NEW YORK — “Collateral Beauty” (Warner Bros.) is a strange, pretentious drama about overcoming grief. While that’s obviously a subject about which a good film – perhaps many of them – might be made, the treatment of it in director David Frankel’s quirky mess of a movie is at once too bizarre and too pat […]
Office Christmas Party
NEW YORK — Cubicle drones cuts loose in “Office Christmas Party” (Paramount). The result is a sleazy soiree, an “Animal House” toga wingding for the spreading-middle and receding-hairline set. What matters here is that seemingly respectable bourgeois business types should be emboldened, via the consumption of vast amounts of alcohol, to Xerox their bare backsides […]
Colorful Scripture for Dec. 8, 2016
Photo illustration by Phil Younk Click on the photo for a printable PDF! Focus on presence not presents Based on Is 35:1-6a, 10; Jas 5: 7-10; Mt 11:2-11 On this third Sunday of Advent, Gaudete Sunday, there is joyful expectation in the readings. Gaudete means, “Rejoice.” Three candles are lit in the Advent wreath, including […]
Incarnate
NEW YORK — Somewhere in the planning stages of “Incarnate” (BH Tilt), someone must have thought it would be a good idea to combine elements of Christopher Nolan’s 2010 tour de force “Inception” with tropes that have been familiar to moviegoers at least since Linda Blair’s head went spinning round in “The Exorcist” way back […]
Book on monks offers some excellent insights but skimpy theology
“Illuminating the Way: Embracing the Wisdom of Monks and Mystics” by Christine Valters Paintner; icons by Marcy Hall. Sorin Books (Notre Dame, Indiana, 2016). 224 pp., $17.95. “Illuminating the Way” excels for those looking for the horizontal church and horizontal spiritual practice, which is to say for a strong me-centered path of therapeutic religion. Such […]
For book on Pope Francis, author retraces pope’s life in Argentina, Rome
WASHINGTON — When Pope Francis first stepped onto the balcony overlooking St. Peter’s Square in Rome, Mark Shriver like millions of other people around the world was captivated by this man who humbly bowed his head after asking the people there to pray for him, before he would offer his first blessing to them. Shriver […]
Colorful Scripture for Dec. 1, 2016
Photo illustration by Phil Younk Click on the photo for a printable PDF! John the Baptist calls us to conversion, commitment Based on Is 11:1-10; Rom 12:4-9; Mt 3:1-12 He lived in the desert. He wore clothes made of camel’s hair, which are hot, itchy and uncomfortable. He ate locusts and wild honey. He had […]
Books show importance of moms’ faith, health on faith, health of world
“The First 1,000 Days: A Crucial Time for Mothers and Children – And the World” by Roger Thurow. Public Affairs (Philadelphia, 2016). 262 pp., $26.99. “Divine Mercy for Moms: Sharing the Lessons of St. Faustina” by Michele Faehnle and Emily Jaminet. Ave Maria Press (Notre Dame, Indiana, 2016). 135 pp., $14.95. Two new books show […]
Moana
NEW YORK — The same tropical setting that provided the backdrop for the 1949 musical “South Pacific” now lends its exotic flavor to the animated feature “Moana” (Disney). As for the feminism-friendly story of the movie’s eponymous heroine, well, as Rodgers and Hammerstein’s lovelorn Seabees so famously declared, “There is nothing like a dame.” The […]
Allied
NEW YORK — Like time travelers from the Golden Age of Hollywood studio films, the characters played by Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard in “Allied” (Paramount) don’t allow a little event like World War II to muss their elegant coifs. Whether taking out the German ambassador in Casablanca with their burp guns or having their […]
