It’s not about winning or losing but about how you play the game. Those words are usually reserved for losing teams, but legendary football coach, Bob Ladouceur, who shattered the record for all American sports, taught his team to live them; win or lose. He took the Spartans of De La Salle High School in […]
Sports movies have a built-in source of drama. In every contest there are winners and losers, hard work and teamwork, the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. Yet such movies also can lapse into melodrama and cliché: slow-motion metaphors that elevate sports above other challenges of life. Yet the best sports movies fit […]
The new Irish film, Calvary, is a fierce expedition into the repercussions and present climate of post-clergy-sex-abuse-scandal Ireland. It’s an unblinking, fictitious story that’s an apt vehicle not so much to wonder “how?” and “what went so terribly wrong?” as it is to gauge people’s reactions. Calvary sports the simplest, boldest, shortest Act One I […]
Boyhood, the new movie written and directed by Richard Linklater (Waking Life, A Scanner Darkly, The Before… Trilogy with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy) is a one-of-a-kind, “big idea” film. The lives of screen Mom, Dad, son and daughter are followed for twelve years. Literally twelve years, having been filmed for about a week each […]
Warning! Spoilers Ahead!! Divergent is the latest of the teen dystopian future trilogies to hit the big screen. I have read all three books, Divergent, Insurgent, and Allegiant. Is it not my favorite trilogy in this growing genre, but I know that teens everywhere love it. I do appreciate that Veronica Roth has tackled some […]
The 2013 film (now on DVD and Netflix) The Jewish Cardinal is the life of the Cardinal Archbishop of Paris, Aaron Jean-Marie Lustiger who died in 2007. May I say that this is the most tastefully, smartly irreverent life of a prelate ever on film? Jewish filmmaker, Ilan Duran Cohen, gets both Judaism and Catholicism […]
This might hurt your brain, but stay with me friends. Imagine if he came the way we wanted him to? Imagine if Jesus answered the problem of evil with a punch rather than his paschal mystery? He would’ve kicked the devil’s butt. He would’ve been ripped, with muscles on top of his muscles. A combination […]
WARNING: LOADED WITH SPOILERS! Well, is Maleficent magnificent? Angelina Jolie is (of course), but the story? I don’t know. What?! I don’t have an opinionated opinion for once? No. It’s complicated. I am viewing “Maleficent” on its own, but also in the context of the more recent Disney princess stories. The times they are a-changin’. […]
Locke, starring Tom Hardy–and only Tom Hardy–is being dubbed “Hamlet of the Highway,” and it’s exactly that. The premise of this one-actor film is simple and brilliant. The execution is also brilliant. A husband/father/expert construction foreman strayed once and only once in his marriage and got a middle-aged woman pregnant in a drunken one-night stand […]
This Sunday, June 1, and Monday, June 2, a miracle of sorts takes place on mainstream TV as PBS affiliates broadcast a documentary about a heroic Catholic priest. Messenger of The Truth is about Blessed Father Jerzy Popieluszko, chaplain to the Solidarity labor union that nonviolently took down the communist regime in Poland. Some efforts to […]
What do half-a-dozen major sex crimes in America have in common? According to a new documentary by Family Watch International (FWI), they often start with pornography. Launched at the first End Exploitation summit last week, which was primarily organized by Morality in Media, “The Porn Pandemic: The Devastating Effects on Children, Family and Society” features […]
Just in time for Mother’s Day comes a genuinely fun and funny film about the crazy adventure that is parenting, specifically motherhood (with a serving of fatherhood on the side). If you’ve seen the snappy trailer, the movie does deliver on its promise, and there’s lots more LOLs where that came from. But…. Dear Southern […]
The movie Heaven Is for Real, based on the book by the same name, is the true story of four-year-old Colton Burpo who claims to have seen heaven. First off: Do not watch the trailer if you haven’t already! It’s a great trailer, but it gives away a bit too much. Second off: do see […]
DISCLAIMER: Some Christians believe that any Christian film that is trying to do good and tell the truth should be praised and promoted, whether or not it displays excellence in filmmaking and theology/philosophy. I am not one of those Christians. You have been warned. Proceed with this knowledge. The new Christian film: God’s Not Dead […]
I confess. I did not go into the movie Noah with a tabula rasa. I first read the scathing review of popular blogger, Matt Walsh. Then, curiosity peaked, I watched Sr. Rose Pacatte’s review. She loved it. Confused, but also intrigued, I decided I would just have to see for myself. There have been a wide range of views in […]
Months ago, when I first heard that Noah was coming out, I, like the biblical Sarah, laughed to myself. “It’ll be this big, ugly, off-the-mark extravaganza, just trying to make money off believers, and it’ll flop.” Like Sarah, I had to eat crow. Not literally! (Noah is a vegetarian in the film.) Noah, written and directed […]
The Muppets are at it again. The clever new caper takes us to a gulag in Siberia, Russia and several other international cities, as The Muppet Show reunites for a world tour. But all is not as it seems. All is not well. Constantine–the World’s Most Dangerous Frog–who looks exactly like Kermit, but with a […]
Are we all agreed that Saving Mr. Banks is the Worst. Movie. Title. Ever? Good. First: Who is Mr. Banks? He’s the father of the little family in Mary Poppins, and the filmmakers must have assumed that we all had massive group recollection on that one. Second: “Banks” rhymes with “Hanks” who plays Walt Disney. […]
There are less people spending time with the Bible than with Facebook. Having the Word of God get passed over by social media is sad. Yet, as mere flesh and blood we are so easily distracted. But it’s Jesus we are talking about—our Savior who suffered and died for us. Can we have a little […]
It’s not often an epic film on the life of Christ hits the Big Screen. In fact, exploring the canon of great American cinema brings two features to mind: Martin Scorcese’s The Last Temptation of Christ and Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. Now, of course the latter was more biblically sound and visually […]
Her movies reflected what was good and decent in this country.
Spike Jonze’s film Her, currently out in theaters and an Academy Award nominee for Best Picture, is a cautionary tale of the future that awaits us if we continue to hail technology as our savior. Set in the not too distant Los Angeles, Tom Twombly (masterfully portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix) is reeling from a failed […]
Good versus good hardly seems like a movie plot, but in Grace Unplugged Divine good versus worldly goods is pitted against one another. At the heart of the conflict is the pull of a Father’s love and concern for his 18-year-old daughter and her push to get out from under his shadow and make it […]
I got a chance tonight to grab a few friends and go see Gimme Shelter staring Vanessa Hudgens. I was looking forward to supporting a movie that would tell the story of a young woman’s struggle through a harrowing life and teen pregnancy. It would be a movie that would not insult my ears with […]
