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Last week’s episode of “Reel Faith,” now available at the
Reel Faith website, was the last episode for the summer. Following NET’s season schedule, the show is now on hiatus. When will we return? Watch this space! I’ll keep you posted.
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Teens & Up
Juli Baker and Bryce Loski live in different worlds. She lives on one side of the street, he on the other. Bryce, whose family is the picture of Eisenhower-era suburban respectability, learns from his father’s disdain that the Bakers aren’t; Juli is blissfully unaware either of the Loskis’ well-to-do-ness or of her own family’s hardships. They see each other every day from the time they are seven without ever really seeing each other.
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If you missed last week’s episode of “Reel Faith,” now’s the time to catch it on the website.
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Although my normal blogging beat is movies, I’ve been writing 9/11-related pieces
since September 2001. I live in New Jersey, but New York is practically my second home city; I went to school there, and I’m there all the time for screenings and such. On September 11, 2001 I watched with my own eyes from my balcony at work across the Hudson in New Jersey as the towers burned and fell.
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Last weekend saw a lopsided box-office collision of two very different types of action hero: In one corner,
The Expendables, an old-fashioned 1980s-style action-fest drenched in testosterone, adrenaline and blood; in the other corner,
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, starring Michael Cera as a geeky slacker with mad video-game-style combat skills.
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Just a reminder that the latest episode of “
Reel Faith” airs tonight, 8/20, at 8:30pm EDT on NET TV (
watch online).
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Kids & Up
The second time is the charm with
Nanny McPhee Returns, a sequel that improves on the original 2005
Nanny McPhee by more than a nose — even if it’s the bulbous nose of Nanny McPhee herself.
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“Not with a bang but with a whimper” was T. S. Eliot’s revisionist idea of the world’s end in
The Hollow Men. He was almost right. Not with a whimper, but with a million whimpers, each more feeble and bathetic than the last, is the way we seem to be slouching toward oblivion.
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Will the new Julia Roberts movie
Eat Pray Love encourage viewers to buy into spiritual ideas? Or will it just encourage them to buy?
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Okay, so this is like, what, the third shout-out in as many weeks to reader Victor, but his combox quip in my NCRegister.com review of
Eat Pray Love deserves the widest possible audience.
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Just a belated reminder that the latest episode of “
Reel Faith” airs tonight, 8/13, at 8:30pm EDT on NET TV (
watch online).
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Adults
Among the least inspiring phrases in the English language, I wrote in my review of
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, is “based on a video game.”
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is not based on a video game, but video games are part of its artistic DNA, along with comic books, anime, kung fu movies and music videos. Big difference.
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Adults
Americans have an abiding affinity for consumerist self-indulgence and for pop spirituality, and a marriage of the two is a winning combination. “God never slams a door in your face,” Gilbert writes, “without opening a box of Girl Scout cookies.” Yep, there’ll be no shortage of people eating that one up.
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Props to reader Victor for highlighting this
infographic from a few years back analyzing the differences between the creative processes at Pixar and DreamWorks.
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Just a reminder that the latest episode of “
Reel Faith” airs this Friday, 8/6, at 8:30pm EDT on NET TV (
watch online).
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Hat tip to reader Rachel for her combox suggestion that I follow up my
“best family films” post with a post on “
worst family films.”
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Teens & Up
Funerals are not for the dead, but for the living. The idea that this or that arrangement is what the deceased “would have wanted” may be consoling, but the consolation is ours, not theirs. Even if we console ourselves in view of our own eventual death by preplanning our funeral down to the last detail, the whole business of working out and documenting our wishes and preferences remains our endeavor just so long as we remain among the living. Once the funeral is actually upon us, it no longer belongs to us, but to our survivors. They may or may not follow our wishes, but whether they do or don’t, they do it for themselves, not us.
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The greatest family film of all time? Respondents polled for a
Radio Times magazine survey ranked Steven Spielberg’s
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial as the best, with
The Wizard of Oz in the runner-up spot.
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Adults*
A sensitive cultural ethnography of the exotic, much-maligned world of Southern Pentecostalism; a complex study of a character whose many contradictions startlingly combine sacred and profane dimensions; a spiritual exploration of the inscrutable workings of guilt and grace:
The Apostle—long labored over by writer, director, producer, and star Robert Duvall—is all of these.
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Just a quick note to say: After taking off about sixteen days over the last several weeks, I’m now back at my desk for the duration. Watch for a bump up in the rate of new material appearing here at Decent Films! That is all for the moment.
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I’ve been on vacation this week—hence the absence of other new material—but for those who’ve been following my Italian pilgrimage blogging at NCRegister.com, I’ve just posted the final two parts,
Update 5 and
Update 6.
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*** |
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Teens & Up*
Salt is tasty in moderation, though you wouldn’t want to make it a big part of your diet.
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Kids & Up
Faithful to the spirit if not the letter of Beverly Cleary’s
Ramona books,
Ramona and Beezus borrows eclectically from multiple books rather than sticking to one, but gets right what most matters, above all Ramona herself.
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Tune in Friday, July 22 at 8:30pm EDT for another episode of “Reel Faith.”
Reviewed this week:
Salt,
Predators and
Ramona and Beezus, plus Rossellini’s
Open City and comments about
Creation.
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Just a quick note that Friday’s episode of “Reel Faith” is now available at the
show’s website. This is our sixth episode, and I think we’ve started to hit our stride. If you missed the broadcast on Friday, check it out online!
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Teens & Up
If the two British twits on the titular train in Carol Reed’s overlooked, entertaining
Night Train to Munich seem to have wandered in from another movie, it’s because they have.
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Adults
Inception is the most audacious and multifaceted Hollywood entertainment for grown-ups I’ve seen in years: a brainy, bravura achievement inviting comparison to the most inspired work of Hollywood visionaries from Michael Mann and Charlie Kaufman to Ridley Scott and the Wachowskis.
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Kids & Up*
The first good thing about
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is that it isn’t called
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: Oath of the Dragon Ring or
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: Nesting Dolls of Doom.
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This Friday I’ll be doing an hour of “
Catholic Answers Live” with Patrick Coffin
and co-hosting the latest episode of “
Reel Faith” with David DiCerto! In both venues we’ll be discussing the latest movies:
Inception,
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and
Despicable Me.
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