My friend, Karen Hall put a post up yesterday that has good news about the upcoming TV season. It’s under the heading “Attention TV Nerds” – because I don’t know how to link to a specific post on somebody’s blog…. Sigh…. Here’s a snip… TV is getting better. A lot better. Cable, which was largely responsible for its unraveling, as we all struggled to understand the New World, has ended up being the thing that raised the bar and forced... Read more

I saw the 2006 Oscar Winning Foreign Film, The Lives of Others this weekend. I was a big fan of the film back when I first heard of it in February just because it beat out the loathsome and irresponsible Pan’s Labrynth for the Oscar. Now, having finally seen it, I’m a really big fan of it. For several reasons. The first reason I was enthralled to see this film has less to do with the actual film, and more... Read more

Still recovering from food poisoning. Now, in DC. On my way to Milan tomorrow. I had a lovely lunch with Amy “Open Book” Welborn and Greg Erlandson from OSV. It was actually my last good meal before the attack of the cranberry trail mix. In the course of our conversation, I proposed to them a thought I have been brooding over quite a bit lately, which I guess we could call “An Appeal to the 60’s Generation: Towards Saving Something... Read more

I’m in a hotel room in Ft. Wayne, IN after a long day in airports. No time for a full review, but I wanted to recommend the documentary making its way through art theaters, Into Great Silence. Or, at least, I wanted to recommend the first two hours of the film. It’s really rather too long, and there isn’t much added to the point of the film in the additional hour that made it worth having us all sit there.... Read more

I was asked by a group of Catholic business leaders recently, to give some ideas as to how the Church could make a more strategic impact on the culture. I think everybody expected me to say that the answer is in writing checks to fund movies. But that’s not what I said. I don’t think we need to get Catholic millionaires to write big checks to pay for movie budgets. I think we need to get Warner Bros., Paramount, Sony... Read more

…then, I can say definitely you’ll like Dreamgirls. That is to say, if you like largely non-narrative, Broadway musicals where spectacle is the point, then Dreamgirls will be your best movie of the year. My review of the film largely parallels with Jan’s, with perhaps just slightly less enthusiasm. I enjoyed it for the costumes and the fast-paced editing and, in a lesser way, the music. Which surprised me. I expected a movie based on the story of Motown and... Read more

So many questions came to mind during my screening of this film… Question #1…. What is this movie about? I had no idea going in. I thought it was a Mexican fairytale. It isn’t. It isn’t quite a fantasy story because half of it is dripping in brutal realistic violence. So, genre-wise, this film is half child’s fantasy and half R-rated period war drama. Pan’s Labyrinth is the story of a lost princess from the underworld who has been apparently... Read more

I’m still a little brain-fogged from the long trip back from Australia last weekend. I have so many things I am dying to blog about (…how considering the competition, Apocalypto should have gotten an Oscar nom …why we are going to see a lot more movies like The Fountain which is an exhausting prospect…the difference between Last King of Scotland and Hotel Rwanda… how the Oscars are grimly and trenchantly embracing their own future irrelevance… Why The Nativity will not... Read more

Here’s the Act One Press Release… _____________________________________________ FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEDecember 15, 2006 —— ACT ONE FOUNDER ELECTED BOARD CHAIRMAN ———– HOLLYWOOD, CA – Act One, Inc., is pleased to announce that Barbara Nicolosi has been named Chairman of the Board for the organization. Ms. Nicolosi accepted the position at the request of the Board of Directors during their December meeting. Nicolosi, a screenwriter and former Hollywood development executive, founded the nonprofit training and mentorship program for entertainment industry writers and... Read more

Here is the University’s Press Release: __________________________________ BARBARA NICOLOSI TO SPEAK AT GONZAGA UNIVERSITY JAN. 23 ON ‘WHY MOVIES MATTER’ The Bellarmine Lecture Series at Gonzaga University will present a lecture by Barbara Nicolosi entitled, “Why Movies Matter: A Pastoral Approach to Hollywood” to begin at 7:30 p.m., Tuesday, Jan. 23 in the Barbieri Courtroom at Gonzaga University School of Law. Nicolosi is the founder and Chariman of the Board of Act One, Inc., an interdenominational training program that prepares... Read more