Goretti
Publications is proud to begin offering
reviews: analyses of artworks, primarily films at
this time, from a Catholic and traditional persepctive.
They will be published more or less randomly, as they are
ready.
Our ratings are on a six-star system, with six
being the best and zero being the worst. Stars awarded are
filled (★); stars not awarded are empty (☆). So a
four-star rating appears as (★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆).
SummaryMaster and Commander is a
historical drama set during the dragging years of the
Napoleonic wars, released in 2003. Captain Jack Aubrey,
master of the Surprise, is in pursuit of a French
privateer, the Acheron, in a thrilling journey
that takes us around Cape Horn and culminates in an
exciting battle near the Galapagos. Exploring themes of
leadership, hierarchy, and courage, this is an excellent
film for anyone who can tolerate the realistic violence
of nineteenth-century naval combat.
SummaryThe Island is a spiritual
drama which could have come from no country other than
Russia; it was released in 2006. Anatoly, a young sailor
in the Russian northern fleet in World War II, kills his
commander at the behest of German officer to save his own
life; he spends the rest of his life in a monastery,
praying for his young commander's soul and begging the
Lord for forgiveness. Soon, though, we see that Anatoly
is a wonderworker, that God has chosen to do great things
through him; yet he is a murderer, and doesn't understand
why he should be so favored. Anatoly purges his guilt
and gives a great lesson of guilt, penance, forgiveness,
and the all-knowing Providence of God.
SummaryEarth Abides is a
post-apocalyptic novel written in 1165 (1949), detailing
the development of a small community in the San Francisco
Bay Area surrounding graduate student Isherwood Williams
(“Ish”). Mostly ignoring the facts of the apocalypse
itself (a great plague), the novel centers on the
following decades, the birth of the community, its
growth, and finally its maturity as Ish lays dying. Its
agnosticism is thoroughgoing, so it can only be
recommended for its limited virtues, but it is (mostly)
clean, lacks profanity, and provides some interesting
examples of virtue that can make it worth reading.
SummarySigns is probably the last
of M. Night Shyamalan's well-received films, though only his
fifth (and third highly-publicized) film overall, and on the
surface is a movie following a single family coming to grips
with, and eventually resisting, an alien invasion. Much
more deeply, however, Signs is
a film about faith and unbelief, and an artistically
beautiful affirmation of Divine Providence.
