Culture
Movie review: Alice Through the Looking Glass
Despite exciting visuals, a talented ensemble, and glittery costume and makeup designs, this 3-D fantasy-adventure is inert -- managing to feel audacious and tediously familiar at the same time.
Beyond rhetoric, book has useful material on ending capital punishment
Author Shane Claiborne combines facts, storytelling and evangelical preaching to explain this push to abolish capital punishment.
In ‘Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising,’ there’s enough depravity for all
After the first scene, there's something even worse than mere tastelessness in store, and that's this throwaway flick's pious attempt to preach a dumbed-down version of feminism.
With ‘Nice Guys’ like these, who needs bad guys?
Set in 1977 Los Angeles, the film's destructive lead character is a good-hearted man who prefers to beat up bad guys who prey on women. But the troubling insertion of kids into the action adds to the moral objections.
‘Last Days’ director imagined a devil looking a lot like Jesus
Rodrigo Garcia admitted he "had some concerns about my ability to raise money to about a movie set in the desert with Jesus," saying he was unaware of the surfeit of religion-themed movies that were being made.
Author finds controversy in life of great-grandfather most saw as heroic
Carson was surprised by some of the facts that turned up when he decided to research and write a book about the life of his great-grandfather, U.S. Army Col. Henry Lazelle.
‘Money Monster’ skewers the glorious shallowness of TV
"Money Monster" (TriStar) offers , along with an up-to-the-moment indictment of Wall Street machinations and corporate greed. In this allegory on the power of the media, director Jodie Foster keeps the plot of a fictional investment advice show moving at a furious pace, mimicking the short attention span of today's TV programming.
Grab popcorn and a catechism for ‘Last Days in the Desert’
Among the film's strengths of striking photography and strong performances are unsettling flaws including Jesus' ambivalence toward his divinity and his crucifixion and death without the resurrection.
New ‘Roots’ retells journey from slavery to freedom
The eight-hour TV show, produced by The History Channel, brings author Alex Haley's story to a new generation of viewers. It is likely to have as striking an impact on its audience as the 1976 miniseries.
Get ready to rumble with ‘Captain America: Civil War’
Those unfamiliar with the previous two Captain America films might need a scorecard to keep track of all the Marvel Comics superheroes in this film. It's a problematic probe into current questions of authority.