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This Friday, February 10 I'll be appearing on the first hour of “
Catholic Answers Live” (6pm–7pm EDT).
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Thanks to my friend
Mark Shea of Catholic and Enjoying It! for including my work here at Decent Films among his “
Ten must-see web resources for Catholics” for
Our Sunday Visitor.
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Teens & Up
For
Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe, who stars as a young solicitor named Arthur Kipps,
The Woman in Black is an opportunity to make a reasonably graceful break from the role that has dominated his life since childhood. For the new owners of England’s legendary Hammer horror brand, until recently dormant from the 1970s, it’s an opportunity to stake their claim to continuing in the tradition of Terence Fisher, Jimmy Sangster et al. For curious movie watchers, it’s an opportunity to see how Radcliffe does in another role — and how an old-fashioned haunted house story plays today.
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An intriguing question posed to me in another forum: “Who is the worst Disney villain? Mother Gothel in
Tangled is
bad (kidnapping, brainwashing). The evil Queen from
Snow White?”
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Here’s my 30-second review of
The Ides of March, now on home video (somehow I neglected to post it before, so here it is).
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Friday, January 20, I’ll be on the first hour of
Catholic Answers Live! (6pm–7pm EST). Patrick Coffin and I will be talking about the best and worst films of 2011 and much much more.
Listen live!
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2011 was a good year for film, and particularly for depictions of faith in film — but not in the Hollywood mainstream on either count.
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At last, a horror film for disaffected Catholic traditionalists embittered against the Church for post-Vatican II changes; who see the Church itself, not just the larger culture, as compromised by modernism, and impeding orthodox clerics from carrying out true spiritual work.
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This weekend Disney’s latter-day classic
Beauty and the Beast returns to theaters in a 3D converted version. I was looking forward to taking the whole family to last weekend’s 3D screening, but life got in the way. As for the film itself, I have nothing to add to
my recent review; here it is.
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Tuesday, 1/10: This afternoon I’ll be on Catholic radio twice in the 5 o’clock hour (EST) discussing a pair of movies with very Catholic themes (a comment that should
not be taken as an endorsement!).
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Recognition and praise are always appreciated, but this month’s
shout-out from Image Journal naming me their Artist of the Month for January 2012 is especially gratifying. They have some thoughtful comments about my film writing, both with respect to craft and content, and the guy they’re describing sounds to me like the guy I try to be. Suz says they nailed me. What do you think?
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Following up on my
“Still Christmas” post on Advent and Christmas family traditions, Christmas movies are an important tradition in many households. For me, Christmas movies are an especially important way of marking the continuing Christmas season. In general, I would rather watch Christmas movies with my kids
after Christmas day, rather than before, as a way of celebrating the Christmas season.
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All Advent long, observant Catholics and other Christians hold the line against premature Christmas, holding off on decking the halls and singing Christmas carols during what is meant to be a time of preparation. Now, as the world is busily dismantling what’s left of its Christmas trappings, it’s time for Christians to double down on the continued celebration of the Christmas season.
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It’s been well over a decade since Steven Spielberg directed a family film. Now he has two out in the same week—both based on juvenile literary source material, and both European-set period pieces, redolent of nostalgia of one sort or another.
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Here’s my 30-second take on
War Horse.
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Here’s my 30-second take on
The Adventures of Tintin.
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Here’s my 30-second take on
The Artist.
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Here’s my 30-second take on
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol.
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I usually stay far away from trailers. I like to experience movies as cold as possible. But this is Peter Jackson’s
The Hobbit, and my fine principles have failed me. The film itself is still a year off … and I can’t wait that long to satisfy my curiosity.
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Teens & Up
Brad Bird’s
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol is so preposterously entertaining that it makes watching other recent Hollywood action spectacles feel like work. What in the last few years even compares to it?
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Here’s my 30-second take on
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
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Here’s my 30-second take on Martin Scorsese’s
Hugo.
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Here’s my 30-second take on Aardman Animation’s
Arthur Christmas.
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It’s hard to believe that many American children venturing into the theaters to see
Happy Feet Two will have their first experience of Sylvester and Tweety Bird on the big screen in a new computer-animated short, “I Tawt I Taw a Putty Tat.” Hard to believe, first, that Sylvester and Tweety are back on the big screen—and, second, that these iconic animated characters that defined Saturday morning for decades and were beloved big-screen icons before that have become pretty much strangers to many of the current generation of kids. How did
that happen?
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Last week’s “Reel Faith” season finale is now online at the
show’s website. This is the end of regular “Reel Faith” programming until next year’s summer season, although we may come back for one-off episodes a couple of times in the interim, and we’ll continue to produce 30-second reviews.
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Kids & Up
This is quite deliberately
not a reboot or reimagining or any such thing. Perhaps we can call it a revisiting. Like this summer’s charming
Winnie the Pooh (also from Disney),
The Muppets is a happy throwback, very much of a piece with material that my generation grew up with, eclipsing the lameness of recent direct-to-video efforts. Who would have thought two classic family franchises that have lain fallow for so long would be reborn in the same year?
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Teens & Up
Little ones are “tougher than we think,” a penguin remarks in
Happy Feet Two, and you can tell director George Miller believes it. The animated sequel pulls few punches: It’s overshadowed by more darkness, menace, heartache and anxiety than any talking-animal picture I can think of since, well, Miller’s last family-film sequel, the execrable
Babe: Pig in the City. Neither the classic
Babe nor the original
Happy Feet contained any hint of the darkness of the sequels. Apparently Miller’s strategy is to soften kids up first, then drop the bomb.
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Disney’s
Tangled in 30 seconds — in rhyming verse.
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Here’s my 30-second rhyming review of
Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows: Part 1.
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Don’t give them any more of your time.
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