The Gospel According to the McDonaghs: The Banshees of Inisherin, Calvary, and In Bruges
It’s tempting to view Calvary alongside Banshees and Bruges as a sort of unintentional McDonagh brothers trilogy: a “lapsed Catholic” trilogy, or, a bit more accurately, a “bad Catholics” trilogy, since most or all of the characters in Banshees and many of the characters in Calvary are at least minimally practicing.
Asghar Farhadi’s masterful A Hero: A decent man does the right thing, more or less
One of the things that makes Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi (A Separation) such a riveting storyteller is how persuasively he imagines sympathetic characters who are more or less trying to do the right thing finding the consequences of that “more or less,” that small bit of wiggle room, compounding and spiraling out of control in unforeseen directions.
The Rings of Power at the end of season 1
Season 1 ended for me closer to the quiet end of the whimper-bang spectrum than I had hoped. Yet the highs of the season’s second half offer ongoing reason for sustained interest.
The Rings of Power: Season 1 at the halfway mark
Four episodes in, the lavish Amazon Prime series is delivering on at least some of its promise, but there’s room for improvement.
A new foray into Middle-Earth: The Rings of Power
A Game of Thrones–ification of Tolkien? More Hobbit trilogy excess? Though not without missteps, Amazon’s ambitious Lord of the Rings prequel series gets off to a fairly promising start.
Too good not to be true: Two movies about the Thailand cave rescue
Perhaps you were glued to the news in 2018 as the world followed the ultimately successful efforts in Thailand to rescue the 12 young boys of a soccer team and their assistant coach from the Tham Luang Nang Non cave who had become trapped by sudden flooding. If you haven’t checked in on the story since then, though, you have no idea.
Love and thunder, signifying nothing? Religion and nihilism in recent Marvel movies
Recent installments in the Marvel Cinematic Universe exacerbate the tension between the franchise’s humanistic ethos and its nihilistic cosmos. Is there still room for God in this universe?
Vivo/Alive: A documentary about Eucharistic adoration returns to theaters for one day only
Vivo remains focused on the experiences of its subjects and their spirituality. It’s not a catechetical or apologetical presentation, but a portrait of five souls and a document, perhaps, of the workings of grace. Vivo is alive.
Why is there no religion in The Lord of the Rings?
If The Lord of the Rings is “fundamentally religious and Catholic,” why are there no religious institutions or rituals?
Lightyear is an anti–space opera for an anti-heroic age
It pains me to say this: If Lightyear is Andy’s Star Wars, what an impoverished childhood Andy had.
Recent
- The Gospel According to the McDonaghs: The Banshees of Inisherin, Calvary, and
In Bruges - Asghar Farhadi’s masterful A Hero: A decent man does the right thing, more or less
- The Rings of Power at the end of season 1
- The Rings of Power: Season 1 at the halfway mark
- A new foray into Middle-Earth: The Rings of Power
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