Opinion

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Patrick Stewart’s acting career (yes, I’m serious about the headline, and no, there’s no bait and switch: this intro is merely a “to be sure” throat-clearing aside, so bear with me) was far of course larger and more accomplished than the two enduring pop-culture roles to which he owed his household-name celebrity. Like many great ... read more

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All my life, I’ve loved going to the movies partly for the social experience of seeing a movie with an audience. Movies are among the most “catholic” of art forms, and theaters have been called the “church of the masses.” It was strange to go to theaters this week, not once but twice, and ... read more

Lovingly adapted from Stephen King’s novella of the same name, The Life of Chuck was written and directed by Mike Flanagan, for whom the material is so well suited that King might as well have written it for him. Both storytellers are best known for horror, which The Life of Chuck is not, despite some ... read more

Insofar as writer-director Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy) was hired to make an definitive break from the nihilistic, grimdark Snyderverse DC movies and recover a sense of Superman as a character so decent and generous that it’s okay if he’s corny: mission accomplished. This is the first new big-screen interpretation of Superman since the Christopher ... read more

While this may not make it a great film, it does make Elio the kind of movie that will actually captivate young viewers in particular. Where other recent Pixar releases have been distinctly adolescent coming-of-age stories (Turning Red, Elemental) and/or focused on mature themes (Soul, Onward), Elio is fantastical escapism for children. It’s very silly; ... read more

In July of last year I interviewed filmmaker Tim Moriarty for The Catholic Spirit in connection with his documentary Jesus Thirsts: The Miracle of the Eucharist. His latest nonfiction film, Carlo Acutis: Roadmap to Reality, blends Eucharistic themes with concerns about digital technology as these motifs converge in the life and spirituality of Millennial ... read more

I have long been proud of my kids for having spontaneously decided, many years ago, to give up all video games every Lent, except on Sunday afternoons and on any solemnities. Carlo Acutis, though, was next level. At eight years old, he was given a PlayStation console — and he resolved to limit himself ... read more

The phenomenon of “twin movies”—two or more films with strikingly similar plots or subject matter released in close proximity—is almost as old as Hollywood itself. I remember a remarkable string of them in the 1990s (among others, two 1993 Wyatt Earp movies, two talking-piglet family films in 1994/95, and three 1997 volcano disaster movies). ... read more

Then the phone call takes an unexpected turn, and the woman on the other end (Bridget Everett) is no longer merely a humorous impediment to a murder investigation, but a human being with her own cares and woes. As the conversation continues, Rev. Jud Duplenticy (an ingenuous John O’Connor) arrives at a moment of clarity ... read more

Given all the religious press that you’ve done for this film, you’re well aware how much enthusiasm there is out there for the character of Father Jud. I wanted you to know that one of my Catholic followers on social media said this was the first film he’d ever seen that made him want to ... read more

Like Rian Johnson’s Benoit Blanc mysteries, The Sheep Detectives is packed with an eminent cast, both playing humans and voicing sheep. Also like the Knives Out movies, the movie has more on its mind than solving a case. Loosely adapted by Craig Mazin from German writer Leonie Swann’s Three Bags Full: A Sheep ... read more

The upshot is that Spielberg still wants to trust the divine mysteries of the Universe, and he wants to trust humanity to embrace empathy and solidarity—but he does not trust powerful men, organizational secretiveness, or, a fortiori, the military–industrial complex. He believes we need sunlight—truth and transparency—which is to say we need whistleblowers and a ... read more

Historically, I’ve said that my Top 5 MCU movies are, in alphabetical order: Regarding Captain America: The Winter Soldier, for what it’s worth, while I’m not the biggest fan, I do appreciate its relatively grounded action sequences (at least until the typically outsized, monumental finale), from the opening commando assault on a pirated ship to ... read more

Toward the end of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, Matt Damon’s Odysseus has a despairing line clearly influenced by an aphorism from the Talmud memorably cited in Schindler’s List: “Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire.” The Talmud also sees absolute significance in the destruction of one life; this is more the sense of ... read more