Documentary on Hospice Care Provided by Death Row Inmates

AOA NEWS

LOUISINA - Serving Life documents an extraordinary hospice program where hardened criminals care for dying fellow inmates. Narrated and executive produced by Academy Award®-winner Forest Whitaker, the film takes viewers inside Louisiana's maximum security prison at Angola, where the average sentence is more than 90 years. This was the final project of AOA Advisory Council member, Lynn Harden before leaving NYC for a new assignment in Portland. It premieres on OWN tonight, Thursday, July 28 at 9/8c. [link]

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VIDEO: Animated Film Roils Hindus in NYC

THE DAILY BEAST
By Salil Tripathi

A scene from "Sita Sings the Blues" featuring Rama (far left)
and his wife Sita (second from left). , Nina Paley

NEW YORK - Something unremarkable was going to happen on the evening of July 21 at Richmond Hill, a suburb in the diverse New York borough of Queens, where an 82-minute animation film called Sita Sings the Blues was going to be screened at the Starlight Pavilion. Drawing on the Sanskrit epic, Ramayana, the film tells the parallel story of an American animator whose marriage breaks down in India, but who finds inspiration from the life of Sita, the queen at the center of Ramayana.
Protest letters arrived immediately. The part of Queens where the film was being shown has a substantial South Asian population, and many of the residents are Caribbean Americans of Indian origin.Hindus had stayed away from identity politics, but noticing that other faiths are able to attract attention by challenging text, interpretations, films, books, music, and imagery, they have begun to show their assertiveness. Watch: Sita Sings the Blues (82-min). [link]

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Students Learn Filmmaking & Morals at Catholic Summer Camp

THE FLORIDA TIMES-UNION
By Jeff Brumley

FLORIDA - Brian Shields will tell you straight up he's all about instilling Christian values in young people and encouraging them to keep Christ at the center of their personal and professional lives. But what makes this Catholic evangelist different is the method he uses to spread the gospel and inspire youngsters to follow suit: film-making. This week he and his staff from Lumen Entertainment are hosting an eight-day film camp for high school students. He's been holding the camp since 2008. It's mission statement is "To enlighten and nourish with truth through the arts."[link]

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Brad Pitt is God in "Tree of Life"

WALL STREET JOURNAL
By Dennis Nishi

CALIFORNIA - Fox Searchlight recently arranged an invitation-only screening in Los Angeles, Calif. for “The Tree of Life,” the fifth film by director Terrence Malick that is set for wide release on July 8. The story is set in Waco, Texas during the 1950s and Malick uses a tragic death in the central O’Brien family to frame an exploration of grace and nature. The studio also invited a multi-denominational panel of religious leaders and writers to offer their theological insights about the film and its director. [link]

Prior to July 8, the film be viewed in the following select cities, including Indianapolis, New York City and Oklahoma City (All Movies)

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"The Hangover ll" Movie Leads to Thailand's Ban on Religious Tattoos

FOX NEWS

Warner Bros.

THAILAND - Thailand's Culture Minister told reporters on Wednesday that he plans to ask the country's National Culture Commission to pass a law banning foreign tourists from getting Thai religious tattoos. The tattoos, which generally combine Buddhist images and Pali text and sometimes feature Hindu themes, are popular with backpackers and celebrities alike. According to the Thai national news service, Culture Minister Nipit Intarasombat expressed concern that the use of religious symbols as body art for non-Buddhists was inappropriate. [link]

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'Hobbit' Films Get Names, Release Dates

POPEATER
by the Editors at Moviefone

NEW ZEALAND - The official titles of the two upcoming 'Hobbit' films have just been announced and there's none of this boring 'Part 1' and 'Part 2' nonsense. The first of the two films will be called 'The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey' and the second 'The Hobbit: There and Back Again.' The first references one of the book's chapter headings, the second is actually part of author J.R. R. Tolkien's original title, 'The Hobbit or There and Back Again.' (We're betting movie marquees will still opt for the simpler '1' and '2.'). And now fans have official release dates to circle on their calendars: 'Journey' arrives as an early Christmas present on December 14, 2012 and its follow-up also has a holiday release, December 13, 2013. [link]

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Movie: "Hole in the Head: A Life Revealed"

AOA NEWS
By Tahlib

INDIANA - Sometimes the secrets we keep are dying to be told. "Hole in the Head: a Life Revealed" is the story of Vertus Hardiman, age 80, who kept a secret since her was 5 years old. He grew up in a place called "Freedom Village" Indiana and during 1927 he was subjected to an experiment at a county hospital. He hides the shocking results under a wig & beanie but still praises God.

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The Bible to Become History Channel Mini-series

HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
By Lacey Rose

NEW YORK CITY - The History Channel, cable network is readying a 10-hour religious docu-drama for 2013 that will include live-action and state-of-the-art CGI. History has big plans to make must-see-TV out of the Bible. The project, which comes from reality producer Mark Burnett, will air as a five-part, 10-hour scripted docu-drama with live-action and state-of-the-art CGI. Given both its scale and production value, The Bible won't appear on History's schedule until 2013. "This is probably the most important book in mankind, regardless of your beliefs or religious affiliation," History president and general manager Nancy Dubuc tells The Hollywood Reporter. "This series will bring the historical stories of the Bible to life for a new generation." [link]

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Movie Review: "Children of God" (and Religious Homophobia)

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Jeanette Catsoulis

Johnny Ferro, left, and Jason Elwood Hanna in "Children of God,"
Directed by Kareem Mortimer.

NEW YORK CITY - A skinny white boy from Nassau falls for a buff black islander in “Children of God,” a lush Bahamian romance stalked by homophobia and religious hatred.Expanding his 2007 short film, “Float,” the Bahamian writer and director Kareem Mortimer introduces Jonny (Johnny Ferro), an introverted art student, to the aptly named Romeo (Stephen T. Williams) on the balmy island of Eleuthera. Both are a little annoying: Romeo has a girlfriend, a history with drugs and a fondness for flashing his assets; Jonny’s inability to emote is threatening his painting scholarship. Opens on Friday in Manhattan. [link]

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Cannes Gives Top Prize to 'The Tree of Life'

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Manhola Dargis

FRANCE - In a strong year that was nearly eclipsed by off-screen scandals, the top prize for the 64th Cannes Film Festival was given to “’The Tree of Life,” the long-awaited film from the American director and writer Terrence Malick. A story about transcendence that divided critics, who were alternately transported and turned off by its religious themes and elliptical storytelling, it is the first film from Mr. Malick since “The New World” (2005). The famously shy Mr. Malick did not appear to accept his award, which was introduced by Jane Fonda, who spoke in emphatic French before saying, “And maintenant, now, let’s cut to the chase.” The competition jury president, Robert De Niro, hurriedly announced the winner. [link]

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Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides - My Review

AOA NEWS
By Ernest Britton

Johnny Depp and Penélope Cruz in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.
Photograph: Disney Enterprises/EPA

HOLLYWOOD - Critcs will hate this "Pirate" just as they've hated the previous three (and I am told there are two more in the hopper), but I loved Depp's Jack Sparrow, and this was one of the few times Penélope Cruz's accent didn't bother me (since it's just one of many). It's great swashbuckling fun, irreverent and bawdy without going over the top. It also has two cameo appearances from British stars (look for them); amazing digital artistry (Amazing Mermaids!); and a pretty affirming message for the Catholic crowd too. Is the script a little cryptic at times? Yes. Did the film editing leave some things unresolved? Yes. Did we enjoy it? Oh, Yes!

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Brad Pitt's "Tree of Life" at Cannes Film Festival

SALON
By Andrew O'Hehir

FRANCE - Brad Pitt was explaining to the assembled press corps why Terrence Malick was not here in person for the premiere of "The Tree of Life," his long-awaited and long-delayed new film that Malick (the director of five films in 38 years, clearly intends as a spiritual masterpiece.

Even by this idiosyncratic filmmaker's standards "The Tree of Life" tells nothing close to a conventional story, and during the dense barrage of images and sounds that fill the first half-hour or so you may wonder whether it has a story at all. Malick might respond to that question with a question of his own; he was once a doctoral candidate in philosophy at Oxford, after all.

Does the Bible tell a story? Do the Upanishads? Does the 13 billion-year history of creation -- large or small C, as you prefer -- tell a story? Because those are relevant touchstones or reference points for "The Tree of Life," a massively ambitious work of allegorical and almost experimental cinema that seeks to recapture the lived experience of a 1950s family, after the fashion of a Texas Proust, and connect it to the life of the universe, the nature and/or existence of God, the evolution of life on earth and even the microscopic chemistry and biology of life. [link]

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Reviewer Skewer's Showtimes "The Borgias"

THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS
By Ingrid Rowland

TELEVISION - Caravaggio novels, as a knowledgeable friend has observed, are not only unrelentingly bad, but bad in the same way (this friend remains nameless in order to avoid the remonstrances of outraged Caravaggio novelists and Derek Jarman). A related case of badness afflicts The Borgias, the new Showtime TV series that bears the name of director Neil Jordan and improbably stars Jeremy Irons as the patriarch of the powerful fifteenth- and sixteenth-century clan. In forty-five-minute doses, The Borgias presents viewers with a veritable banquet of badnesses: the by-definition badness of bodice-ripping costume drama, the badness of the directorial ego-trip, the badness of Low Budget/High Pretensions, the badness of gratuitous violence, and that sovereign badness of not knowing where you want to go because you don’t know where you are in the first place. [link]

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Film Points To Mormon Bigotry Against LGBT Americans

TUCSON CITIZEN
By Jim Gressinger 

ARIZONA - Director Reed Cowan, who is a former Mormon missionary, has made a film "The Mormon Proposition 8" that focuses on the wealth and power of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and how the Church uses the National Organization for Marriage to advocate for denial of rights to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Americans. It points out that Mormon leader Thomas S. Monson asked to ensure the passage of the controversial California Proposition 8. It also points out the fact that many homeless in Utah are LGBT teens who were abandoned by their Mormon parents. [link]

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