Georgia Bulletin

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• Georgia Bulletin honored with 10 awards at Catholic Media Conference

  By CAROL ZIMMERMANN, Catholic News Service
  Published July 9, 2015

  BUFFALO, N.Y. (CNS)—The Georgia Bulletin, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Atlanta, was the recipient of 10 Catholic Press Association awards at the 2015 Catholic Media Conference held in June. The conference, sponsored by the CPA and the Catholic Academy of Communication Arts Professionals, was held June 24-26 in Buffalo, New York; some 300 people attended […] Full Story

• Comic-book reissue of St. John XXIII’s life improves on the original

  By MARK JUDGE, Catholic News Service
  Published March 20, 2015

  NEW YORK (CNS)—Forget the Avengers. The coolest Marvel-related character this year is Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, better known to the world as St. John XXIII. “The Story of Pope John XXIII” (MSJT Publishing) is a reissue of a profile written and drawn by Joe Sinnott, an artist known for inking some of the most memorable Marvel […] Full Story

• Oscar’s got nothin’ on us: The real best movies, family films of 2014

  

  By JOHN MULDERIG, Catholic News Service
  Published March 5, 2015

  NEW YORK (CNS)—The year just past saw the release of a number of films whose celebrated cinematic quality was not matched by moral merit. Writer-director Richard Linklater’s “Boyhood,” for instance, though remarkable for being filmed over the course of more than a decade, took an indifferent stand toward the unacceptable experimentation of its youthful main […] Full Story

• ‘Kingsman: The Secret Service’ amusing but excessively violent

  

  By CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE
  Published February 19, 2015

  NEW YORK (CNS)—Iconic spy James Bond gets younger, hipper competition via “Kingsman: The Secret Service” (Fox). This suave but excessively violent adaptation of Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons’ 2012 comic book series “The Secret Service” is directed and co-written—with Jane Goldman—by Matthew Vaughn (“X-Men: First Class”). Terribly British to its core, the film is, at […] Full Story

• ‘American Sniper’ depicts heroism, avoids larger issue of war

  

  By CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE
  Published January 22, 2015

  NEW YORK (CNS)—For those seeking an insight into an individual veteran’s perspective on the Iraq War, director Clint Eastwood’s sober drama “American Sniper” (Warner Bros.)—which stars Bradley Cooper as real-life Navy SEAL Chris Kyle—will likely hit home. Yet moviegoers in search of a bigger-picture moral assessment of that conflict, or of armed clashes in general, […] Full Story

• Pope Francis superhero in ‘I Believe in Mercy’ manga-style comic book

  By MARK JUDGE, Catholic News Service
  Published January 8, 2015

  NEW YORK (CNS)—The publisher Manga Hero specializes in combining two seemingly disparate things: comic books in the Japanese, or manga, style and Catholic subject matter. The imprint’s founder, Jonathan Lin, whose father grew up in Japan, has used this aesthetic—which is known, among other things, for its kinetic energy—to celebrate the lives of St. John […] Full Story

• ‘Selma’ illuminates pivotal conflict in battle for equality

  

  By JOHN MULDERIG, Catholic News Service
  Published January 8, 2015

  NEW YORK (CNS)—Arriving on screens almost precisely 50 years after the events it portrays unfolded, director Ava DuVernay’s fact-based drama “Selma” (Paramount) compellingly recreates a crucial battle in the long struggle for African-American equality. Adult subject matter, potentially disturbing images and intermittent lapses into vulgar language would normally suggest endorsement of DuVernay’s film for grown-ups […] Full Story

• Movie reviews: ‘The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies’

  

  By CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE
  Published December 23, 2014

  NEW YORK (CNS)—With “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies” (Warner Bros.), director Peter Jackson’s trilogy of films based on Catholic writer J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1937 fantasy novel “The Hobbit, or There and Back Again” reaches a rousing finale. Mixed opinions have been generated by Jackson’s transformation of a single, relatively slim volume into a […] Full Story

• CRS official sees wins in Ebola fight, but there’s ‘a lot more to do’

  

  By BETH GRIFFIN, Catholic News Service
  Published November 13, 2014

  RYE, N.Y. (CNS)—Catholic organizations and dioceses in the United States have responded to the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa with both generosity and extreme caution. Catholic Relief Services committed $1.5 million to its pre-existing programs in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, the three West African countries affected by widespread transmission of the Ebola virus. […] Full Story

• ‘The Book of Life’ entertains with ‘visually stunning’ animated film

  

  By JOSEPH MCALEER, Catholic News Service
  Published October 30, 2014

  NEW YORK (CNS)—Who knew the Day of the Dead could be so much fun? The Mexican method of observing All Souls’ Day, Nov. 2, is the backdrop for “The Book of Life” (Fox), an entertaining and visually stunning 3-D animated film. Traditionally on this feast day, families visit cemeteries to place gifts by the gravesides […] Full Story

• ‘Left Behind,’ first in trilogy, weaves fiction with rapture theology

  

  By KURT JENSEN, Catholic News Service
  Published October 17, 2014

  NEW YORK (CNS)—The fundamentalist conception of the rapture, as described in the best-selling “Left Behind” novels, may be arriving—for the first time—at a movie theater near you. Three earlier films, all starring Kirk Cameron, were marketed primarily as home videos, though the first did have a limited theatrical release. They never drew as large an […] Full Story

• Capsule reviews: “Gone Girl”; “The Judge”; “The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them”

  Published October 16, 2014

  NEW YORK (CNS)—The following are capsule reviews of movies recently reviewed by Catholic News Service. “Gone Girl” (Fox) A jaundiced view of marriage permeates this abrasive drama in which an apparently happy suburban couple’s dark secrets are revealed after the wife (Rosamund Pike) mysteriously disappears and all clues seem to suggest that her husband (Ben […] Full Story

• ‘The Song’ depicts Christian view on love, marriage

  

  By JOSEPH MCALEER, Catholic News Service
  Published October 2, 2014

  NEW YORK (CNS)—Taking its inspiration from the Old Testament’s Song of Songs, “The Song” (City on a Hill/Samuel Goldwyn) offers a modern-day parable on love, marriage, and remaining open and faithful to God’s plan. Writer/director Richard Ramsey cleverly weaves passages from the scriptural canticle (attributed to Solomon) to illustrate love’s eddies and currents, from courtship […] Full Story

• Pope phones family of slain U.S. journalist

  

  By CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE
  Published August 22, 2014

  NEW YORK (CNS)—Pope Francis phoned the bereaved family of James Foley, a U.S. journalist killed by Islamic State militants in Syria. In an Aug. 22 interview on NBC’s “Today” show, John and Diane Foley briefly described the previous day’s discussion with the pope, in which they spoke of shared grief at the death of loved […] Full Story

• Msgr. Jeannot, retired priest for the Haitian community, dies

  Published June 26, 2014

  ATLANTA—Msgr. Francois Smith Jeannot, who served as a presiding priest for Masses for the Haitian community at Sts. Peter and Paul Church in Decatur, died recently. Msgr. Jeannot began serving at the Decatur parish in 2012 after retiring from ministry in the Jacmel Diocese in Haiti. Retired Bishop Guy Sansaricq was scheduled to preside at […] Full Story

• In Polish film ‘Ida,’ a novice finds her identity

  

  By KURT JENSEN, Catholic News Service
  Published June 12, 2014

  NEW YORK (CNS)—The starkly beautiful minimalist masterpiece that is “Ida” (Music Box) adroitly navigates two horrific eras of Polish history as an aspiring nun discovers her true identity. While brisk and unadorned at a brief 80 minutes, the film is nevertheless anything but simplistic. Director and co-writer (with Rebecca Lenkiewicz) Pawel Pawlikowski assumes that the […] Full Story

• ‘Boxers & Saints’: Faith and rebellion in China

  By MARK JUDGE, Catholic News Service
  Published May 15, 2014

  NEW YORK (CNS)—“Boxers & Saints” (First Second Books), a two-volume graphic novel written and drawn by Gene Luen Yang, is an example of comic art at its best. Author Yang is a practicing Catholic who teaches computer science at Bishop O’Dowd High School in Oakland, California. But “Boxers & Saints” is more than simple cartoon […] Full Story

• Recent films take on Christian themes, with varying success

  

  By JOHN MULDERIG, Catholic News Service
  Published April 3, 2014

  NEW YORK (CNS)—“Noah” (Paramount), which begins as a fairly straightforward recounting of the biblical story of the flood, eventually veers off into a grim, scripturally unfounded drama about a family dispute. This clan conflict is driven by the titular patriarch’s (Russell Crowe) misguided interpretation of God’s purposes in causing the deluge. Though Noah’s extreme pro-nature, […] Full Story

• Sixties cartoon characters get new life in ‘Mr. Peabody & Sherman’

  

  By JOHN MULDERIG, Catholic News Service
  Published March 20, 2014

  NEW YORK (CNS)—Baby boomers old enough to recall an animated moose named Bullwinkle and his flying-squirrel sidekick, Rocky, will also likely remember the titular characters of “Mr. Peabody & Sherman” (Fox). That’s because, in their original incarnation, the latter duo figured in a series of short cartoons that were shown as part of the TV […] Full Story

• A look at Hollywood lineup of coming movies with biblical, faith themes

  

  By KURT JENSON, Catholic News Service
  Published February 6, 2014

  NEW YORK (CNS)—The long-standing charge against Hollywood by people of faith is that Tinseltown doesn’t take believers seriously when it comes to film fare. But with a fistful of biblical epics ready to roll out nationwide in 2014 and even beyond, there will be plenty of evidence to test that assumption. First up on the […] Full Story