Article Christmas Critics Smart reading suggestions for the 2018 holiday season By The Editors December 25, 2018 Books Fiction Nonfiction Poetry Spirituality Movies
Article Christmas Deserves Better There’s more to the holiday movie season than crass comedy and sentimental schlock. Here’s a list of ten films for adventurous viewers By Richard Alleva December 22, 2018 Movies
Article Christmas Is a Time for Justice Christmas is an incomplete moment in the larger structure of salvation, its apocalyptic mood perfectly mirrored by this holiday classic film. By B. D. McClay December 21, 2018 Movies Spirituality Liturgy
Article The Place Up Ahead The new Coen Brothers western refreshes and deepens the genre, puncturing cheap grace with a meditation on death By Jared Lucky December 14, 2018 Movies
Article ‘The Nun’s Story’ Revisited However much we may admire the austerities and asceticism of pre-Vatican II religious life, the film depicts a closed world to which we cannot return By Paul Baumann December 4, 2018 Movies Spirituality Religious Life Women in the Church
Article Going Small Hollywood offered Big Movies this year. But two new indie films remind us that immense pleasure comes in small packages By Rand Richards Cooper November 30, 2018 Movies Fiction
Article War, Commentary, Shipwrecks A carefully selected trio of diaries and diary-like works By Dominic Preziosi November 19, 2018 Environment Movies Nonfiction War and Peace
Article Makers & Takers Two new films showcase talented women whose husbands self-destruct—leaving them in mourning, even as they are freed to thrive By Rand Richards Cooper November 3, 2018 Movies
Article The Sublimity of the Super-Brat The new John McEnroe documentary dismisses the conventional wisdom surrounding the tennis giant, inviting us to see the poetry beneath his brashness By Rand Richards Cooper September 21, 2018 Movies
Article Spike Lee’s American Seminar All these decades since ‘Do The Right Thing,’ the director still hasn’t resolved his fundamental ambivalence about America By Rand Richards Cooper September 1, 2018 Movies Race Donald Trump
Feature Summer Readings & Screenings In this installment of our summer series, we use Mexico as a focal point for reflections on aesthetic style and the ethics of travel writing By Griffin Oleynick and Anthony Domestico August 31, 2018 Movies Books Latin America Social Justice
Article Changes in the Neighborhood Two new films about youth speak about the perennial yearnings of childhood, and throw the brutal world of contemporary digital culture into relief By Rand Richards Cooper August 17, 2018 Movies
Feature In Defense of Brooding The Swedish director’s invitation to ponder faith, God, life, and death, even for hours at a time, remains the most important part of his legacy By Santiago Ramos August 9, 2018 Movies Spirituality Secularism and Modernity
Feature Summer Readings & Screenings In this installment of our summer conversation, we reflect on the work of love and the messiness of the life of the mind By Griffin Oleynick and Anthony Domestico July 28, 2018 Movies Books Spirituality Philosophy
Article No Room for Despair Paul Schrader’s story about a burnt-out priest can serve as a cautionary reminder of the difficulties of ministering to the hopeless By Tim Markatos July 15, 2018 Spirituality Theology Ecumenism Movies
Feature Summer Readings & Screenings The first in a series of installments on under-appreciated selections from world literature and film By Griffin Oleynick and Anthony Domestico July 12, 2018 Spirituality Theology Books Movies
Article Making a Masterpiece For the film’s fiftieth anniversary, a new book details the collaboration between director Stanley Kubrick and screenwriter Arthur C. Clarke By Michael F. Robinson July 6, 2018 Fiction Movies Books
Feature The Right Man for the Job A look back at Wim Wenders’s oeuvre reveals his attentiveness to human fragility, and his abounding faith that broken lives can be repaired By Richard Alleva June 21, 2018 Pope Francis Movies Spirituality Secularism and Modernity
Article God’s Lonely Man Paul Schrader’s new film strives to find redemption in solitude, grief, and humiliation By Rand Richards Cooper June 21, 2018 Movies Secularism and Modernity Environment Spirituality Theology
Article Masking One Wound with Another In a new documentary, self-described feminists tell the stories of how they came to join the pro-life movement By Bria Sandford June 8, 2018 Movies Secularism and Modernity Sexuality Abortion Women in the Church
Feature Worthy of His Name Wim Wenders talks about his new documentary on Pope Francis By Matthew Boudway June 1, 2018 Spirituality Movies Foreign Affairs Pope Francis
Article Divine Abandonment Lucrecia Martel’s cinema offers a bold response to our era of political injustice and spiritual disorientation. By Griffin Oleynick May 27, 2018 Movies Books Latin America
Article Ambivalence & Oblivion What is the intended message of Jason Reitman’s film ‘Tully’? What is on offer in ‘Lean on Pete’ other than sympathy and dread? By Rand Richards Cooper May 18, 2018 Movies
Article A Cinematic Civics Lesson The true story of a lopsided face-off between the little blue pill and the little pink house By Rand Richards Cooper May 14, 2018 Web Exclusive Movies
Article Silent & Deadly ‘A Quiet Place’ is a mishmash of genres, combining survivalist saga, dystopian futurism, sci-fi, horror, and thriller By Rand Richards Cooper April 27, 2018 Movies
Article When Muse Becomes Mother ‘Phantom Thread’ is a painfully beautiful depiction of all-consuming love and art By Travis LaCouter March 8, 2018 Movies
Article Oscar Time Picks, peeves, predictions from a year of films that are sensitive to the zeitgeist By Rand Richards Cooper March 2, 2018 Movies Media
Article Making Wakanda Great Again Timing is everything, in politics and in Hollywood By Rand Richards Cooper March 1, 2018 Movies Race
Article Monsters, Politics, Romance In this sci-fi monster movie, political parable, spy drama, and love story, Guillermo del Toro purveys such stuff as dreams—and nightmares—are made of By Rand Richards Cooper February 7, 2018 Movies
Article ‘Brideshead’ Revisited & Revised Evelyn Waugh initially disregarded the critics of his best-known novel, but the more popular his novel became, the more his reservations grew By Robert Murray Davis January 22, 2018 Books Movies Secularism and Modernity
Article ‘The Last Jedi’: A Fan’s Notes Carrying the torch, and the Force, forward By Rand Richards Cooper January 4, 2018 Movies
Article Hard to Watch Even when it’s easy to spot the racism that poisons parts of them, the more pertinent question is what makes some of these films engrossing even now By Richard Alleva December 19, 2017 Movies Race Donald Trump Domestic Affairs
Article Not So Great Escape ‘Novitiate’ cartoonishly construes the abbey as a prison By Rand Richards Cooper November 29, 2017 Movies Religious Life
Article Nightmare Vision Darren Aronofsky’s film ‘mother!’ depicts how easily the Christian narrative can be redeployed to new and destabilizing uses By Travis LaCouter November 28, 2017 Movies Environment Theology
Article Rediscovering All That? How can a documentary tell Joan Didion’s story if she has already told us all she thinks we need to know? By Katie Daniels November 16, 2017 Movies Books
Article Gloom-Struck ‘Blade Runner 2049’ struggles to fully realize its vision of a dystopic future. ‘Ex Libris’ shows how real libraries are facing their own uncertain future By Rand Richards Cooper October 25, 2017 Movies
Article Love That Goes Unnamed Part of the power of ‘Desert Hearts’ is that it is recognizably our world: the world in which gay people try to imagine our futures By Eve Tushnet October 19, 2017 Movies Sexuality
Article No Sunset Conversion ‘Lucky’ is a humble celebration of Harry Dean Stanton, a quietly glorious send-off for a singular American talent By Dominic Preziosi October 12, 2017 Movies Secularism and Modernity
Article Commonweal’s Best Film Essays From holy donkeys to jaded Bible salesmen, from Mel Gibson’s passion to Terrence Malick’s vision—Commonweal’s writers take on the language of film By The Editors September 26, 2017 Movies
Article A Hillbilly Heist In terms of the red-blue divide, Steven Soderbergh’s ‘Logan Lucky’ probably isn’t going to bring us together. It may well be part of the problem By Rand Richards Cooper September 20, 2017 Movies
Article Just Moment-by-Moment Survival ‘Dunkirk’ is an unusual sort of war movie—one that argues that soldiers aren’t just acting out a part in political history By Regina Munch August 10, 2017 Movies War and Peace
Article Blockbusting What happens to independent filmmakers such as Sofia Coppola, Patty Jenkins, and Edgar Wright when they embark on genre projects? By Richard Alleva July 27, 2017 Movies
Article Waving & Drowning ‘Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer’ shows how power is certainly seductive, but the seduction is not always sexual By Richard Alleva May 31, 2017 Movies
Feature What We Can & Cannot Fix Watching ‘The Mission’ thirty years on: Is there something new to learn? By Jeff Guhin May 11, 2017 Movies Latin America Social Justice
Article ‘Beauty and the Beast’ & ‘Colossal’ This is a typical rom-com set-up. But, hey, what about that monster? By Richard Alleva May 8, 2017 Movies
Article ‘Wilson’ & ‘Personal Shopper’ A cartoonish take on the graphic novel by Daniel Clowes, and a one-character story that’s a feast for Kristin Stewart By Rand Richards Cooper April 24, 2017 Movies
Article Timely Provocations Jordan Peele’s subversive ‘Get Out,’ and Raoul Peck’s riveting James Baldwin documentary By Richard Alleva March 31, 2017 Race Movies
Article Song without a Story How does Terrence Malick’s ‘Song to Song’ manage to hit all the wrong notes? By Matthew Sitman March 29, 2017 Movies Music
Article ‘Paterson’ Here is a movie that embraces banality so pertinaciously that the ordinary becomes nearly mesmerizing By Richard Alleva March 13, 2017 Movies
Article ‘Toni Erdmann’ Maren Ade’s ‘Toni Erdmann’ is a film that defies easy summary By Rand Richards Cooper February 24, 2017 Movies
