In an announcement exclusive to VARIETY Roma Downey and Mark Burnett are sharing the news that they have struck a deal with 20th Century Fox to release a film about Jesus derived from their epic mini-series “The Bible” that aired earlier this year on The History Channel. In an email from Roma Downey she said that the film will run for 2 hours and 15 minutes and it will officially be in movie theaters in early 2014. “The movie tells of... Read more
Almost every American above the age of 6 knows who Martin Luther King Jr. was because his name is attached to a federal holiday. No school and for some, no work. We learn, or we know, that because of what he and a group of courageous colleagues and collaborators organized in Washington, D.C., 50 years ago, the American South was legally desegregated in 1964, when President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act. In this new documentary on PBS,... Read more
Because I did not want to wait an hour to see “Lee Daniels’ The Butler,” I saw “In a World…”, writer/actor Lake Bell’s directorial debut that premiered earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival. What a pleasant surprise. Carol (Lake Bell) is an employment-challenged voice coach and daughter of a famous movie trailer voice-over narrator, Sam (Fred Melamed). Up to this point, her voice-over work is limited to training actors to speak in foreign accents. Sam is ready... Read more
D. J. Caruso’s coming-of-age film “Standing Up” opens this weekend. It’s the tasteful film version of Brock Cole’s 1990 young adult (= young adolescent) novel “The Goats” and it has a B.K. rating – bring Kleenex. It’s a movie that ought to be required viewing for parents, teachers, and camp counselors. 11 year-old Howie (Chandler Canterbury) is with a group of boys at camp and enthusiastically agrees to collect wood for the fire on the island in the lake they... Read more
For the last 15 years the disappearance and mass deaths of honeybees has been diagnosed as “colony collapse disorder”. In 2008 the CBS television show “60 Minutes” explored the phenomenon and in 2010 the documentary “Queen of the Sun: What are the bees telling us” firmly placed the cause of colony collapse disorder at the feet of pesticides. In April 2013 CBS news ran a segment: “Deepening Honey Bee Crisis Creates Worry Over Food Supply“. It’s really worth a... Read more
Jane Hayes (Keri Russell) is a complete romantic who is obsessed with Mr. Darcy as portrayed by Colin Firth in the BBC miniseries “Pride and Prejudice”. She keeps his life-size cutout image in her front room. She’s in her mid-30s and doesn’t like any of the men she dates. Her apartment is decorated in Regency style and she drives her married sister crazy with her single-minded search for the perfect man. Jane decides to take a fantasy vacation... Read more
Photo by Jenny Graham This article is a delightful surprise. By Robert Israel/ Religion and Politics In April 2010, Father Robert Ver Eecke welcomed fellow Jesuit priest and playwright Bill Cain to a public forum at Boston College (BC). Modeled on the famed “Inside the Actor’s Studio” with James Lipton, it was billed as “Inside the BC Studio with Bill Cain.” Ver Eecke, an artist-in-residence at the school, is an old friend and classmate of Cain’s. To listen to... Read more
This is an alphabetical list of books, and one journal, that may be of interest. This is not an endorsement though I am familiar with almost all of these and of course, I endorse those I wrote or contributed to! Click on the links for more information. Many thanks to Robert K. Johnston of Fuller Theological Seminary for helping me compile this list! Please add books to the list in the comment section. Thank you! Bloomsbury Companion to Religion and... Read more
The Hollywood Reporter just released its annual review, and Los Angeles’ Loyola Marymount’s School of Film and Television has been ranked No. 9 of the of the top 25 film schools in the U.S. shaping the future of cinema. (In 2012, the school was ranked No. 13 of U.S. film schools and No. 18 in the world.) According to The Hollywood Reporter: “LMU’s School of Film and Television … is all about the internships. One-third of its students regularly find them, and... Read more
About two weeks ago I had the opportunity to interview Reza Azlan author of the new best seller “Zealot: the Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth.” Now with the Reza Aslan interview trending on Fox News, here’s my complete interview in nine parts! Today, August 2, 2013, The Raw Story published an article about my interview with Raza Aslan with a partial transcript of one of the segments. I think my favorite segments are when Reza talks about the new... Read more
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