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Programming note: Latest reviews and the “Reel Faith” season finale

Tonight’s episode of “Reel Faith,” is the season finale, and partly for that reason this week I attended an almost unprecedented four screenings: the latest Twilight, Happy Feet Two, Arthur Christmas and The Muppets. Another reason for the heavy screenings was for the sake of my Friday morning radio shows (since of course I’ll be off next week.

Tower Heist [video]

Here’s my 30-second take on Tower Heist.

Spam filter snafu

Dear readers: I just discovered a large number of reader emails incorrectly flagged as spam by my email client’s spam filter. If you wrote to me in October and I haven’t written back, that may be the reason why. If you wrote to me before October and I haven’t written back, I’m afraid your email may have been automatically deleted. I apologize for this and will be more vigilant about watching the spam filter in the future. I hope you’ll write again.

Broken Family Films

I think it was six years ago, coming home from a screening of Zathura, that I started seriously wrestling with the problem of what I’ve come to call the Broken Family Film.

Sarandon calls pope “Nazi”; ADL calls for apology

Memo to Susan Sarandon, vis-a-vis your “Nazi pope” comments this weekend: Joseph Ratzinger was a victim of the Nazi horror.

“Catholicism” Comes to PBS

Inspired by Kenneth Clark’s groundbreaking 1969 BBC series “Civilisation,” which ushered in a generation of globe-hopping documentaries, Fr. Barron and his crew employ a worldwide backdrop that includes the Holy Land, Europe, Africa, India, the Philippines — at least 50 locations in 15 countries. Unabashedly a work of advocacy, even evangelization, Catholicism offers a confident, upbeat overview of the scope of 2000 years of Catholic history, belief, thought and practice.

Girls Rule, Boys Drool? Stereotyping the sexes in family films

Over and over we see smart, tough, confident, independent heroines — Astrid in How to Train Your Dragon; Hermione in the Harry Potter films; Tigress in Kung Fu Panda; Eve in Wall-E; Colette in Ratatouille; Jewel in Rio — next to whom the heroes appear variously awkward, diffident, incapable, clueless or ridiculous.

Machine Gun Preacher [video]

Here’s my 30-second take on Machine Gun Preacher. See also my related interview with Sam Childers.

Hollywood and the Bible: How can filmmakers get it right?

The recent announcement that Black Swan director Darren Aronofsky is moving forward with a $130 million adaptation of the story of Noah’s ark comes on the heels of last week’s news that Steven Spielberg is being sought to direct a new epic on the life of Moses for Warner Bros. These are just two of a remarkably high number of Hollywood biblical projects in the works at the moment.

Moses, Spielberg & DeMille: Why Spielberg should do the next Moses movie

There’s something instantly appealing about the thought of Spielberg directing Hollywood’s first major live-action take on Moses’ story since Cecil B. DeMille’s 1956 crowning achievement, The Ten Commandments.

On the Air: Catholic Answers Live, 9/30/2011

This Friday, September 30, I’ll be on the second hour of Catholic Answers Live! (7pm–8pm EDT). Patrick Coffin and I will be talking about new and older movies including The Way, Courageous, The Lion King, Machine Gun Preacher, Moneyball, Dolphin Tale, Contagion, Citizen Kane, Warrior and more.

Contagion [video]

Contagion may not be everyone’s ideal date movie, but I’m married to an RN who prefers a good medical thriller to a trite chick flick. Suz was impressed with the technical realism of Contagion. I was impressed too. Here’s my 30-second take.

“Reel Faith” is back — and what you can do about it!

I’m pleased to report that “Reel Faith”—the Catholic movie review TV show that I co-host with David DiCerto—is back for a special fall season, and that episode 1 is now available at the Reel Faith website at NetNY.net!

Spotlight: “Hollywood Adjustment?”

Having blogged this week on this month’s trend of religiously themed films (Warrior, Machine Gun Preacher, Courageous and Seven Days in Utopia, with The Way and The Mighty Macs just around the corner), “Hollywood Adjustment?” is timely again.

Current Faith-Themed Movies Explore Masculinity

The mixed martial arts drama Warrior, now in theaters, is one of no fewer than four theatrical releases to be released this month featuring Christian themes and being marketed specifically to Christians … notably, three of the four—Warrior, Machine Gun Preacher and Courageous—are overtly concerned with masculinity and what it means to be a man.

Site Update: Tags!

All reader feedback is welcome! If you think of any articles missing from tags that should include them, or if you find any that should be removed, please let me know. And, of course, let me know what new tags you’d like to see. Thanks!

Warrior: Invective & Insight

Good grief. Salon.com critic Andrew O’Hehir, who wound up in a blogging skirmish with Roger Ebert after blasting Secretariat as a “honey-dipped fantasy vision of the American past as the Tea Party would like to imagine it,” is at it again.

“Nooooooooooooooo!”

Tomorrow Star Wars finally comes to Blu-ray in three editions: The Original Trilogy, The Prequel Trilogy, and The Complete Saga. Good news for Star Wars fans, right? If you’re a Star Wars fan, though, you may already know—or, if you didn’t know, you might have guessed—that George Lucas wouldn’t be content to release the same old twice-retweaked versions of the films released on DVD in 2004.

Sorry no updates this week

Just a quick note to say that while Irene put a dent in my writing schedule this week and I’ve completed none of the projects I hoped to post by today, I plan to hit the ground running after Labor Day and will be posting multiple pieces next week.

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