BEAUTY AND THE CHURCH REDUX Catholic Exchange is running the third and last part in my series on beauty, the liturgy and priestly formation. Click here to read the whole piece. Here’s a snip… A commitment to beauty [in the Church] is meaningless without a requisite commitment to the things that beauty demands. If we are ever going to have beautiful things in the Church again, we have to change a number of things in the way we operate. The... Read more

BLOGGING PROGNOSIS Sorry I’ve been so bad about blogging lately. When I got off the plane from CT last Monday, I could already feel the beginnings of flu. Since then, it’s been nine straight days of stuffy head, draggy brain and stiff neck. (Yeah, I don’t get the stiff neck part either, but this is my flu, okay?!) Anyway, all the brain cells I’ve got have been going into the half a day at work before I slither home to... Read more

MUCH ADO… …About Nothing. That pretty much defines the Oscar telecast last night. The stars looked lovely, but, in the end, the real “Stars” of Oscar night are appropriately the movies being celebrated. And hence the problem last night. Everybody all dressed up with nothing to celebrate. The stars of the various nominated projects all made valiant efforts to gush about how honored they were to be part of such “important” movies, but most of them were long-ago bored with... Read more

COMMITTING SUICIDE I’ve gotten several emails about a recent episode of the new NBC sit-com Committed, which seems to be trying to carve an audience for itself out of the niche group of Satan worshippers. (“How’s that workin’ out for ya?”) I didn’t catch the show myself, so I can’t comment, but, in the interests of stopping more people from sending me “Did you hear about this?!” emails, here’s the story… (Someone forwarded me the following piece without any heading... Read more

JEFFREY TAKES OVER THE SEATTLE TIMES Here’s a good piece on Critic who is a Christian, and friend to COTM, Jeffrey Overstreet. Jeffrey has a lot of grace and goodness about him – he impresses me always for being able to disagree without calling the other side “stupid.” I am glad Jeff is on our side. (Even though I know the notion of “sides” is what gets Jeffrey all riled up.) There are a lot of good points in the... Read more

BARB ‘UNDER FIRE’ I am a guest on an upcoming episode of PAX’s Faith Under Fire. Here’s a Newsday column about the show – they liked our segment. ——————–Putting Faith in the Hot Seat——————– When it comes to religion, this show spews 21st century fire and brimstone BY NOEL HOLSTONSTAFF WRITER February 25, 2005 FAITH UNDER FIRE. PAX TV’s religious talk-debate series starts a fresh runof episodes with an hour devoted to “culture wars,” including a segment onHollywood’s alleged bias... Read more

CAN’T GET AWAY FOR A MONTH? NO SWEAT! Thanks to the initiative of Act One alumn Lori Deason, we are starting up our weekend Before Act One workshops. These are intense (in the full Act One sense of that term…) two day events that cover the essentials of getting started in film and television writing. We will hold, at least, three of these this year in San Antonio in April, in Seattle and in Fort Lauderdale. Click here for more... Read more

ART WITHIN LAUNCHES NEW ON-LINE SCIPT DATABASE [NOTE FROM BARB: I know some of the folks behind this new project. I am happy to help them get the word out. Here’s their press release…] Art Within, the nation’s premiere arts and media group, is pleased to announce the launch of the Art Within Hothouse at www.awhothouse.org. The Art Within Hothouse is a unique online script database devoted to the blending of faith and scriptwriting, and is a valuable networking tool... Read more

PREFACE TO THE PASSION A new book has just been released by Alba House called The Theology of The Passion of the Christ. What sets this book apart from the other 72 books about the movie is that this one has a preface written by, well, moi. (I always revert to Miss Piggy when I’m feeling impressed with myself…) The book was writter by Dr. Monica Miller and is a thorough and serious consideration of the movie’s theology. I found... Read more

HOW DARE WE POINT FINGERS AT HOLLYWOOD… …when we have images of completely naked Jesus up and down the walls of one of our Cathedrals? A reader sent me a copy of the following article about a controversy going on in a church in New Zealand. The writer pointed out that the artist behind these pieces is not Catholic, and wanted to know how it was possible that a Catholic artist couldn’t be found for this commission. I would say,... Read more