The 90th Academy Awards ceremony took place last night at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, at 5 p.m. PST. The awards of late have become more politicized than ever. In the past, what was needed to win an Academy Award was a good movie—plus a considerable budget to promote it amongst members of the academy. In latter [...]

If you had James Franco in your office pool as the next Hollywood mogul who would be accused of sexual misconduct then, congratulations, you win! Five women, in interviews with the Los Angeles Times, accused Franco “of behavior they found to be inappropriate or sexually exploitative.” About the allegations, Franco said on the Stephen Colbert [...]

The Media-Entertainment Complex claims to be “shocked, shocked, I tell you,” to learn that powerful Hollywood men like Harvey Weinstein engage in a systematic pattern of sexual assault. Those of us outside Hollywood are not the slightest bit shocked. In fact, a lot of us in Fly-Over Country are just waiting for other powerful men [...]

Once in a while there is an article that defends the practice of Muslim women covering her hair. If they really want to be insulting, there is a picture of a nun in a habit right next to a beautiful woman in hijab. “What is the difference?” they ask. “It is the choice,” I answer. [...]

It came as a shock to Hollywood’s liberal establishment: the casting couch is still extant. The outrage at the alleged behaviors of an errant film producer is of course, justified. Nevertheless, the shock expressed by some over Harvey Weinstein’s alleged actions is the real surprise. Others who are closer to the source of the recent [...]

Viggo Mortensen, the same actor who played Strider/Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, seems to enjoy getting naked in his non-Tolkien films, evincing, perhaps, certain latent exhibitionist fantasies: In Eastern Promises, he fought off, el fresco, two Russian mobsters in a steam bath; in The Road, he chucked it all to swim out [...]

My son and I saw the new Beauty and the Beast. It was lovely, magical, following the 1991 cartoon, almost scene for scene, song for song. This is the story everyone wants to hear: darkness and evil and selfishness transformed by love into light and good and self-surrender. Life and love conquer death and fear. [...]

Let your acquaintances be many, but one in a thousand your confidant (Sirach). I heard last month about the Academy Awards and the Big Flub. I suppose it would’ve been fun to witness it live instead of on YouTube, but not fun enough to regret skipping the broadcast altogether. Frankly, I couldn’t care less about [...]

Hollywood’s brush tends to paint the Vatican in colors dark and foreboding, a lavishly decorated place of simony and secret sexual sins. The papal throne is made to look smug and malevolent, even diabolical. Catholic priests are either buffoons or sex-crazed loonies. The laity are gullible, superstitious, or secretly Protestant. The HBO limited series The Young [...]

On Friday, January 20 at 12 o’clock noon, Donald J. Trump will become the 45th president of the United States. Rarely in modern times has a presidential succession generated such polarized division, though I can imagine that the advent of Thomas Jefferson in 1801, Andrew Jackson in 1829, and especially Abraham Lincoln in 1861 might rival [...]

Back in 1947 it was possible for a Catholic novel to shoot to the top of the national bestseller list in the U.S.A. That's exactly what happened to Russell Janney's The Miracle of the Bells. Janney (1884-1963), a theatrical producer by trade, produced Miracle as his first novel at the mature age of 62 and [...]

If you’re looking for a good reason to vote Clinton this November, let me point you in the direction of this video. Movie director Joss Whedon has set up an organization dramatically labeled Save the Day, and is making some short videos staring an assortment of celebrities, mostly from his Avengers movies, with a few [...]

Outside the narrow and parochial hipster community in Hollywood, practically no one had ever heard of Robert Arquette. Had he not been born into the Arquette acting clan—David, Patricia, and Rosanna—he likely wouldn’t have even been known there either. He had bit roles in a few Independent movies, but mostly performed in Hollywood drag shows [...]

HBO’s animal rights documentary Unlocking the Cage, now playing in art theaters across the country, is a signature piece for the respected cable outlet. Although it is not the first documentary of this kind, it comes with a pedigree of esteemed filmmakers and a unique protagonist in the form of a Harvard trained lawyer who [...]

Portrayed as a villain in Spotlight, the new film describing the clergy abuse scandal, Jack Dunn, the media spokesman for Boston College and trustee for Boston College High School, has hired a lawyer to demand that the scene portraying him as a cold and callous bureaucrat—caring nothing for victims—be stricken from the film. The scene [...]

An exchange about Islam that took place recently on Real Time with Bill Maher helps to crystallize what’s wrong with many discussions about Islam and terrorism. Maher and fellow atheist Sam Harris took one side of the debate. Actor Ben Affleck, columnist Nicholas Kristof, and former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele took the other. [...]

What you are about to read is disturbing. It will unnerve you. It should. Last week Under the Skin was released in the United States. This low budget British movie has little by way of traditional plot, even less dialogue. Some of it was shot with non-professional actors, at times using hidden cameras. Its director, [...]

The Sum of All Fears is a 2002 thriller based on the Tom Clancy novel of the same name. In the book, Islamic terrorists detonate a nuclear bomb in Denver at the Super Bowl. In the movie, the terrorists are transformed into white supremacist neo-Nazis. The recently released film Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit depicts a [...]