‘Downton Abbey’ Producer on Faith, Family, a Movie and the End

Last updated on: March 26, 2015 at 4:02 pm By Kate O'Hare

Today (Thursday, March 26), Carnival Films and PBS’ “Masterpiece” announced that the upcoming season 6 of the family saga “Downton Abbey” will be its last. Created and entirely written by British Catholic Julian Fellowes — whom I profiled for CatholicVote earlier this year, and recently featured in Pax Culturati — “Downton Abbey” follows the aristocratic Crawley family, whose “Upstairs, Downstairs” existence in their palatial house (actually Highclere Castle in Hampshire, England) is fading in the wake of World War I, and... Read more

‘American Idol’s’ Clark Beckham: Every Breath He Takes Is for God

Last updated on: March 28, 2015 at 9:44 pm By Kate O'Hare

Until a couple of weeks ago, I’d never seen an entire episode of Fox’s perennial music-competition hit “American Idol.” But Fox invited me to a party to celebrate the Top 12 finalists, so I went to On Demand to catch up. Then at the party, I grabbed a solo chat with contestant Clark Beckham, a Christ-loving 22-year-old street performer from White House, Tennessee. Click here to read that piece for Pax Culturati, in which Beckham discusses his faith and how everything... Read more

‘House of Cards’: Spitting on Christ; Spitting on Hollywood

Last updated on: March 25, 2015 at 10:31 pm By Kate O'Hare

Recently, I was talking to Father David Guffey of Family Theater Productions in Hollywood, an apostolate that also produces scripted entertainment, under the auspices of Holy Cross Family Ministries. More from him in a future post, but we were discussing the problem of producing compelling entertainment with Catholic values. He said: We have to make sure that we can’t have something that’s so off the mark that it’s offensive, offensive in a scandalous way, but we also have to show... Read more

‘Killing Jesus’ Star Haaz Sleiman Talks the Crucifixion and 11/11

Last updated on: March 25, 2015 at 12:30 pm By Kate O'Hare

When “Killing Jesus” a three-hour adaptation of the bestselling book of the same name by Fox News host Bill O’Reilly and historian Martin Dugard, premieres on Sunday, March 29, on National Geographic Channel, it’ll mark what may be the first time that an actor of Middle Eastern descent has played Jesus in a major production. The movie looks at the life and message of Jesus — without depictions of supernatural events — along with the sociopolitical forces going on around Him... Read more

‘Killing Jesus’ Writer Walon Green on the Man, Minus the Miracles

Last updated on: March 25, 2015 at 12:17 pm By Kate O'Hare

I’ll be writing a formal review of National Geographic Channel’s “Killing Jesus,” the three-hour adaptation of the bestselling book of the same name by Fox News host Bill O’Reilly and historian Martin Dugard, closer to the Sunday, March 29, premiere. Right now, I will say that the production, filmed in Morocco (the go-to location for Bible tales these days) takes a non-supernatural view of the story, featuring Jesus’ words but not any obvious miracles, visions, angels and so forth. O’Reilly and... Read more

‘The Walking Dead’ Ends Sunday (But Not in Missoula)

Last updated on: March 24, 2015 at 3:25 pm By Kate O'Hare

Over at CatholicVote, I take a look at AMC’s hit zombie drama “The Walking Dead,” which airs its 90-minute season-five finale on Sunday, March 29, and why everybody — but me — seems to love a zombie. As for me, I don’t care for zombie stories, because I just don’t find brain-chomping cretins to be that interesting (and they’re extremely gross). I’d rather have the elegant vampire, defying death in style; the werewolf, struggling with an animal nature that overwhelms... Read more

’60 Minutes’ Reporter Lara Logan Back in the Hospital

Last updated on: March 24, 2015 at 9:09 am By Kate O'Hare

On Sunday, March 23, as part of CBS’ “60 Minutes,” correspondent Lara Logan presented a wrenching segment on the plight of persecuted Christians under siege from ISIS in Iraq. Click here for Frank Weathers’ story for Patheos Catholic, which has video clips; and here for the full transcript of the report. Now, Breitbart’s Big Journalism has an exclusive story that Logan is back in the hospital in Washington, D.C., reportedly for complications from the brutal sexual assault she suffered while covering the Tahrir... Read more

‘Parenthood’ Creator Jason Katims Explores Faith in ‘The Way’ for Hulu

Last updated on: March 23, 2015 at 10:22 pm By Kate O'Hare

I’d be even more nervous about Hulu’s new project if it weren’t for the involvement of Jason Katims, whom I’ve known since his days at NBC’s “Friday Night Lights,” one of my all-time favorite shows. Through his work on NBC’s “Parenthood” and “About a Boy,” Katims has continued to produce shows that are warm, funny, heartfelt and thoughtful (which is pretty much Katims himself — as you can see in this interview I did with him for CatholicVote about... Read more

RIP John Litvack: The WB Exec Behind ‘Buffy’ and ‘Dawson’s Creek’

Last updated on: March 23, 2015 at 8:47 pm By Kate O'Hare

It could be said that behind every great showrunner is a great executive — or at least that’s how it should be. Every writer/producer in Hollywood dreads “notes” — those little missives that come down from executive suites at studios and networks. Sometimes they’re helpful; sometimes they’re annoying; sometimes they’re downright stupid. But if you get a good exec that knows what he or she is doing — especially you’re running a TV show for the first time — those notes... Read more

PBS to Air ITV’s ‘Arthur and George,’ About Sherlock Creator (Video)

Last updated on: March 23, 2015 at 3:58 pm By Kate O'Hare

Currently airing on Britain’s commercial network ITV, “Arthur and George” stars Martin Clunes (“Doc Martin”) as Scottish writer and physician Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle, best known as the creator of Sherlock Holmes. Born into an Irish-Catholic family in the U.K., Doyle was educated at two Jesuit schools — in the U.K. and Austria — after which he rejected religion and became an agnostic. Later in life, he became fascinated with Spiritualism and became friends with skeptic Harry Houdini, only... Read more

I am stone tablets written by the finger of God, given on a mountain shrouded in smoke. What am I?