It usually takes up to a month, weather permitting, for travelers to hike at least a section of El Camino de Santiago, the Way of St. James. This famous and historic pilgrimage path has for its goal, of course, the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain's region of Galicia.
From the silent era through the mid-1960s, Bible-based films constituted a reliable staple of Hollywood's output. Directors both famous and obscure mined the Scriptures for stories they could bring to the big screen, with results that ranged from the reverential to the exploitative.
Moviegoers may want to take a break from their cellphones after seeing the intriguing thriller "Drop" (Universal). That's because the technology involved in sending the titular type of message -- as well as the ubiquity of the devices themselves -- has the film's protagonist in a quandary.
Despite the considerable amount of controversy that surrounded it, including allegations of anti-Semitism, Mel Gibson's 2004 biblical drama "The Passion of the Christ" was sufficiently popular that it took in more than $612 million at the box office. In fact, it remained the highest grossing R-rated film domestically for over 20 years.
Beginning with its 2017 pilot episode and a first full season that kicked off in 2019, showrunner Dallas Jenkins' Gospel-based TV series "The Chosen" has gained a wide following. Viewers, moreover, have proved willing to devote their money as well as their attention to the successfully crowdfunded production.
The formula is an old, but by no means venerable, one in Hollywood. Give a character with a military background an excuse to put his calm civilian existence on hold temporarily and so unleash his slaying skills on a host of wrong-doers.
In recent years, Disney has been recasting some of its most successful animated films into live-action offerings. The notion of including the studio's landmark 1937 musical "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves" in this roster of remakes must initially have seemed a no-brainer.
"Anora," a film containing such graphic sexual content that it can arguably be categorized as pornographic, was honored as 2024's Best Picture at the 97th annual Academy Awards ceremony March 2. The movie's writer-director, Sean Baker, took home three other Oscars while Mikey Madison, who played the title role, won as Best Actress.
A globe-trotting adventure awaits in "Paddington in Peru" (Columbia), the third film in the series featuring the red hatted and blue duffle-coated talking bear (voice of Ben Whishaw) that kicked off in 2014.
The mind-control plot driving "Captain America: Brave New World" (Disney), the fourth film in the current series about the Marvel Comics character, drains it of any suspense. Whether that's a drawback, of course, depends on what viewers expect from such a movie.
