Disney Movie Plot Twists

3 Comments Posted by Sam Elder on April 24, 2015

One of my many roles at MIT is as a Hall Councilor in my graduate dorm, Sidney-Pacific. The role mostly means that I hold small events for my hallmates, often with free food. For the last event of my tenure, they voted unanimously to watch Big Hero 6, which seemed to be Disney’s best impression of what grad school is like.

SPOILER WARNING: As you can probably tell from the title, I’m spoiling a bunch of recent Disney movies: Along with Big Hero 6, I also talk about Frozen, Wreck It Ralph, and Toy Story 3 in detail, and mix in Tangled a bunch as well. If you still want to see any of these movies, I’d suggest you bookmark this post and come back to it after you do so. Read more of this post

Movies, Weekly Post

Selma, protest tactics, and the false hope of moderation

7 Comments Posted by Sam Elder on February 23, 2015

I watched the Academy Awards (yes, the whole thing) with my church community group last night, and one of the most moving moments was when Common and John Legend performed the song Glory from Selma, right before they won the award for Best Original Song. As they pointed out in their acceptance speech, Selma is a timely movie, because its spirit exists today in movements from the US to France to Hong Kong.

I came across one of the best discussions of the movie on a website I normally peruse for its excellent sports analysis. Mark Harris of Grantland primarily responds to some of the criticism of the movie’s portrayal of President Lyndon B. Johnson, but has many interesting things to say along the way. His defense of the genre of historical fiction as providing value beyond mere recitations of facts is stirring, but I want to focus on another point of his.