New York
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‘Mary Poppins Returns’ offers squeaky clean fun
By JOHN MULDERIG, Catholic News Service
Published January 10, 2019NEW YORK (CNS)—It has taken more than half a century, but at long last “Mary Poppins Returns” (Disney). The result is a delightful sequel to the 1964 classic that will divert all but the youngest and most skittish members of the family. Flashing forward some two decades or so from the Edwardian time period of […]
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‘Unbroken’ sequel depicts eventual faith conversion of World War II hero
By CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE
Published September 20, 2018NEW YORK (CNS)—In 2014, Angelina Jolie helmed the often harrowing but ultimately uplifting fact-based drama “Unbroken.” The film was based on Laura Hillenbrand’s best-selling 2010 biography of Olympic runner-turned-war-hero Louis “Louie” Zamperini (1917-2014), “Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption.” Working from the same text, director Harold Cronk continues Zamperini’s story, […]
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‘Black Panther’ tackles themes of race
By CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE
Published February 22, 2018NEW YORK (CNS)—Step aside, Huey Newton, there’s a new “Black Panther” (Disney) in town. Director and co-writer Ryan Coogler’s adaptation of a series of Marvel Comics—Stan Lee and Jack Kirby first launched the character of the title in 1966—is sprawling, energetic, lightened by some clever humor but, ultimately, overlong. Though the mayhem on screen, which […] Full Story
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‘Downsizing’ presents unexpectedly ‘humane, faith-tinged’ film
By CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE
Published January 12, 2018NEW YORK (CNS)—An odd combination of elements makes up the offbeat drama “Downsizing.” But the residue that remains with viewers is ultimately a positive one. On the dramatic level, what begins as a curious sci-fi fantasy about a futuristic technology people can use to shrink themselves (and thereby greatly reduce the toll they take on […]
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‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ offers lessons on hope, heroism
By JOHN MULDERIG, Catholic News Service
Published December 21, 2017NEW YORK (CNS)—Despite the high price of a movie ticket these days, patrons are unlikely to come away from a showing of the engrossing sci-fi epic “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” (Disney) feeling shortchanged. Vast in scale and operatic in intensity, this 152-minute visit to that galaxy far, far away is both satisfying and, for […] Full Story
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The ‘Wonder’ of everyday heroes depicts ‘significance of everyday life’
By CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE
Published November 28, 2017NEW YORK (CNS)—“Wonder” (Lionsgate) is a beautiful film about ugliness. Its protagonist is August “Auggie” Pullman (Jacob Tremblay), a 10-year-old boy born with facial deformities whose misshapen visage becomes a moral Rorschach test for the people around him. This gentle, moving drama centers on Auggie’s struggle to win acceptance from his peers as he transitions […] Full Story
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‘No Greater Love’ explores topic of those who sacrifice
By JOSEPH MCALEER, Catholic News Service
Published November 28, 2017NEW YORK (CNS)—“No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 13:15). That biblical truth is vividly reinforced in “No Greater Love” (Atlas), a compelling documentary about the experiences of U.S. combat soldiers in Afghanistan and their postwar struggles to resume their lives back home. In 2011, Justin […] Full Story
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‘Only the Brave’ depicts risks, humanity of elite firefighters
By CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE
Published October 23, 2017NEW YORK (CNS)—The heartbreaking true story of an elite Arizona firefighting team comes to the big screen in “Only the Brave” (Columbia). In 2013, the Granite Mountain Hotshots—as the group was known—risked their lives and raced into a raging inferno to save a neighboring town from destruction. Given more recent fire calamities, their striking example […]
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‘Hidden Figures,’ ‘Hacksaw Ridge’ among Christopher Award winners
By CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE
Published May 19, 2017NEW YORK (CNS)—The films “Hidden Figures” and “Hacksaw Ridge,” both of which were Best Picture nominees at this year’s Academy Awards, are both winners in the 68th annual Christopher Awards. Winners in movies, television and books were announced March 28 by the Christophers, who started the awards in 1949 to honor writers, producers, directors, authors […] Full Story
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‘The Case for Christ’ succeeds with intelligent apologetics
By CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE
Published April 20, 2017NEW YORK (CNS)—Christian apologetics, the branch of theology devoted to proving the reasonableness of belief in Jesus, is almost as old as the faith itself. Three documents in this genre, for instance, survive from the writings of St. Justin Martyr, who died in the middle of the second century. In 1998, former journalist Lee Strobel […]
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HBO’s ‘Abortion: Stories Women Tell’ has unmistakable pro-choice slant
By CHRIS BYRD, Catholic News Service
Published April 6, 2017NEW YORK (CNS)—TV viewers may not want to watch a program showcasing pro-life supporters and proponents of keeping abortion legal shouting heedlessly at each other. Nonetheless, HBO premiered Tracy Droz Tragos’ new documentary, “Abortion: Stories Women Tell,” 8-9:35 p.m. EDT on April 3. Tragos’ previous films include “Rich Hill,” which she co-directed with her cousin, […] Full Story
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‘Beauty and the Beast’ an engaging movie with veiled agenda
By JOSEPH MCALEER, Catholic News Service
Published March 23, 2017NEW YORK (CNS)—Disney’s live-action adaptation of its beloved 1991 animated film “Beauty and the Beast” arrives in theaters amid a swirl of controversy over the updating of one of its characters into an openly gay man. The decision of the studio, director Bill Condon (“Dreamgirls”), and screenwriters Stephen Chbosky and Evan Spiliotopoulos to reimagine LeFou […] Full Story
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‘Before I Fall’—a last day on earth relived
By JOHN MULDERIG, Catholic News Service
Published March 9, 2017NEW YORK (CNS)—Sound values underlie the conversion story “Before I Fall” (Open Road). But the path toward its positive conclusion takes twists and turns that will give the parents of targeted teens pause in considering whether their kids should travel it. Early on in the film, its main character, seemingly successful high school student Samantha […] Full Story
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The envelope, please: The 10 best movies and family films of 2016
By JOHN MULDERIG, Catholic News Service
Published February 24, 2017NEW YORK (CNS)—The quality of the best Hollywood films was higher in 2016 than in some recent years. But the outstanding movies of the 12 months just past tended to deal with challenging subject matter. Assassination, the exactions of combat, even religious repression enforced through torture were all dealt with in a skillful way—but also […]
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New HBO series presents distorted, profane view of papacy
By CHRIS BYRD, Catholic News Service
Published January 27, 2017NEW YORK (CNS)—Behind the opening credits of “The Young Pope,” a naked baby boy crawls over a sea of infant mannequins, and a man dressed as the Roman pontiff emerges at the other end. As bizarre as that may sound, the controversial, provocative new miniseries from pay-cable channel HBO only gets stranger from there. The […] Full Story
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‘20th Century Women’ searches for plot, real insight
By KURT JENSEN, Catholic News Service
Published January 27, 2017NEW YORK (CNS)—The moral compass in “20th Century Women” (A24), writer-director Mike Mills’ rambling, unfiltered drama—loosely based on his adolescence in 1970s Santa Barbara, California—is not one of the characters. Rather, it’s President Jimmy Carter. Specifically, the film makes use of Carter’s sermon-like “Crisis of Confidence” address, usually mislabeled as his “malaise” speech. In it, […]
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Scorsese’s complicated vision of fidelity to the faith illuminated in ‘Silence’
By JOHN MULDERIG, Catholic News Service
Published January 12, 2017NEW YORK (CNS)—Directed and co-written (with Jay Cocks) by Martin Scorsese, “Silence” (Paramount) is a dramatically powerful but theologically complex work best suited to viewers who come to the multiplex prepared to engage with serious issues. Those willing to make such an intellectual investment, however, will find themselves richly rewarded. In adapting Catholic author Shusaku […] Full Story
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‘Manchester’ depicts journey of one man’s crushing suffering
By JOHN P. MCCARTHY, Catholic News Service
Published January 12, 2017NEW YORK (CNS)—At the center of filmmaker Kenneth Lonergan’s drama “Manchester by the Sea” (Roadside) lays a crushed soul flawlessly embodied by actor Casey Affleck. Affleck’s character, Lee Chandler, is a janitor in several Boston-area apartment buildings. A terse yet proficient handyman, he has little interest in conversing with tenants or in social interaction of […] Full Story
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Appealing ‘Hidden Figures’ tells untold history of race relations, space race
By JOHN MULDERIG, Catholic News Service
Published January 12, 2017NEW YORK (CNS)—The struggles of the civil rights era provide the backdrop for the appealing fact-based drama “Hidden Figures” (Fox 2000). Along with a personalized insight into the injustices that still prevailed in American society in the early 1960s, director Theodore Melfi’s adaptation of Margot Lee Shetterly’s book—which centers on three extraordinarily gifted mathematicians working […] Full Story
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NBC series ‘This Is Us’ proves to be refreshingly pro-life, pro-family
By CHRIS BYRD, Catholic News Service
Published January 12, 2017NEW YORK (CNS)—The pilot episode of NBC’s drama “This Is Us” featured an eye-catching first scene. Pregnant with triplets, Rebecca Pearson (Mandy Moore) celebrated husband Jack’s (Milo Ventimiglia) 36th birthday by dancing suggestively for him, while he lay on their bed, wearing only a towel. Viewers shouldn’t let that provocative moment mislead them, however. Since […] Full Story