Inspirational media for today's Catholics
"Who's the fairest one of all?" The answer may surprise you in "Mirror Mirror" (Relativity), a fresh live-action take on the Brothers Grimm fairy tale "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." This go-round, the handsome prince is the center of attention, as the wicked queen and her lovely stepdaughter stage a battle royal for his hand, and the fate of a kingdom hangs in the balance. Directed with high camp by Tarsem Singh ("Immortals"), "Mirror Mirror" piles on the … [Read more...]
Making a spectacle of the greatest sea disaster of the century is the special effects blockbuster, "Titanic" (Paramount), now rereleased in 3-D. Those interested in the big finish, however, will have to sit through an improbable love story long after its soggy proceedings have exhausted one's patience. The picture begins in 1996 as a scientific expedition explores the sunken remains of the RMS Titanic using, among other things, computer graphics showing how the … [Read more...]
It's interesting to speculate whether Steve Stifler – the character Seann William Scott has played throughout the much-too-long life of the "American Pie" franchise – constitutes the single most degraded specimen of humanity ever to occupy a movie screen. If so, at least the gutter-crawling comedy series has achieved one superlative. The latest dip in the slime comes titled "American Reunion" (Universal) and finds Stifler, Jim Levenstein (Jason Biggs) and the … [Read more...]
It's a safe bet that when violins start playing in a film, a big emotional moment is bound to follow. Such is the case with "The Deep Blue Sea" (Music Box); this period drama is punctuated by the soaring strings of Samuel Barber's 1939 "Violin Concerto." Based on Terence Rattigan's 1952 play and directed by Terence Davies ("Of Time and the City"), who also wrote the screenplay, "The Deep Blue Sea" charts a lonely wife's downward spiral into adultery, divorce and … [Read more...]
"Every life is beautiful." That's the tagline -- as well as the underlying theme -- of the thoroughly honorable, if not always fully effective, drama "October Baby" (Provident/Samuel Goldwyn). After she collapses on stage during the opening night of a college play, freshman Hannah Lawson (Rachel Hendrix) winds up in the hospital and on the receiving end of two pieces of staggering news: She learns first, that her devoted parents -- mom Grace (Jennifer Price) and dad … [Read more...]
The childish desire to be outrageous, which currently seems to be the driving motive of most Hollywood humor, derails yet another comedy with "21 Jump Street" (Columbia). Co-directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller's big-screen version of the once-popular television series -- which first aired on Fox in 1987 -- starts out as a good-hearted, albeit relentlessly foul-mouthed, buddy study. But, as the vulgarities continue to fly, that apparently irresistible urge to … [Read more...]
Put religion in retreat, erode ethics and let materialism run rampant, and what kind of entertainment will you get? The short answer is "Project X" (Warner Bros.). More troubling than mere trash, and pornographic in a way that goes well beyond its frequent displays of flesh, this profoundly irresponsible undertaking -- a would-be comedy -- concerns three Los Angeles teens: meek, easily misled Thomas (Thomas Mann), overweight nebbish JB (Jonathan Daniel Brown) and … [Read more...]
"Unless someone like you cares an awful lot, nothing is going to get better." That's the urgent moral of a beloved children's book now translated into a 3-D animated feature as "Dr. Seuss' The Lorax" (Universal). This action-packed, candy-colored film for the entire family retains the charm of the original 1971 fable by Theodore Geisel while enhancing its central message: To wit, it's not nice to fool with Mother Nature. Or, in this case, Father Nature, in the … [Read more...]
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