Tim Irwin
By Tim Irwin Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time/Oct. 23 Sirach 35:12-14,16-18; Psalm 34:2-3,17-18,19,23; 2 Timothy 4:6-8,16-18; Luke 18:9-14 The pursuit of tangible blessings like wealth, power and honor animate contemporary American culture, and the readings for the Thirtieth Sunday of Ordinary time suggest that they were just as popular during biblical times. In the Gospel […]
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NORMAL — Marriage and “Raising Kids of All Ages” will be the topics for discussion when Dr. Ray Guarendi visits Epiphany Parish this Friday, Oct. 21, and Saturday, Oct. 22. Both presentations will be held in the parish center, 1000 E. College Ave. The first is a “Date Night with Dr. Ray” and is planned […]
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Tom Cruise stars in a scene from the movie "Jack Reacher: Never Go Back." The Catholic News Service classification is A-III -- adults. (CNS photo/Paramount)
By Catholic News Service Tom Cruise, in his second venture as the former Army officer-turned-freelance-detective invented by British novelist Lee Child, is as durable as a cast-iron stove. A somewhat mysterious knight-errant, Reacher is a strong moralist according to his own lights, and descends into others’ predicaments like a deus ex machina. This go-round, he […]
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Zach Galifianakis and Isla Fisher star in a scene from the movie "Keeping Up With the Joneses." The Catholic News Service classification is A-III -- adults. (CNS/Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp.)
By Catholic News Service Flat action comedy in which a suburban couple (Zach Galifianakis and Isla Fisher) discover that their suspiciously perfect new neighbors (Jon Hamm and Gal Gadot) are, in fact, undercover spies. In a bid for fish-out-of-water laughs, Michael LeSieur’s script then drags the ordinary duo through high-speed chases, shootouts and other dangerous […]
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EAST PEORIA — Sister Mary Pacifica Lorber, OSF, died on Oct. 14, 2016, at the motherhouse of The Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis. She was 104 and in her 78th year of religious profession. Visitation is planned for 7 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 17, in the motherhouse chapel, 1175 St. Francis Lane. […]
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Ben Affleck and Anna Kendrick star in a scene from the movie "The Accountant." The Catholic News Service classification is O -- morally offensive. (CNS/Warner Bros.)
By Catholic News Service Absurdly convoluted and morally bankrupt action-drama about an autistic man (Ben Affleck) with an innate genius for crunching numbers and the learned ability to kill with brutal precision. After years working as a forensic accountant for criminal enterprises worldwide, the deeply flawed protagonist takes on a legitimate client; in the process, […]
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Rusty Joiner and Jocelyn Cruz star in a scene from the movie "Voiceless." The Catholic News Service classification is A-III -- adults. (CNS/Icon Media Group)
By Catholic News Service An overheated tone and characters’ questionable tactics in the struggle against abortion undercut the obviously good intentions behind this pro-life drama. A Special Forces veteran (Rusty Joiner) who teaches boxing at an inner-city Philadelphia church’s outreach center is dismayed to find an abortion mill operating across the street. Previously uninvolved in […]
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Kevin Hart stars in a scene from the movie "Kevin Hart: What Now?" The Catholic News Service classification is A-III -- adults. (CNS/Universal)
By Catholic News Service Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia is the outsized setting for this concert film featuring the diminutive comic. His language gets raunchy, but his routine is never bawdy, mean-spirited or smutty. Vocabulary aside, there are two main problems here: A framing device of Hart in a James Bond-style movie, directed by Tim […]
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Ben Winchell stars in a scene from the movie "Max Steel." The Catholic News Service classification is A-III -- adults. (CNS/Open Road Films)
By Catholic News Service Yet another action figure leaps off the toy store shelves and onto the big screen in this derivative coming-of-age superhero chronicle, directed by Stewart Hendler. A gangly 16-year-old boy (Ben Winchell) is transformed by the universe’s most powerful form of energy and gains a robotic sidekick (voice of Josh Brener) to […]
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Gabrielle Union and Colman Domingo star in a scene from the movie "The Birth of a Nation." The Catholic News Service classification is A-III -- adults. (CNS/Fox)
By Catholic News Service Nate Parker wrote, directed and stars in this moving dramatization of the life of Nat Turner, an enslaved Virginian whose eponymous 1831 rebellion represented the most serious challenge of its kind ever posed to slavery in the antebellum South. Taught to read at an early age, Turner becomes a preacher whose […]
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