I think Lincoln should win this category, but don’t be surprised if Silver Linings, Argo, Les Miz, or Zero Dark Thirty actually do take home Oscar. A real surprise would be Django Unchained. Argo – The best performance in Ben Affleck’s political thriller is by Alan Arkin who plays a Hollywood producer dedicated to making a great fake movie to provide a cover for a CIA agent, played by Ben Affleck, who poses as a Canadian filmmaker, to rescue six... Read more
My final blog post about Sundance 2013: In this year’s Sundance Film Festival, the first I’ve attended, women made half of the approximately 200 films screened. This is a milestone even for a festival that has celebrated independent filmmaking from its beginning in the early 1980s. The cinematic lineup of the 2013 festival, held Jan. 17-27, included films from 39 countries and 51 first-time filmmakers. I saw only 21 films in competition or premiering at the festival (and three others),... Read more
Almost a year ago (April 5, 2012) I reviewed Nanni Moretti’s dramedy “We have a Pope”. Click here for the full review. Here is the sidebar I wrote to accompany the review: Wandering popes, real and fictional For “We Have a Pope,” Italian director Nanni Moretti seems to draw on previous stories about wandering popes and those who resigned, real and fictional. Ignazio Silone’s 1968 The Story of a Humble Christian offers a fictional imagining of the true-life election and resignation... Read more
Here’s is a conversation that I had with radio host Sharon DiCicca of Toronto’s Radio Maria. Sharon is a wonderful host and producer and I think you will enjoy this show. HMWN Radio Maria is a Canadian Catholic Radio Station based in Toronto. This is a link to the HMWN Radio Maria Audio Archives: Click here for the audio file: In conversation about the 2012 film”Les Miserables”. — Sharon DiCecco says: — — To love another person is... Read more
Saturday, February 16 at 9:30am to 12:00pm UH – University Hall, 1000 1 LMU Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90045 In a lecture on film ethics, a minister once asked his students: “up until 50 years ago, people learned values, ethics, morals, and spirituality through their sacred texts and clergy. Today, much of our culture learns about these things through the movies. How can we enhance our lives through a deeper understanding of this powerful media?” This... Read more
The 2013 Sundance Film Festival came to a close with an impressive list of award-winners. Of these, I saw and reviewed seven of them: “Circles” (review below), “The Square,” “Who is Dayani Cristal?“, “Crystal Fairy,” “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints?” and “Upstream Color.” According to the Sundance website, “The 2013 Sundance Film Festival presented 119 feature-length films, representing 32 countries and 51 first-time filmmakers (including 27 in competition), and 65 short films. These films were selected from a record 12,146 submissions (429 more... Read more
Ever since I was assigned to Los Angeles in 2002, I have wanted to come to the Sundance Film Festival. Colleagues and friends from Family Theater/Angelus Student Awards and Fuller Theological Seminary were making plans to attend and create some kind of event for students. In 2004, John and Ed Priddy, award-winning film producers, in collaboration with the above, began the Windrider Forum. They had discovered The Branch, a Christian church in Park City, and the pastor generously provided space — and... Read more
PBS always has something interesting waiting in the wings. This week, it will broadcast a trifecta of significant documentaries. “The Revisionaries” (Independent Lens) 10 p.m. Monday (check local listings) Of all the films I have seen from PBS’s Independent Lens series, “The Revisionaries” is the most unsettling. It confirms what I have heard and read over the last few years about the influence of fundamentalist Christians in public education through the narrow focus of creationism, or religious belief, over science... Read more
PARK CITY, Utah – On the day before she entered a Catholic boarding school in August 1967, as a 15-year-old who felt the call to be a nun, Rose Pacatte indulged in a final fling with the secular world. She went to the local drive-in to see “The Dirty Dozen.” While young Rose’s stirrings toward religious life had been inspired in part by films about nuns – “The Song of Bernadette,” “The Trouble with Angels” – she expected... Read more
As the films continue to premiere and the voting for audience awards moves forward, it occurs to me that Sundance is a place you don’t want to come unless you are willing to have your worldview questioned. Some will argue that Sundance has a reputation for a liberal agenda, and this is somewhat true if your lens is fixed on the political. But if your lens is made up of human stories about people’s ethical and moral choices as well... Read more
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