The French Catholic film critic André Bazin’ once wrote: “The cinema has always been interested in God.” This contemplative observation—or conviction— by a layman who spent his few adult years immersed in film criticism is interesting at any time, but it invites a narrative reflection on the upcoming Holy Year of Mercy set to begin on December 8. What does Pope Francis mean by “mercy”? As we know, he announced the Holy Year on April 11, 2015, in... Read more
For years I’ve been watching and reviewing movies on Mexican cartels that act with impunity due to government corruption and the futility of the war on drugs in the United States. The atrocities in Mexico include kidnapping, murder, mass murder, dismemberment, burning, hanging, the torture of thousands of innocent people (in Ciudad Juarez it was women for many years), and government complicity through intimidation, infectivity and collusion. Some of these films are Gregory Nava’s fictionalized 2006 “Bordertown,” about a journalist... Read more
A new film about Mother Teresa, “The Letters”, will be released in theaters on December 4, 2015 and stars Juliette Stevenson, Max Von Sydow, and Lutger Hauer. “The Letters” is a very close interpretation of the 2009 book “Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light” edited by the postulator of her cause for canonization, Brian Kolodiejchuk. Though the film was written and directed by William Riead the film seems to track the book closely. Both are biographical and historical and detail... Read more
Jyoti Singh was a 23-year old medical student in Delhi, India, who went out to see “The Life of Pi” with a young male friend on the evening of Dec. 16, 2012. On the way home, around 8 p.m., they got on a private bus as people do in Delhi. But on that bus were five men and one 17-year old male who gang-raped Jyoti for over an hour as the bus kept going. They assaulted her so severely that... Read more
Freddie Steinmark (Finn Wittrock; Unbroken; American Horror Story) is a scrappy, gritty, determined and successful high school football player in Colorado whose father Fred (Michael Reilly Burke) taught him the game and was present at all of Freddie’s. When Freddie is a junior, and training intensely, he meets Linda Wheeler (Sarah Bolger) and it’s love at first sight. Early on they start talking about how many kids they want to have when they get married. In 1968 Freddie applies... Read more
Over at the LA Times yesterday Lewis Beale posted a feature article about how the Catholic church has been covered in films from the 40s until now and how the representation has changed. I think this topic should be someone’s doctoral dissertation so that what Beale outlines is explored more thoroughly. I think it was more than the Hayes Production Code and the Legion of Decency that gave us these mostly post WWII images of the Catholic Church in America... Read more
It was a normal day for the miners and citizens of Copiapó, Chile, in 2010, but there had been warnings about the instability of the San José Mine for some time. The mine collapses and the 33 men underground make it to the “safety zone,” where there is supposed to be food, water, and means to communicate with those above ground. But there is almost no food, and communication lines are broken. Luis Urzua (Lou Diamond Phillips) is the foreman... Read more
Adam Jones (Bradley Cooper) is a washed up, two-star Michelin chef on a mission of self-redemption. After leaving the ruins of a self-destructed career, wrecked because of his womanizing, partying and drug and alcohol addiction in Paris, he goes to New Orleans with a self-imposed penance: to shuck a million oysters. If nothing else, Adam Jones is a man of great extremes. He keeps track of the number of oysters in a little notebook, and when he’s reached his goal,... Read more
Director Thomas McCarthy’s new film, “Spotlight,” plays like the Watergate of the Catholic church. Focusing on The Boston Globe investigative news team that, through a series of articles in 2002, exposed the cover-up of clergy pedophiles by Cardinal Bernard Law (and ultimately many other prelates and dioceses), it even includes Ben Bradlee Jr. (John Slattery), then deputy managing editor of the paper. (His father, Ben Sr., was the publisher of The Washington Post when the paper’s investigation of President Richard... Read more
“Chaplains” is a two-hour look at the vocation, lives and ministries of chaplains in the United States that begins airing on PBS stations on November 3 and continues throughout the month. The film opens with U.S. military chaplains, men and women from various faiths. I think beside hospital chaplains the first thing people think of when they hear “chaplain” is connected to the military. The film goes back to World War II with the sinking of the USS Dorchester in... Read more
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