Weekly Video Picks

BY John Prizer

January 14-20, 2001 Issue

Saving Private Ryan (1998)

The unpopularity of the Vietnam War turned American audiences off of big-screen, battlefield heroics for almost three decades.

Saving Private Ryan, directed by Steven Spielberg (Schindler's List), reversed this trend by successfully combining post-Vietnam skepticism with... READ MORE

Weekly TV Picks

BY Daniel J. Engler ------ KEYWORDS: Arts

January 7-13, 2001 Issue

All times Eastern

SUNDAY, JAN. 7

National Football League Divisional Playoffs

Check local listings

In one of today's two games, the remaining top two American Football Conference teams battle for a spot in next Sunday's AFC Championship game. In the other contest today, the top two National... READ MORE

Weekly Video Picks

BY John Prizer ------ KEYWORDS: Arts

January 7-13, 2001 Issue

The Tree of the Wooden Clogs (1978)

American society has become so secularized over the past 30 years that one finds it difficult to imagine what it would be like to be part of a culture in which everyone believed in God, looked for his design in the world and trusted religious authorities.

The... READ MORE

Big-Screen Sitcom

BY John Prizer ------ KEYWORDS: Arts

What Women Want sticks with contemporary comedic - and moral - conventions

January 7-13, 2001 Issue

What do women want? Mel Gibson.

At least that's the answer you'd give after watching this competently crafted, box-office-busting, major-star vehicle which has half-hearted aspirations to be something more than that it actually is.

The question may have stumped Freud, but he was trying to explore... READ MORE

Prizer’s Picks

April 30-May 6, 2000 Issue

Galaxy Quest (1999)

Sci-fi mania is about more than special effects.

One of the reasons movies and TV series like Star Wars and Star Trek have developed huge, cultlike followings is that their futuristic exploits are set against a well-ordered moral universe. Good and evil are clearly defined in a... READ MORE

Public TV Gets Religion, Respectfully

BY Verne Gay

April 30-May 6, 2000 Issue

Television news is embarrassed by religion. It can't touch it, can't see it, and — foremost — can't take pictures of it, so the topic is assiduously ignored on most newscasts most nights. There is a sense (or perhaps bias) among news executives that spiritual matters are deeply personal or somehow... READ MORE

Prizer’s Picks

BY John Prizer

April 9-15, 2000 Issue

The Insider (1999)

Media conglomerates and big tobacco are everyone's favorite bad guys, and the Oscar-nominated The Insider takes its shots at these fashionable targets with precision and style. Muckraking writer-director Michael Mann (Miami Vice) turns a real-life story about “60 Minutes”... READ MORE

‘Bob’ And Other Lenten Offerings

BY Verne Gay

April TV brings real life, presidents and dinosaurs

April 9-15, 2000 Issue

Should anyone decide to launch a worst-timing awards competition, NBC ought to be the odds-on favorite to win for 2000. In early March, just as Lent was getting under way, the network premiered a prime-time animated sitcom called “God, the Devil and Bob.” Its pre-release promotional “teasers”... READ MORE

Weekly TV Picks

BY Daniel J. Engler

April 1-7, 2000 Issue

All times Eastern

APRIL, VARIOUS DATES

A Long Season

PBS; check local listings for time

“You've got to start way down, at the bottom, when you're six or seven years old,” the dying Babe Ruth advised the children of America about baseball in his farewell address in Yankee Stadium in 1948. In this... READ MORE

Weekly Video Picks

April 1-7, 2000 Issue

Stagecoach (1939)

Six passengers board a stage in a New Mexico town in the 1870s. Two are respectable citizens; four are not. Apaches are terrorizing the countryside. The sheriff (George Bancroft), who's riding shotgun, arrests en route a notorious outlaw (John Wayne) and puts him inside. The... READ MORE

Magical Realism with a Yiddish Accent

BY John Prizer

Simon Magus is a fetching Jewish fable with an intriguingly catholic heart

April 1-7, 2000 Issue

Conflicts between Catholics and Jews are a hot topic, and many in the media and the academy enjoy making Catholics the bad guys.

A recent, highly publicized example is the book Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews by James Carroll, which alleges that the Church has been guilty of systematic... READ MORE

Prizer's Picks

March 26-April 01, 2000 Issue

Antz (1998)

Ants are usually symbols for conformity and mindless hard work. This computer-animated feature breaks with the norm in an imaginative, root-f o r - t h e -underdog story about worker ants who overthrow an unjust caste system.

It also skillfully depicts how our human world must appear to... READ MORE

Leaving Fame for God

BY Berenice Cocciolillo

A rising opera star left adoring fans for abandoned children

March 26-April 01, 2000 Issue

Soprano Graciela Arriola had everything an opera singer could want: a brilliant career in her native Mexico as well as growing recognition on the European stage. But she left it all behind in order to become a Franciscan nun. “Every time I was on stage, I could touch, just barely, a fullness, a... READ MORE

Prizer’s Picks

March 19-25, 2000 Issue

The Sixth Sense (1999)

This summer blockbuster, nominated for six Oscars, may be the beginning of a welcome trend away from the excessive blood and gore of most contemporary horror films.

Writer-director M. Night Shyamalan (Wide Awake) makes sure that most of the terror takes place in the viewer' s... READ MORE

And the Winner Is ?. . .

BY John Prizer

What will the Academy Awards say about the popular culture this year?

March 19-25, 2000 Issue

It's Oscar time once again, and this year Hollywood is feeling especially proud of itself. But not for the usual reasons. The March 26 Academy Awards will be one of the most-watched TV shows around the globe as always, and the media feeding frenzy gets crazier each time around. But most of the... READ MORE

Prizer’s Picks

March 12-18, 2000 Issue

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington(1939)

America has always loved populist reformers, outsiders who challenge the special interests and business-as-usual politicians. John McCain and Bill Bradley have tried to assume that role during the current presidential primaries. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington... READ MORE

ASSISI GRUNGE

BY John Prizer

FRANCESCO PRESENTS A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON ST. FRANCIS

March 12-18, 2000 Issue

In 1996 the Vatican's Pontifical Commission for Social Communications published a list of 45 films of special merit. Most of the titles are both artistic master-works and enlightened guides for spiritual development. The exception is Francesco, originally released in 1989. Its message is as... READ MORE

Prizer’s Picks

February 27-March 4, 2000 Issue

The Horse Whisperer (1998)

Director Robert Redford believes that a whiff of fresh air and immersion in wide-open spaces are a sure-fire tonic for uptight city slickers. Fourteen-year-old Grace McLean (Scarlett Johansson) is out horse-back riding in suburban Connecticut when she has a freak accident... READ MORE

Still the Best and Truest Joan

BY John Prizer

1928 classic Passion remains unparalleled

February 27-March 4, 2000 Issue

The eyes are the window of the soul,” an Italian Renaissance philosopher once wrote. Silent movies are an art form that demonstrates the truth of this maxim. Without recourse to the spoken word, actors and actresses in that medium are often forced to use their eyes alone to project their emotions.