Culture
Books explore lives of early church fathers — and mothers
One book about the early church fathers and another about four women saints from different eras have a lot to teach us today.
Huge squishy robot steals the show in ‘Big Hero 6’
Christmas shoppers be warned: Kids will want a robot this year, the heroic kind who likes to give hugs as in Disney's latest 3-D animated adventure. Get to the movie early for a charming animated short film beforehand.
‘Interstellar’ aims high on liftoff, but it has a problem
Ordinary reality gets left far behind in the three-hour blockbuster. Theoretical paradoxes, messages of overpopulation and frozen embryos, plus themes of love and familial ties may take viewers where no one has gone before.
‘Nightcrawler’ is more dark and seamy than it sounds
Viewers need to discern the amorality tale of the new film that satirizes both yellow journalism and the public hunger for images that fuels its excesses. Actor Jake Gyllenhaal provides the creepy character of the morally tone deaf TV news reporter.
Movie review: Before I Go to Sleep
The cherished amnesia plot gets dusted off for the thriller "Before I Go to Sleep" (Clarius). Writer-director Rowan Joffe's adaptation of S.J. Watson's novel adeptly executes a few turns. But it offers only one big twist.
Bestiary provides opportunity for parent-child sharing, learning
This is a book for parents to read to and with their children. A bestiary, the author explains in his introduction, was a medieval, illuminated manuscript about animals mentioned in the Bible, and some not mentioned, but creatures of fantasy.
Experts, historians explore Shakespeare’s Catholic sympathies
When the latest production of William Shakespeare's beloved play opened recently, set in an English mansion before World War I, it attempted to draw new meaning from the Bard's eternal lines.
Fleeting fame is topic of ‘Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)’
Talky, pretentious and filled with existential angst when the characters aren't preoccupied with spitting curses, the new black comedy with the odd title is visually dazzling. Morally, though, it's dead weight as it reflects on the corrupting nature of fame.
Violent ‘John Wick’ offers an antihero who’s hard to like
True to form, Keanu Reeves plays a man of few monotone words who leaves a high body count in his wake, in the new action thriller. In so many words, it's unconvincing, unglamorous, offensive -- and avoidable.
Book explores complex balance between charitable acts, religious values
The work of religious philanthropic organizations came into clear view during the summer of 2014 when two Christian mission groups serving people in need around the world arranged to fly two of their medical missionaries suffering from the Ebola virus out of Liberia to a hospital in Atlanta, where they were treated successfully.