“THE NEW RENAISSANCE WON’T START IN A CLASSROOM” Here is my latest article from the National Catholic Register. I had excerted a paragraph a few weeks ago. Here is another snip so as to whet with… Great art comes out of community. It was in the little community gathered around the master painter, Perugino, that Raphael’s talent was first revealed and then nurtured. At age 14, Michaelangelo was sent by his father to apprentice with the famous artist Domenico Ghirlandaio.... Read more

SAVE THE DATE Act One: Writing for Hollywood and Inter-Mission presents, The Story of Art: A Worldview Approach In recent years, the Christian church’s approach to art and entertainment has often been little more than moralistic finger-wagging over things like coarse language and morally decadent content. We tend to focus on eradicating these from culture, instead of seeing them as the symptoms of something much deeper. Morality is always derivative–it stems from an underlying worldview. Using, slides and film clips,... Read more

OSCAR: STUCK BETWEEN A GOD AND A PROPAGANDA PLACE Daily Variety Friday reports that we have just passed the halfway point for Oscar contention, and that the two strongest candidates for Best Pictre, at this point, have to be reckoned The Passion of the Christ and….(are you ready?)….(yeah, but are you sitting down?)….Fahrenheit 9/11! I admit it, I laughed out loud last week when I read on some lefty web site a Bush-hating devotee proclaiming about Moore’s film, “This movie... Read more

EMILY MONDAY 501 This World is not Conclusion. A Species stands beyond — Invisible, as Music — But positive, as Sound — It beckons, and it baffles — Philosophy — don’t know — And through a Riddle, at the last — Sagacity, must go — To guess it, puzzles scholars — To gain it, Men have borne Contempt of Generations And Crucifixion, shown — Faith slips — and laughs, and rallies — Blushes, if any see — Plucks at a... Read more

YEAH, I THOUGHT BETTER OF IT… Read more

In front of the full jury box. Beat. GALVIN You know, so much of the time we’re lost. We say, ‘Please, God, tell us what is right. Tell us what’s true. There is no justice. The rich win, the poor are powerless…’ We become tired of hearing people lie. After a time we become dead. A little dead. We start thinking of ourselves as victims. And we become victims. And we become weak…and doubt ourselves, and doubt our institutions…and doubt... Read more

STUCK IN THE TERMINAL Spielberg is in a quandry. It’s not unlike the quandry faced by the Tom Hanks’ character in Spielberg’s current offering The Terminal. The greatest populist director of our time, Spielberg has achieved everything most people could dream of in Hollywood. (Which is part of his problem. There is no greater stunt to creativity than actually getting everything you want.) He has a stack of blockbuster films. Household name. More money than Charles Foster Kane. And with... Read more

To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental. To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle... Read more

JOAN TO PRIMETIME: “TAKE THAT! AND THAT!” Excellent! The nominations for the prestigious Humanitas Prize are out. In the highly-contested 60 minutes drama category, freshman series Joan of Arcadia has won two of the three nominations. Series creator, Barbara Hall got a nomination for the Pilot episode, and staff writer Joy Gregory also got a nomination for the episode “The Uncertainty Principle”. The other nominee in the category is John Wells, who will lose for his episode of ER, “Makemba”.... Read more

EMILY MONDAY 1203 The Past is such a curious Creature To look her in the Face A Transport may receipt us Or a Disgrace — Unarmed if any meet her, I charge him fly – Her faded Ammunition Might yet reply. Read more