Recently Added
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Dark Shadows in 60 seconds: my “Reel Faith” review.
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The Avengers in 60 seconds: my “Reel Faith” review.
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Tune into
EWTN this Thursday, May 31, when I'll be on
“The World Over Live” with Raymond Arroyo (8:00pm EDT). Raymond and I will be discussing the new Cristero war drama
For Greater Glory, how the film's theme of religious freedom relates to current events, the state of faith-based film productions and much more.
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Fairy tales are everywhere these days, from the small-screen “Once Upon a Time” and “Grimm” to this year’s duelling
Snow White films,
Mirror Mirror and
Snow White and the Huntsman, opening this week.
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A+ |
**** |
+2|
Kids & Up
Walt Disney’s
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is widely celebrated as a beginning, the first feature-length animated film in Hollywood history. It’s just as correct, though, and perhaps more illuminating, to hail it as a culimination — as the crowning achievement of years of experimentation, discovery, growth and achievement by Disney’s animation team.
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Battleship in 60 seconds: My “Reel Faith” review.
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C+ |
**½ |
+0|
Teens & Up
It’s all acceptably diverting, and not actively unpleasant like the 2002 sequel. There are no grand twists or revelations comparable to the truth about the “galaxy” in the original. What the film could most use, I think, is a wide-eyed uninitiate like Linda Fiorentino in the original or Rosario Dawson in the sequel — but one from 1969, which would offer a fresh twist on the outsider’s experience of the MIB’s nutty world.
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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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The summer 2012 season of “
Reel Faith” begins this Friday, May 25 at 8:00pm EDT. David DiCerto and I kick off the new season with
The Avengers,
Men in Black 3 and
Battleship. And because
Battleship has us in a Liam Neeson mood, Father Lauder’s “Movie with a Message” is
Les Misérables (1998).
Watch online (unless you have CableVision or Time Warner cable).
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D+ |
** |
-2|
Adults
If you are in love with the 1970s and Johnny Depp, perhaps you will enjoy this. Andrew O’Hehir says he knew he would love the film when he spotted a banana-seat Schwinn bicycle leaning against the front porch of Collinwood in an early scene. All right. But then comes a “happening” featuring Alice Cooper as himself (!), with a disco ball and cage dancers. At Collinwood. Is this really anyone’s idea of a good time?
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In my
Avengers review I wrote, “If
The Avengers isn’t necessarily the
best superhero movie ever made, it is unquestionably the
most superhero movie ever made.“ That, of course, raises the question: What
is the best superhero movie ever made?
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This Friday, May 4 I'll be appearing on the first hour of “
Catholic Answers Live” (6pm–7pm EDT).
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A |
***½ |
+2|
Teens & Up
If
The Avengers isn’t necessarily the
best superhero movie ever made, it is unquestionably the
most superhero movie ever made — and, in that capacity, it is more than well-made enough to take comic-book entertainment to unprecedented levels.
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The Pirates! Band of Misfits / In an Adventure with Scientists! in 60 seconds: my “Reel Faith” review.
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Cabin in the Woods in 60 seconds: my “Reel Faith” review.
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Chimpanzee in 60 seconds: my “Reel Faith” review.
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The Hunger Games in 60 seconds: my “Reel Faith” review.
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B+ |
*** |
+0|
Kids & Up
An Aardman film is always an exercise in absurdity, but
The Pirates, directed by Peter Lord (
Chicken Run) and Jeff Newitt, is possibly their silliest ever. This is the kind of film in which people say things like “Blood Island! So called because …it is the exact shape of some blood!” And: “You can’t always say
Arrrrr! at the end of a sentence and think that makes everything all right.” And: “London town: the most romantic city in the world.” (Followed by: “London smells like Grandma!”) Those crazy Brits!
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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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B |
*** |
+2-1|
Kids & Up
Disneynature’s
Chimpanzee has the makings of a great nature documentary. It takes us places other films haven’t and shows us sights we haven’t seen on any screen. Visually, it’s a triumph of intripid nature documentary filmmaking, with an extraordinary and heartwarming twist in the lives of a chimpanzee community. Yet like other recent nature flicks, including
Arctic Tale and
African Cats, it’s wrapped in increasingly tiresome, condescending kiddie-movie packaging. It’s like discovering a rare dish prepared by eminent chefs, drizzled with waxy treacle and stuffed in a Happy Meal box.
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This Friday, April 13 I'll be appearing on the first hour of “
Catholic Answers Live” (6pm–7pm EDT).
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Do we have a pope? Do we even have a movie?
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C- |
** |
-2|
Teens & Up*
In a way it’s like the antithesis of a Dan Brown novel. Brown’s stories peer with feverish, lurid imagination at the inner workings of the Catholic hierarchy, discovering all manner of ridiculous subterfuge, ruthlessness and skulduggery. Moretti’s film hardly peers at all.
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We Have a Pope in 60 seconds: My “Reel Faith” video review.
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The Kid with a Bike in 60 seconds: My “Reel Faith” video review.
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21 Jump Street in 60 seconds: My “Reel Faith” video review.
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Wrath of the Titans in 60 seconds: My “Reel Faith” video review.
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Saving the Titanic, a docudrama airing this month on PBS, sheds light on an untold page from the heroic side of the ledger. Combining traditional documentary with speculative historical dramatization, it highlights the story of the engineering crew, firemen, electricians and stokers who labored below decks to keep power flowing to pumps and lifeboat winches, first hoping to save the ship and then striving to delay the inevitable as long as possible to save as many lives as possible.
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B |
*** |
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Teens & Up
What’s the last movie you saw that created an imaginary world that was actually beautiful, bursting with color and beauty and inspiration? A world that reminded you of the feeling you had as a child the first time you saw Dorothy open that door on the Technicolor world of Oz? A world you would actually like to enter and walk around in?
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D |
*½ |
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Teens & Up
“Let’s have some fun,” says one god to another, suggesting that they “put on a show.” The moment comes late in
Wrath of the Titans. Very, very late. I don’t remember the response, if any, but “Why start now?” would have been appropriate.
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