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The Avengers

The Avengers

  This is one of the best action movies of the year, by far. It deserves the box office suc­cess it is hav­ing. It’s fun, excit­ing, and enter­tain­ing. It’s also pretty clean (although not per­fect) and fam­ily friendly.   And there are some great lines. Cap­tain Amer­ica has some of the best.   Although not all […]

The Lucky One

The Lucky One

The story is good, and, even though Zac Efron does a great job play­ing a young war vet­eran who is try­ing to find the per­son who saved his life, his baby face just doesn’t seem to fit with the char­ac­ter of an ex-​​​​marine. It does work for the shots of him try­ing to wres­tle with […]

Think Like A Man

Think Like A Man

Very funny movie, although loaded with lots of bad innu­en­dos, and ques­tion­able moral­ity. Not rec­om­mend­able for young teens. Still, the basic mes­sage is prob­a­bly more pos­i­tive than neg­a­tive: if you really love a girl, don’t just leave her hang­ing. Grow up, and marry her. And if you are a girl, don’t let the guy just […]

Pirates: Band of Misfits

Pirates: Band of Misfits

Funny car­toon movie about a benev­o­lent, incom­pe­tent pirate and his loyal crew. If you liked the Wal­lace and Gru­mit movies you will love this. Pirate Cap­tain sets out on a quest to become “Pirate of the Year”,  but in the process learns some­thing impor­tant about him­self. It turns out that his com­pas­sion and kind­ness to […]

Monsieur Lazhar

Monsieur Lazhar

A thought­ful movie about the per­ils of polit­i­cal cor­rect­ness. Deals with some dis­turb­ing issues (sui­cide, mur­der) in a sen­si­tive way, but some teens may find the themes dif­fi­cult.   (Cau­tion: spoiler alert) A fifth grade teacher in Mon­treal, Que­bec (Canada) com­mits sui­cide, and the chil­dren are try­ing to make sense of what hap­pened. A man […]

A Beautiful Soul

A Beautiful Soul

Nice try, but not suc­cess­ful. This is a con­ver­sion story about a rap­per who is almost killed in a rob­bery gone wrong. The movie is too sugar-​​​​coated and moral­is­tic for my tastes, but at least it is an attempt to deal with the rap cul­ture in a Chris­t­ian way. Bet­ter luck next time.

The Lorax

The Lorax

A car­toon movie about self­ish­ness and sec­ond chances. A boy dis­cov­ers a lost world out­side his ultra-​​​​hygienic town. The lost world is a waste-​​​​land, but it was once beau­ti­ful. He meets the per­son who cut down all the trees and destroyed the beauty that was once there. Even though all seems lost, there might still […]

Bully

Bully

    This doc­u­men­tary addresses a huge issue in many young peo­ples’ lives. It is not a fun movie to watch, but it is worth see­ing. The movie starts out show­ing the case of a young man who took his life because of bul­ly­ing, and then fol­lows sev­eral other young peo­ple who are suf­fer­ing from […]

Author Nicholas Sparks Puts Faith Into Action

Author Nicholas Sparks Puts Faith Into Action

I’ve enjoyed prac­ti­cally all the movies that were based on nov­els by Nicholas Sparks, but I didn’t know until yes­ter­day that he is Catholic and that his faith is very impor­tant to him. I guess that explains in part why he is so fas­ci­nated by human love. Love is what makes the world go round. […]

The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games

The movie ver­sion of the Hunger Games is about to hit the the­aters. It will be a huge event. Let’s take a moment to look at this story and see if we can draw any lessons from it for our own lives.   Scary World   Kat­niss Everdeen lives in a very cruel world. She and […]