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Catholic News Service
Taken on its own humanist terms, the apocalyptic drama “Seeking a Friend for the End of the World” is an essentially honorable film that celebrates the overarching importance of personal connectedness.
But the circumscribed nature of its outlook — amid the ultimate crisis, faith in God or in an afterlife is entirely absent — means that viewers will need to sift its mixed moral content with discernment.
Catholic News Service
Shameless sentimentality and cheerful, consequence-free debauchery make for an unsettling mix in the heavy-metal musical romance “Rock of Ages.”
Director Adam Shankman’s screen version of Chris D’Arienzo’s hit Broadway paean to the glories of Reagan-era rock set in 1987 and penned by D’Arienzo in collaboration with Justin Theroux and Allan Loeb at least has the good sense never to take itself too seriously.
Catholic News Service
The Holy Father plays straight man to an amorous lemur in “Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted.”
It’s one of dozens of “Bet you didn’t see that one coming!” moments, and all in good fun in this fast-moving, animated 3-D adventure, the third installment in the “Madagascar” franchise.
Catholic News Service
In 1979, director Ridley Scott staged a memorable collision between horror and science fiction in deep space. Over three decades later, he circles back to the “Alien”” franchise in a 3-D prequel entitled “Prometheus.”
Scott made “Alien” standing on the shoulders of filmmakers such as Stanley Kubrick (“2001: A Space Odyssey”) and Andrei Tarkovsky (“Solaris”); he went on to direct the equally influential “Blade Runner.” Alas, this attempt to build upon that legacy and create another original work is too profound by half.
Catholic News Service
Cross “A Passage to India” with “Fawlty Towers” and you’ll get “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” a comedy-drama combination about seven elderly Brits searching for enlightenment and excitement in India.
Directed by John Madden (“Shakespeare in Love,”) and based on the 2004 novel “These Foolish Things” by Deborah Moggach, “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” offers a mixed, and problematic, moral message about the “golden” years, as crusty old fogeys let their hair down — and unleash their libidos.
Catholic News Service
The great 18th-century lexicographer and sage Samuel Johnson once observed that “patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”
He was referring, of course, not to genuine love of country, but to the kind of frantic, chauvinistic flag-waving meant to divert attention from faults, scandals and hidden agendas.
Catholic News Service
“What to Expect When You’re Expecting” is a fruitless reproductive comedy that awkwardly juggles the stories of five expectant couples as they prepare for four deliveries and an Ethiopian adoption.
Director Kirk Jones’ fictionalization of Heidi Murkoff’s best-selling advice book veers between vulgar humor and trite sentimentality. It also showcases misguided contemporary attitudes toward sexuality, pregnancy and parenthood.
Catholic News Service
Given the graphically scatological and sexually degrading humor comedian Sacha Baron Cohen showcased in his two previous feature films — 2006′s “Borat! Cultural Learning of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” and 2009′s “Bruno” — it would seem a tad unrealistic to hope that his latest picture, “The Dictator,” might avoid an unwholesome hat trick.
Such reckless optimism would be misplaced. A shift from the hidden-camera, ambush-style satire that characterized Cohen’s earlier efforts to a more traditional scripted offering does nothing to prevent his signature antics feeling tedious and recycled. Nor, for that matter, does the change in format involve any corralling of their waywardness.
Catholic News Service
A more appropriate title for “The Perfect Family” would be, “The Year’s Most Virulently Anti-Catholic Movie.”
Directed by Anne Renton and screenwriters Paula Goldberg and Claire V. Riley, this dramedy ridicules just about every aspect of the Catholic Church, its teachings and members, offering broad caricatures of clergy, religious and laity to score negative points.
Catholic News Service
Long before “Twilight’s” Edward Cullen and other Johnny-come-lately vampires, there was television’s Barnabas Collins, played by the recently deceased Jonathan Frid. Time was when legions of teenage baby boomers would rush home from school each weekday afternoon to find out what Barnabas was up to by catching the latest episode of “Dark Shadows,” the wildly popular gothic soap opera that largely revolved around him.
Mostly set in 1972, the year after the television version went off the air director Tim Burton’s big-screen homage, “Dark Shadows” is a campy comic take on the original.
