In Los Angeles, a detective Graham, (Don Cheadle) investigates the site where the body of a young man was found. He recognizes the young man and his mind flashes back to yesterday. Two young black men (Ludacris and Larenz Tate) cruise a mall in the very white San Fernando Valley. They discuss racism and cross the path of Rick (Brendan Fraser) and his wife Jean (Sandra Bullock.) When Jean sees the young men, she is afraid and instinctively draws closer... Read more

Ben (Jimmy Fallon) has grown up “to be one of the most pathetic of creatures: a Boston Red Sox fan.” When his father died and his mom moved him to Boston, his Uncle Carl started taking him to Fenway Park. There Ben learned about the Big Green Monster and all the lore about the Sox, especially, the curse of the Bambino. His best friends were the other fans who held the same season tickets, year after year.   About a... Read more

Tom Warshaw (David Duchovny) is an American artist living in Paris. He is married to a French woman (Magalie Amadei) and they have a son, Odell (Harold Cartier). But not all is well with Tom; he is unsettled and spends an entire night with his wife, sitting at a table in the garden of the apartment house (with all the neighbors listening in), telling her the story of his life. She tells him that he must go back to New... Read more

This very funny film is based on a series of very popular science fiction radio shows and books by the late Douglas Adams (1952-2001).   Just the other day, in rural England, Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman) wakes up to find that the highway commission is going to demolish his house so they can build a motorway (highway). They had posted their intent, but Arthur ignored it. Arthur is greatly upset and lies down in front of the bulldozer to stop them.... Read more

Kingdom of Heaven: Reality or Symbol   (This is an essay I wrote for The Tidings; for a sidebar on the Crusades go to the complete essay at http://www.daughtersofstpaul.com/mediastudies/reviews/filmkingdomofheaven.html)   Ridley Scott’s latest film, Kingdom of Heaven, is about one of the most obscure and complex periods of world history: the Crusades (1096 – c.1300; see end of this article for information about the Crusades). Orlando Bloom is in his first lead role here, though not his first epic, (Lord of the... Read more

In a small African country named Matobo, two men are ambushed and killed when they seek out the dead bodies of citizens who have been killed by government forces. A photographer named Philippe manages to escape.   At the UN Headquarters in New York the Security Council demands that President Zuwani (Earl Cameron) of Matobo be tried at The Hague for the crimes he has committed against his people. The president’s men argue that he has the right to defend... Read more

Joan of Arcadia (CBS, Friday, 8/7PM) is one of the most unique shows on television today. It is winding up its second season this coming Friday, April 22. Be sure to tune in. As you may know, Joan has a special relationship with God. It could be characterized as a begrudging one on Joan’s part. She first “saw” God as a “hot” young guy in the season pilot in 2003. God lost no time in telling Joan that her reason for... Read more

Hi everyone,   I wrote this for The Tidings and for the Pauline.org web site. Although it is television, I thought you might be interested            Revelations: Christ-centered or Christ-haunted?                                       Flannery O’Connor, the Catholic novelist from Georgia once wrote, “I thinkit is safe to say that while the South is hardly Christ-centered, it is most certainly Christ-haunted” (From “Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose”, 1961).   If the many religious apocalyptic films and novels produced and consumed by... Read more

See, I have this theory: whenever there are more than two writers involved in a project, beware. They probably had to save it. There are six writers involved in Guess Who.   Guess Who is, of course, based on the classic civil rights era (1967) original, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, written by William Rose and directed by Stanley Kramer.. It won an Oscar for William Rose and one for Kathryn Hepburn as the mother. Guess Who inverts the races:... Read more

Writer/director/composer/producer Robert Rodriguez (El Mariachi, etc. and the Spy Kids franchise, etc) and writer/comic creator/graphic artist Frank Miller (Batman, Daredevil, X-Men and other comics for D.C. and Marvel) have joined together to produce three of Miller’s Sin City graphic novels into one slick motion picture. (Quentin Tarantino was a guest-director; from much of the press about the film Rodriguez has broken many Hollywood standards by crowding the credit lines and breaking lots of other standards, too).   The Japanese actually... Read more