Articles
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2014-04-04 17:30:49
Why do we love costumed crusaders? Larger-than-life heroes fill a cultural niche occupied in the 1950s by gunslingers, in earlier centuries by Robin Hood and King Arthur, and in antiquity by the likes of Hercules, Perseus, and Odysseus.
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2014-03-28 20:44:25
“Let me tell you a story,” Russell Crowe’s Noah says to his family in a moment of great crisis and emotion. “The first story my father told me, and the first story I told each of you.” What he recounts are the events of Genesis 1, the creation of the world; and Aronofsky relates them both verbally and visually in a way that bespeaks a confidence in the power of this story to speak to us today: a story still worth telling and retelling.
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2014-03-28 20:34:03
The punning headlines write themselves: “
Noah Awash in Flood of Controversy.” “Deluge of Criticism Inundates Filmmakers.” In the weeks preceding the release of
Noah, controversy has swirled around the film — and will no doubt continue to do so in the weeks ahead.
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2014-03-21 05:00:01
In a way, the figure of Noah stands over filmmaker Darren Aronofsky’s whole career.
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2014-02-28 13:18:50
So what’s the deal with the
Noah movie? Does it replace the message of the Bible story with a message created by Hollywood? Is Russell Crowe’s Noah an environmentalist wacko? Is God a monster out to eradicate humanity entirely? Get a grip, people.
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2014-02-28 13:03:02
I’ve been surprised at the popularity of efforts to interpret major story elements in
Frozen as a Christian parable. I’m not talking about merely commenting on the climactic act of self-sacrifice as reflecting Christlike love, etc. That, I don’t object to. I mean interpreting the film’s structure and themes as, in effect, an allegory of the Gospel — one rivaling or even surpassing C. S. Lewis’s
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
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2014-01-17 12:17:59
2013 was a year of cinematic trauma and stress, full of harrowing, at times also exhilarating, survival stories, many on the abyss of the sea or even the void of space.
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2013-12-20 23:48:52
In a way,
The Exorcist is a pivotal film — the indispensable link between the Catholic-inflected piety of Golden Age Hollywood and the demonic world of latter-day horror.
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2013-12-09 15:35:47
Mary of Nazareth, now touring North America in isolated screenings hosted by Ignatius Press, is the latest in a number of Gospel films over the last couple of decades focusing in a special way on the role of the Blessed Virgin in the Gospel story.
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2013-10-17 17:10:33
The award-winning film
12 Years a Slave, now in theaters, isn’t just an astonishing film about an important subject. It’s also a rare and valuable film of a kind I’m not sure I’ve ever seen before.
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2013-09-20 13:29:35
So many songs about rainbows and what’s on the other side? What was Kermit talking about? There’s only one song like that … and one movie that embodies the childhood magic Jim Henson wanted to evoke.
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2013-08-30 13:16:45
Co-written by Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyzaki and directed by his son Goro Miyazaki (
Tales From Earthsea),
From Up on Poppy Hill is a gently naturalistic departure from the high-flying fantasy for which the studio is best known.
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2013-08-30 01:22:32
I enjoyed reviewing movies this summer far more than I enjoyed the movies themselves — and perhaps my readers enjoyed the reviews more than the movies as well.
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2013-08-05 17:41:29
Have Hollywood movies been softening us up for NSA-style surveillance?
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2013-07-06 23:21:47
This little essay is barely a footnote to Ebert’s book. Still, in the dozen or so years that I’ve been writing movie reviews, I’d like to think I’ve come up with a few witty, possibly even useful terms — Everything Movie, Medieval Grunge and Mythology-Bound among them — that might contribute to movie discussion.
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2013-05-31 10:59:34
Picking the top 10 movie dads was both easier and harder than picking the
top 10 movie moms. Easier, because there were more candidates to choose from — and harder for the same reason!
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2013-05-07 18:00:26
When I set out to make a list of great movie moms in honor of Mother’s Day, I knew it wouldn’t be easy — but I soon found it even harder than I thought. Let’s face it: Great mothers are in short supply in the movies.
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2013-04-06 17:26:11
Just over a month before his death on Easter Thursday, Roger Ebert wrote a blog post titled “
How I Am a Roman Catholic” — a follow-up of sorts to a 2009 post called “
How I Believe in God.”
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2013-03-15 07:22:49
It’s spring break, or summer vacation, and the grandkids are visiting. Or you’re looking for a DVD for a birthday present. You want three things: a) something worthwhile (not junk); b) something they’ll enjoy (not just high-minded or educational fare); and, crucially, c) something they haven’t already seen to death.
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2013-02-01 12:07:45
Have today’s movies lost religion? Not necessarily — but sometimes it helps to know where to look. For instance, mainstream films are more likely to include sympathetic depictions of religious faith in period pieces than in stories set in the present day.
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2013-01-23 07:54:12
A masterpiece on the importance of fatherhood, from filmmakers honored by the Vatican, is among the year’s best films.
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2013-01-10 09:51:34
Perhaps the most beloved of Christmas movies, Frank Capra’s sleeper classic
It’s a Wonderful Life has inevitably become a target of seasonal, iconoclastic culture-warmongering.
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2012-11-13 12:19:56
One of the more striking marks of Pixar’s innovative stature and impact on the world of Hollywood animation has been their pioneering revival of the long-neglected animated short film prior to the feature (at least prior to animated features) as an industry staple.
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2012-09-18 05:04:38
The greatest action-adventure movie of all time is now available on Blu-ray. For now, of course, you can’t just buy
Raiders of the Lost Ark; you have to get the 5-disc boxed set “Indiana Jones: The Complete Adventures.”
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2012-09-18 03:48:07
If you see only one James Cameron-directed movie about the
Titanic —
and you should — see the one that
doesn’t star Kate and Leo.
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2012-07-05 12:12:28
I do take issue, though, with Hollywood’s current obsession with “dark,” “gritty,” “edgy” fare threatening to crush any sense of wonder and fantasy. What a joy, then, that Tarsem Singh’s
Mirror Mirror offers a gorgeous, fantastic fairy-tale world bursting with extravagant imagination and splendor.
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2012-06-21 15:16:56
In support of the Fortnight for Freedom, the
National Catholic Register and Decent Films are pleased to present a selection of 14 films, chosen by me, all in some way engaging themes of religious liberty, moral conscience and commitment faith in the face of pressure and persecution have been reflected in cinema.
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2012-05-24 07:51:39
It’s still one of the better-kept secrets of family entertainment that the most imaginatively daring and influential animation house in the world isn’t Pixar, but Japan’s Studio Ghibli, best known for co-founder and animation virtuoso Hayao Miyazaki. Miyazaki is revered in animation circles, but Ghibli films haven’t yet become the phenomenon in the States that they are in Japan and around the globe.
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2012-04-20 21:18:20
Disneynature’s
Chimpanzee, the latest family-friendly nature documentary from
Earth directors Alastair Fothergill and Mark Linfield, depicts a surprising twist in the early life of a young chimpanzee nicknamed “Oscar” living in the Taï Forest in the Ivory Coast. Dr. Jane Goodall, the world’s foremost expert in chimpanzees, has seen the film, and discussed it with me via phone a couple of days ago.
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2012-02-21 12:51:25
I like lists better than awards, so I look forward to the Academy Award nominations more than the Oscars ceremony itself. The process of whittling down countless contenders to a handful of nominees is more interesting than the process of picking one nominee as the winner — and this year is no exception.
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