FILMS AND BOOKS

NEW YORK (CNS) -- Parents be warned: Your kids will want you to revise the Thanksgiving dinner menu once they see "Free Birds" (Relativity),...

Sure, department stores are putting up decorations and the radio might be playing the right music, but the best way to get into the...

Television program notes from Catholic News Service and EWTN tips viewers off to relevant Advent and Christmas programming including musical tributes and films.

Television program notes from Catholic News Service and EWTN tips viewers off to relevant Christmas programming through movies, Masses and music.

Pro-life leaders from around the Diocese of Phoenix were treated to a preview Dec. 13 of “Gimme Shelter,” a film that chronicles the story of Apple Bailey, a young girl who flees from her drug-addicted, prostitute mother and seeks help from her biological father.

I met George Weigel last year when he came to the Valley to speak about how the KGB tried to suborn John Paul II, if that were even possible. I told him that I read his book, “Against the Grain,” and it totally revolutionized my view of Just War Theory. He seemed surprised that someone had actually read, and, understood a book of his. I read another one that he released in 2013 (our review schedule is full, but I insisted anyway), “Evangelical Catholicism,” and decided that this one simply blew me away, as the old cliché goes.

With their lively 3-D animated adventure "The Lego Movie" (Warner Bros.), they not only deliver a diverting eye-catcher for both young and old, they also manage to incorporate a surprisingly pointed satire of conformist consumerism into the proceedings.

Western civilization owes an incalculable debt to the real-life figures behind the fact-based World War II drama "The Monuments Men" (Columbia). Yet, despite honorable intentions and a cast of heavy hitters, this cinematic salute to their memory falls well short of the monumental.

Here is a list of some of the programming Catholic News Service has compiled for the rest of February (plus one sneak peek in March). You'll find a few family flicks plus a discussion about the four "last things," love and and the emotional and spiritual effects of abortion.

The top 10 family films of 2013, according to Catholic News Service, are...