Along with a few million people, I watched as four richly textured films opened this summer and gently held their own against crowd-pleasing blockbusters. From the darkened theater we traveled near and far. The starting point for our journey was the United Kingdom, but we jetted swiftly to India in "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel." The film's title is the name of the retirement destination for "the elderly and beautiful" that seven disparate Brits read about in a brochure. … [Read more...]
Music is the language of the soul and no one can ever know what a song means to another person never mind a nation. In 1967 a young Detroit man named Sixto Rodriguez recorded a single that led to an album in 1970, “Cold Fact”. This son of Mexican immigrants, who came to the U.S. in the 1920s, had the soul of a poet who “took the agony and pain of life and transformed it.” After another album in 1971 the label dropped Rodriguez due to low … [Read more...]
Cindy Green (Jennifer Garner) is a guide at a pencil museum. Her husband, Jim (Joel Edgerton), is a manager at the small midwestern town’s key industry: a pencil factory. They meet with adoption counselors to express why they would make good parents. When Cindy and Jim learn that their efforts to have a child fail, they are crushed. To heal, they write the characteristics of their dream child on small pieces of paper, place them in a box, and bury it in the garden. Now they can … [Read more...]
My "On Faith and Media" column in the September 2012 issue of St. Anthony Messenger Erma Bombeck (1927–1996), the popular Catholic humorist, captured a Christian attitude about the afterlife: “When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left and could say, ‘I used everything you gave me.’” Bombeck also had a keen sense of what often drives cinema’s storytelling about aging: “Seize the moment. Remember all those women … [Read more...]
Looking at movies and the stories they tell through the lens of faith and spirituality is one of my favorite ways to pray. If you cannot make it to a retreat house you might consider making a living room retreat in your own home. In the July issue of St. Anthony Messenger (I have been reviewing movies for the magazine since June, 2003) I offer a what, why, and how approach to making room for God during the "dog days of summer": Summer Film Retreat 2012 For Lent this year, the … [Read more...]
My column this month outlines how you can make a retreat from your seat if you are unable to a retreat house. For Lent this year, the Pauline Center for Media Studies hosted a six-part weekly program using The Way, starring Martin Sheen. In the film written and directed by Sheen’s son, Emilio Estevez, Sheen plays Tom Avery, a widower who travels to France to bring home the body of his son who died in an accident. Tom discovers his son had just set out to make the 800-kilometer pilgrimage to … [Read more...]
19th Annual Catholics in Media Awards c/o Catholics in Media Associates 12400 Ventura Blvd. PMB 228 Studio City, CA 91604 818.907.2734 www.catholicsinmedia.org catholicsinmedia@aol.com 19th Catholics in Media Awards to Hugo, Modern Family, I Am & The Way at April 29th Awards Program “Bold and Beautiful” Star John McCook to MC Ubiquity Pictures CEO Barbara M. Gangi is Honorary Chairperson (Los Angeles, CA, April 2, 2012) – The Catholics in Media Associates (CIMA) 19th Annual … [Read more...]
The nation, indeed the world, is enthralled by Jeremy Lin, the undrafted humble Harvard underdog who has stunned the NBA and the New York Knicks with his performances on the basketball court these last couple of weeks. But hidden in the deep South, somewhere around the decrepit environs of North Memphis, Tenn., a high school football team struggles to succeed just as it did in 2010 when The Tigers, the school’s football team, for the first time in the school’s 110 year history, made it to … [Read more...]
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