Brother Francis DVD Series for Catholic Children

Posted on February 10, 2012 at 8:00 am

The Brother Francis series is a gentle, accessible animated series for Catholic children with inviting and entertaining explanations of rituals and beliefs.

“The Rosary” DVD includes the prayers of the Rosary and the Apostles’ Creed and a touching version of Mary’s joyful submission to God’s will. It also features two songs, “I Love to Pray” and “The Our Father.” “The Bread of Life” introduces children to the Eucharist and helps them prepare for their first Holy Communion as it portrays “The Story of Blessed Imelda Lambertini,”: the patroness of first Communicants. It includes the songs, “I am the Bread of Life” and “What More Can He Give.” And “Let’s Pray” tells children that practice makes perfect — for prayer like everything else. The song, “The Sign of the Cross” helps children remember how to make the sacred gesture and the title tune shows children that they can pray anywhere because God is everywhere. It also includes a musical version of “The Our Father” and the story of Saint Therese’s “little way.”

Hand in Hand

Posted on November 6, 2011 at 8:10 pm

I was delighted to see that one of my favorite childhood films, Hand in Hand (1960), is now available on DVD. This is the very sweet story of an Irish Catholic boy and a Jewish girl who become friends in early England. The religious prejudice of those around them makes them afraid that they will make God angry by being friends, so they each decide to visit the other’s house of worship. (Each advises the other to come with head covering.) They learn that their faiths have more in common than they thought. This Golden Globe winner is a quiet charmer, highly recommended for families of all faiths.

The Mighty Macs

Posted on October 20, 2011 at 6:44 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grades
MPAA Rating:	G
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Some mild marital tension and disagreements in the workplace, a girl is sad after a break-up
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	October 21, 2011
Amazon.com ASIN:	B004OBNMMO

Basketball coach Cathy Rush (Carla Gugino) arrived at tiny Immaculata College in 1972, at just the right moment for her, for the team, and for the game. Restrictive rules that had “protected” female players from a full-court game had just been revised. For the first time, there was going to be a national championship for the women’s teams. And while people were still asking back then, “If she is married, why is she working?” that question would soon be considered inappropriate and ultimately almost unfathomable.

That context and an excellent cast gives this more heft than the typical based-on-a-true-story saga of the underdog team that became national champions. The always-excellent Gugino, in a series of wonderful 1970’s outfits, shows us Rush’s sense of purpose, even when she faces challenges like a Mother Superior (Ellen Burstyn) who is horrified to think that her girls might be “athletes” and a husband who cannot understand why she is there. Her devotion to the girls as people as well as players is nicely shown. And is is good to see the nuns treated respectfully, not made into caricatures or made to seem stuffy, quaint, or cute. They are portrayed as people, too. We are reminded of their sense of purpose when Rush asks the Mother Superior for equipment and uniforms. The Mother Superior says she is welcome to anything she has and then shows the coach her small, spare, room with little more than a cot and a rosary.

Marley Shelton plays Sister Sunday, a young nun struggling with her calling who becomes the assistant coach. Her sweetness and sincerity are a good complement to the coach’s flinty determination. In a scene where they go to a bar in civilian clothes, Shelton shows us how the sister’s faith supports her strength and integrity.

Rush had no coaching experience. The team had just one ball and the gym had burned down. She was the only one who applied for the job and she was paid $450 for the entire season. She might have thought of it at first as “something to keep me busy” while her husband was on the road as an NBA referee, or “a perfect place for someone who was not ready to assume her role in society,” but she learned that her role in society was exactly where she was. Her most important contribution is shown by the updates at the end. She did not just coach a team of champions. She created a new generation of coaches who took what she taught them to the first women athletes to have the opportunities created by Title IX.

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The Real Story: Immaculata’s Mighty Macs

Posted on October 19, 2011 at 8:00 am

This week’s release “The Mighty Macs” is inspired by the true story of coach Cathy Rush, who took the basketball team from the tiny women’s college to three national championships in the early 1970’s, the dawn of women’s basketball. Now co-ed and called Immaculata University, it is a Catholic school sponsored by the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and is proud to be considered the birthplace of modern American women’s basketball. Here’s an ESPN segment about the real-life team.

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The Real Story

The Rite

Posted on January 27, 2011 at 6:00 pm

Actors! They just can’t help themselves when a juicy part comes along. And that is why Oscar-winner Sir Anthony Hopkins finds himself in “The Rite,” an “inspired by a true story” thriller about an exorcist who struggles with his own demons.

Actors who go over the top are often described as “chewing the scenery.” Sir Anthony here doesn’t just chew the scenery; he grinds it into dust.

The movie begins with Michael (“The Tudors'” Colin O’Donoghue), preparing a body for burial, the artifice of stuffing the inside of the mouth and sewing it shut to make it look comfortingly “real.” Michael and his father are undertakers, working out of their home. “We serve the dead but we don’t talk about them,” Michael’s taciturn father (Rutger Hauer) responds when Michael asks about her. Michael is not at all sure he is a believer, but in his family the only options are mortician and priest, so he enters seminary.

Four years later, he plans to leave. He is still not sure of his faith. One of his teachers persuades him (in part by threatening to turn his scholarship into a six-figure loan) to take a class at the Vatican in exorcism.

In Rome, he meets a Welsh priest named Father Lucas Trevant (Hopkins) who lets him watch as he tries to exorcise a demon from a pregnant teenager. Michael acts as the representative of the audience by expressing his skepticism — how do the priests know that it is not just mental illness? Can we believe, in an era of science and empiricism, in demonic possession?

Director Mikael HÃ¥fstrÃ¶m has a good eye and a deft touch. He films the settings beautifully. And he knows when to lighten the mood with a little comic relief, though it is a bit much when someone comes to the door and Trevant says, archly, “Speak of the devil!” O’Donoghue has an appealing screen presence and holds his own on screen with Hopkins.

But the movie falls about the same time Hopkins’ character does. Up to that point, it does a pretty good job of balancing the spooky-horror gotcha schocks with some sincerity about the validity of demonic possession. But once Hopkins starts unraveling, the movie — and the interest of the audience — does, too. (more…)