Faithspotting

Mike and Kenny review the animated adventure film  Flow, s pot and discuss the faith themes reflected in the Latvian film that won the 2025 Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature Film. Directed by Gints Zilbalodis, and taking over 5 years to make, Flow was made by using the free and open source software Blender.  Flow follows a cat, a capybara, a ring-tailed lemur, a secretary bi...

Freguent Faithspotting contributor and friend Ryan Parker join Mike and Kenny to discuss the 2025 Academy Awards. Ryan works in public relations in the film industry and is the founder and director of the Mississippi Film Society.  We thought this year had a solid slate of nominees, especially in the Best Actor and Best Director categories.  Faithspotting covered 8 films with a total of 50 nominat...

Kenny and Mike are joined by friend and regular guest Rev. Eric Folkerth to discuss the biopic film of Bob Dylan, A Complete Unkown. Directed by James Mangold, the film stars Timothee Chalamet as Dylan, Ed Norton as Pete Seeger, Elle Fanning as Sylvie Russo, and Monica Babaro as Joan Baez. Based on the book Dylan Goes Electric by Elijah Wood, A Complete Unknown opens as Bob Dylan arrives in New Yo...

Kenny and Mike review and discuss faith reflected in the Academy Award nominated film starring Adrien Brody.  Written, produced and directed by Brady Corbet, the film shows the story of a Hungarian-Jewish holocaust survior, Laszlo Toth (Brody) who imigrates to the United States following World War 2. A renowned architect in Europe, Toth comes to Philadelphia with only a suitcase and an invitation...

Hosts Mike and Kenny discuss the blockbusting film adaptation of Act 1 of the musical Wicked which stars Cynthia Erivo, and Ariana Grande. Directed by Jon M. Chu.  Wicked Pt. 1 offers the back story of The Wizard of Oz's Glinda the Good Witch and the Wicked Witch of the West as well as the Wizard. Cynthia Erivo stars as Elphaba, a child conceived via an affair with green skin and rejected by her f...

Co-hosts Kenny and MIke review and faithspot the Palme d' Or winning musical drama starring Zoe Saldana, Karla Sofia Gascon, Selena Gomez and directed by Jacques Audiard.  Emilie Perez tells the story of two women seeking the freedom to live their lives as they desire without societal biases, expectations, and limitations.  Saldana, Gascon, and Gomes jointly won the Best Actress award at the Canne...

Mike and Kenny discuss the psychological, political, and spiritual thrilling film starring Ralph Fiennes and directed by Edward Berger. The film is a drama showing all the personal and ecclesiatical drama as the College of Cardinals Conclave to select a new pope. Reflecting society, the College is divided into conservative and liberal factions who are seeking to keep or retake control of the Papac...

Kenny and Mike discuss The Substance and spot faith issues reflected in the body horror genre film starring Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley.  Written and directed by Coralie Fargeat who won the Best Screenplay Award at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, The Substance challenges agism and society's unrealistic, double standards of beauty  and capability for women as presented through Academy Award winn...

Faithspotting Hosts Mike Hatch and Kenny Dickson discuss and spot faith reflected in the AppleTV+ series starring Oscar winners Cate Blanchett and Kevin Kline. Disclaimer  is the first television series directed by four time Oscar winning director Alphonso Cuaron and is based on the psychlogical thrilling novel by Renee Knight. Faith Notes: Disclaimer depicts the impact impact of unresolved grief...

Mike and Kenny discuss the wonderful film and spot faith elements reflected in Titus Kaphar's feature length directorial and screenwriting debut. Included in the episode is an indepth conversation with Titus Kaphar. Based on Kaphar's life, Exhibing Forgiveness examines the need and difficulty many face in offering forgiveness. Titus Kaphar is a well known artist whose paintings and sculptures are...

Kenny and Mike discuss Beetlejuice Beetlejuice , Tim Burton's sequel to his 1988 classic horror conference Beetlejuice . Michael Keaton returns as Betelgeuse, the bio-exorcist along with Winona Ryder and Catherine O'Hara who reprise their roles as Lydia and Delia Deitz. Jenna Ortega, Justin Theroux, Willem Dafoe and Monica Bellucci join the cast as Betelgeuse continues his pursuite of Lydia while...

Kenny and Mike talk and spot faith elements in the popular 2000 fim Almost Famous, written / directed by Cameron Crowe, and starring Kate Hudson, Billy Crudup, Patrick Fugit, Frances McDormand, Phiip Seymour Hoffman, and Anna Paquin. Crowe won an Academy Award for best screenplay.  Faith Spotted: The place and function of community as a source of accountability and support to help one mature as a...

Kenny and Mike review and spot faith elements presented in the powerful  A24 film Sing Sing, The film is based on the true story of John Divine G Whitfield (Colman Domingo) who was falsely convicted and spent 25 years in Sing Sing prison.  While there he co-founded the Rehabilitation Through Arts program where persons who are incarcerated stage theatrical programs.  The episode includes interviews...

Hosts Mike and Kenny celebrate 7 seasons, 4 years and 100 episodes of talking film and spotting faith on the Faithspotting podcast. Listen as they discuss and reflect on their favorite moments, episodes, and play some of their favorite interviews.   Kenny and Mike recording the Nope Episode at the Faithspotting "Studio" at Button Memorial UMC.   Mike and Kenny with Director Fran Kranz and Ann Dowd...

Kenny and Mike begin the seventh season of Faithspotting by discussing and spotting faith reflected in the newest Pixar film, Inside Out 2 . Considering how much Mike and Kenny enjoyed the film and thought the message of Inside Out , that all emotions have purpose and value, both entered the theater with high expectations and hopes  Inside Out 2 would be a worthy sequal. Faith Spotted: The teachin...

Kenny and Mike are joined by our good friend and regular Faithspotting contributor Dr. Ryan Parker for the annual Oscars preview episode where we predict winners and share our choices for who wins the Oscars. Ryan works in public relations and marketing for independent films, and is also the Executive Director for the Misssissippi Film Society. We agreed that this was a solid year for films and no...

Mike and Kenny discuss and spot faith reflected in the biopic about civil rights leader Bayard Rustin. Starring Best Actor nominee Colman Domingo, Ru stin , directed by George C. Wolfe and co-staring Chris Rock, GlynnTurman, and fellow 2024 Academy Award acting nominees Jeffery Wright and Da 'Vine Joy Randolph, tells the story of Bayard Rustin, the organizer and driving force behind the 1963 March...

Hosts Mike and Kenny review and spot faith elements reflected in the Academy Award nominated film by Celine Song. Past Lives stars Greta Lee (Nora) and Teo Yoo (Hae Sung) who were childhood friends and first loves, separated suddenly when Nora's family immigrated from South Korea to Canada. The film co-stars John Magaro (Arthur) who meets and marries Nora after she moved to New York. Nora and Hae...

Kenny and Mike discuss and spot faith issues reflected in the Academy Award Best Picture nominated and Palme d' Or winning film by writer/director Justine Triet.  Anatomy of a Fall is a French legal drama surrounding the suspicious death of a husband and father (Samuel Theis) and his wife and prime suspect Sandra (Sandra Huller) and the impact on their son Daniel (Milo Machado Graner.) Faith and L...

Hosts Kenny and Mike discuss and spot faith reflected in Alxander Payne's and Paul Giamatti's latest collaboration (Sideways).  Set in a northeastern boarding school in 1970, the film portrays a dishovled and grumpy classics teacher Paul Hunham (Giamatti) at Barton Academny who is assigned the unpopular duty of supervising the boys who are heldover the Christmas break at the school.  Da Vine Joy R...

Mike and Kenny discuss MAESTRO and faith reflected in the Bradley Cooper directed film about the life and career of composer / conductor Leonard Bernstein and his marriage to Felicia Montealegre. Cooper also co-wrote the screenplay and co-stars with Carey Mulligan in the film now streaming on Netflix. The film also stars Maya Hawke, Sarah Silverman, and Matt Bomer. Bradley Cooper, Martin Scorsese,...

Kenny and Mike interview director Sean Durkin and review his latest film  The Iron Claw . The film chronicles lives, careers and tragedies of professional wrestling's Von Erich family.  The film stars Zac Efron as Kevin Von Eric, Jeremy Allen White, Harris Dickinson, and Stanley Simons as brothers Kerry, David and Mike Von Erich. Holt McCallany also stars as patriarch Fritz Von Erich.  Faith Eleme...

Hosts Kenny and Mike interview Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss, the Emmy Award winning directors of the documentary film  The Mission , which explores the life of the 26 year old American missionary John Allen Chau who attempted to contact and evangelize indiginous people on the isolated North Sentinel Island. The filmmakers also directed the 2020 documentary film  Boys State, also featured on Faith...

Kenny and Mike have an extended interview with Paul Michael Angell, the director of the film  Medicine Man: The Stan Brock Story. The film documents the life and life mission of Stan Brock, who following a career as a television host on Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, a filmmaker, cargo pilot, director of zoos, founded a medical mission organization, Remote Area Medical (RAM) that has provided fre...

Faithspotting hosts Kenny and Mike review and spot faith reflected in Martin Scorsese's latest film, "Killers of the Flower Moon."  The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone, Robert De Niro, and tells the true story of the "reign of terror" inflicted upon the Osage Indian population following the discovery of oil on the land they were sent to live following their ejection from Kansas. The f...