Libsyn Directory

The Book of Eli (2010)

Release Date: 04/20/2025

Highway to Heaven s1e20 "The Banker and the Bum" (1985)

Boys' Bible Study

Before there was TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL there was HIGHWAY TO HEAVEN, an 80s sitcom that may be the blueprint for the angel media craze that swept American pop culture at the end of the 20th century. HIGHWAY TO HEAVEN was created and directed by American television legend Michael Landon, who also stars in the series as the angel Jonathan Smith. Landon, known for his roles on all-American historical dramas BONANZA and LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE, enlisted his former LITTLE HOUSE… co-star Victor French to play Jonathan Smith’s buddy Mark Gordon, a retired policeman (and mortal human) who...

Chi Ann Blaze of Fury (2025) TEASER

Boys' Bible Study

Subscribe today for access to our full catalog of bonus episodes, including 2+ new episodes every month! For the first time in the history of our podcast, we are reviewing a film in which we co-starred. This is CHI ANN BLAZE OF FURY, the brand new film by 3Angels Power, a Canadian film production company based in Cornwall, Ontario, Canada. In 2019, BBS co-host Julian struck up a friendship and artistic relationship with the Karam sisters (Gladys, Mona Lisa, and Jeanne d’arc) whose films he found by accident after misspelling a search term on YouTube. He was immediately captivated by the...

Michael (1996)

Boys' Bible Study

In the 1990s, filmmakers and audiences seemed obsessed with “magic men” who caused chaos in their communities while teaching everyone an important lesson. Some of these men were angels; some of them were just weird little freaks who made a big difference. Some examples of this: POWDER, MEET JOE BLACK, PHENOMENON, and another John Travolta starring film called MICHAEL. MICHAEL is an interesting hybrid magic man/religious film where this “magic man” archetype is also the archangel Michael from the Bible. This device allows the film to be safe-religious while not directly invoking Jesus,...

Battlefield Earth (2000)

Boys' Bible Study

This infamous sci-fi film is perhaps the church of Scientology’s biggest attempt to ingratiate itself with mainstream culture. BATTLEFIELD EARTH is based on a novel by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, whose end goal was to adapt this book into a Hollywood film. Hubbard made an attempt in the mid-1980s to produce the adaptation himself, but it failed, and Hubbard died in 1986. Hubbard had hinted to John Travolta, a prominent Scientologist, that Hubbard would have liked Travolta to star in the film. Travolta took it upon himself to bring BATTLEFIELD EARTH to life in the mid-90s, eventually...

Touched by an Angel s7e21 "The Sign of the Dove" TEASER

Boys' Bible Study

Subscribe today for access to our full catalog of bonus episodes, including 2+ new episodes every month! We’re back with coverage of TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL, the television series that may hold the key to understanding the American psyche once and for all. The popular 90s and 2000s era show uses an “angel of the week” format as each story is about different angels inflicting themselves upon the lives of hapless humans. This week we focus on SIGN OF THE DOVE, a dueling angel experience which interweaves stories of Andrew (angel of death, portrayed by John Dye) and Monica (the show’s...

The Book of Eli (2010)

Boys' Bible Study

Salomé (1923)

Boys' Bible Study

We dip into cinematic classics of the silent age (before people learned how to talk) with 1923 classic SALOMÉ, co-directed by married couple Charles Bryant and Alla Nazimova. The latter stars as the titular SALOMÉ, a Bible character who has achieved historical infamy despite not being officially referred to by her first name. The story is provocative: a teenage princess dances seductively for her stepfather King Herod who promises her anything in reward; she picks the head of prophet John the Baptist, who is summarily executed and presented to her on a platter. Bryant and Nazimova’s...

Touched by an Angel s7e22 "The Face of God" TEASER

Boys' Bible Study

Subscribe today for access to our full catalog of bonus episodes, including 2+ new episodes every month! If we had to nominate one piece of broadcast media to be “the best episode of television of all time”, in the shortlist would be this compelling TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL episode about human cloning, with a cameo by (an actor portraying) the legendary Albert Einstein. TBAA (as our listeners are well aware by this point) is a famous y2k era TV drama where a Greek chorus of angels inflict themselves upon humans going through moral crises. In this episode, a genetic scientist named Dr. Conover...

Face the Beat (2024) feat. Pretty R1cky

Boys' Bible Study

This Christian feature film about an aspiring DJ feels like a remake of the 2015 Zac Efron-fronted EDM movie WE ARE YOUR FRIENDS, but unfortunately is lacking a lot of substance both in its spiritual and musical themes. FACE THE BEAT is the story of Zack aka “ZDJ Grey”, a teenager who wants to escape the rat race by kickstarting his career as a DJ and music producer. The film uses a lot of EDM stock music to represent Zack’s creative output, which confusingly runs the gamut from chill house to lo-fi hiphop. Zack’s support system includes his divorced parents (a working-class nurse...

Greatest Heroes and Legends of the Bible: Sodom and Gomorrah (2003) TEASER

Boys' Bible Study

Subscribe today for access to our full catalog of bonus episodes, including 2+ new episodes every month! We were very intrigued to find out just how deep this cartoon anthology series of Bible stories would go into the story of Sodom. GREATEST HEROES AND LEGENDS OF THE BIBLE is a y2k era animated series of biblical stories tied together by live action segments hosted by none other than the legendary Charlton Heston. Heston is well known for his portrayal of Moses in THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, one of the most famous Bible adaptations in American film history, so he’s the closest thing we...

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This stylized post-apocalyptic thriller is a unique example of a mainstream Hollywood blockbuster with overtly Christian themes, even if it stops just short of a true Christian message. Directed by the Hughes Brothers (MENACE II SOCIETY, DEAD PRESIDENTS, FROM HELL) and starring beloved leading man Denzel Washington, THE BOOK OF ELI depicts the Bible as a source of tremendous power in a fallen world. Eli (Denzel Washington) is a survivor of a nuclear holocaust, wandering westward on a mysterious mission with few possessions except for a large book that he treasures. When Eli crosses paths with local warlord Carnegie (Gary Oldman), Carnegie suspects that Eli’s book may be the Bible, which Carnegie himself has been seeking because he believes reading it will give him the power to control large groups of people. Carnegie is perhaps a metaphor for hypocritical conmen religious leaders who use Christianity as a way to acquire power and money, whereas Eli could represent Christ or even just a true honest believer who has made it his mission to spread faith into the world. This metaphor becomes even more clear when Eli’s quest is revealed to be delivery of the Bible to an enclave of secret archivists who will reprint and preserve it forever. The authenticity of Eli’s faith becomes even more clear when Carnegie does steal the Bible, only to be upset to find it is written in Braille, revealing Eli to have been blind the whole time. Despite being mortally wounded by Carnegie, Eli makes it to the archivists in time to speak the entire Bible to them as an oral tradition, ensuring its preservation. In the final scene of the movie, we see the archivists putting the newly reprinted Bible on a shelf alongside the Torah and the Quran. This ending, which is obviously inspired by the novel FAHRENHEIT 451 by Ray Bradbury, shows that THE BOOK OF ELI is not a truly Christian genre film — few faith-based films would equate the Bible and the Quran. To view THE BOOK OF ELI through the lens of faith-based film criticism is to see it as a religious cop out; hinting that the Bible is the source of spiritual truth but ultimately dismissing it as “just another book on a shelf.”

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