The annual Hollywood awards season is late arriving, but that doesn’t mean it has lost its impact or importance. In fact, it has suddenly brought more choice for both big screen and home viewing. The delay, of course, is Covid-19 related, as most cinemas in North America, Europe, and much of the rest of the … Read More about Awards season boosts choice
Reviews
Ghosts in the Opera House
The essence of any great ghost story is the ... Read More about Ghosts in the Opera House
Streaming sweetens summer cinema
The fallout from Covid-19 has proved disastrous ... Read More about Streaming sweetens summer cinema
A forgettable year
Three months in, 2020 was shaping up as another ... Read More about A forgettable year
REFLECTIONS IN A MONASTERY GARDEN, published for the Carmelite Sisters in Christchurch, with illustrations by Sr Teresa Kelleher OCD. Reviewed by LYNDSAY FREER Every page of this delightful book is beautifully illustrated with flowers and blossoms of many different kinds, from rhododendrons to waterlilies, and on each page is a … Read More about A floral tribute to beauty behind the monastery walls
A series of real-life terrors has given the year’s output of horror films a fresh sense of relevance. While Covid-19 pandemic is still claiming lives it has yet to make a big screen presence. That is partly due to the sustained damage to the cinema industry, among others, of the … Read More about Horror movie full of meaning
Female-centred musical biopics seldom stray from the path of a shining star that fades due to male jealousy, lousy personal decisions, and some form of addiction. The gold standard is A Star is Born, which has been made three times since the original 1937 non-musical version. Its story of an … Read More about Reddy stays steady
The link between endemic poverty and religious practice has dug a deep furrow in modern literature, particularly in the genre known as American Gothic. Though the term is specific to Grant Woods’s 1930 painting of a pioneering farming couple, it is now more descriptive of the rejection of rationality and … Read More about Devil makes mayhem
Most years produce an incomprehensible movie that is celebrated by critics and audiences alike. The year of Covid-19 looks likely to have more than its share since the release of Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, which many are hoping will lead to an industry recovery. Nolan is a leading practitioner in the … Read More about The art of confusion
“Can Francis Change the Church?” by Thomas Sweetser, SJ. Crossroad (Chestnut Ridge, New York, 2019). 174 pp., US$16.95. Reviewed by MITCH FINLAY (CNS). What impact is Pope Francis having on the Church? This is the basic question on which this book reports. Rather than being a summary of wishful thinking on the Church’s future, it is based … Read More about How Catholics are responding to the leadership of Pope Francis
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