Culture
A bravo performance but immoral end for ‘The Girl on the Train’
Emily Blunt in the title role of an unemployed alcoholic passenger, who also serves as narrator, is intense. But the film goes over the ethical edge in its wrap-up, a nasty bit of mayhem the audience is invited to applaud.
‘Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children’ is a peculiar headscratcher
Director Tim Burton is on his home turf with the gothic fantasy that is mildly entertaining but also hobbled by an overly complicated premise and the implications of time travel.
Mooncop: Last Man on the Moon
Set the TV series "Seinfeld" on Earth's satellite, subtract the jokes and you've got "Mooncop" (Drawn and Quarterly), a strange and mildly poignant graphic novel.
‘Deepwater Horizon’ isn’t easy to watch, but it’s worth it
The film is not a thin, 1970s-era disaster flick but a grim, factual and well-crafted spectacle for grown-ups showing one of the worst man-made disasters in history. And in the end, there's still "a morning after."
Two treatments of politics merit one thumbs-up, one thumbs-down
In a look at two books, our reviewer likes one presentation of Catholic social teaching and its clear and compelling language, but sees many flaws in a volume tracing politics in the Bible.
Occasionally funny but mostly awkward ‘Storks’ stumbles
Popular culture's relentless drive to portray a homosexual lifestyle as form of diversity and out-of-wedlock motherhood as a respectable choice mars this otherwise unobjectionable animated comedy.
Movie review: The Magnificent Seven
A chivalrous parable that showcases self-sacrificing heroism, "The Magnificent Seven" (Columbia) can be read as illustrating, in microcosm, Catholic theology's theory of a just war.
In space, no one can hear you yawn
When a video game is set amid the vast, empty expanses of outer space, it had better feature the familiar hallmarks of the action-adventure genre rather than aim for anything resembling reality.
Traitor or champion? ‘Snowden’ looks at controversial leaker
As directed by Oliver Stone, the new film takes a hero-worship tone with its treatment of Edward Snowden, who revealed the secret mass-data collection scheme of the National Security Agency.
Paige O’Hara, voice of ‘Belle,’ recalls magic of ‘Beauty and the Beast’
If you were to meet Paige O'Hara in person, you might not give her a second glance. But you'd know the voice, because she sang and spoke the title role in the 1991 Disney animated classic film.