In a sane world, the crimes of late-term abortionist/serial killer Kermit Gosnell would receive the same Hollywood treatment as other horrifying true stories like Zodiac, Monster, and In Cold Blood. It would have a large budget, a prestigious director, and A-list stars culminating in award nominations. But, of course, in a sane world the story would have received in-depth coverage from major media outlets as well.

If you could combine A Star Is Born, the remake already generating serious Oscar buzz, with Unbroken: Path to Redemption, the Christian biopic some WORLD Magazine readers and WORLD Radio listeners were unhappy with me for panning, you’d have the perfect dramatic film.

Unlike in Unbroken, nearly every moment of A Star Is Born feels real and specific. Often painfully so.

A New York moment: 

I’m covering some of the films at the New York Film Festival, and saw one documentary over the weekend. Titled End of Life, it was supposed to follow five people on the threshold of death. The pitch sounded interesting: a close look at a topic that Americans avoid discussing or thinking about. The screening was packed with young and old. 

I see two ways of looking at Smallfoot, the latest big animated movie from Warner Bros.: On the one hand, it presents caricatures of religion that, while likely intended to tweak Christianity, pack no real punch since they fail so spectacularly to capture anything approaching Biblical belief. So what’s the harm in watching something silly that ultimately reminds us we aren’t a people of superstitious and unreasonable faith?

Someone with a fear of heights probably shouldn’t go review a documentary about Alex Honnold climbing the agonizingly smooth, 3,000-foot face of El Capitan without a rope. For whatever psychological reason, I have loved watching Honnold’s free soloing videos.

Precisely half the audience at the opening night showing of God Bless the Broken Road that I attended seemed to enjoy the new faith film. The other patron laughed and gasped throughout, while I groaned in silence.

Those who’ve read Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken or who’ve read an interview with POW, Olympic runner, and Christian evangelist Louis Zamperini know what a hilarious, honest-to-a-fault character he was before his death in 2014. His description in an interview with the Amateur Athletic Foundation of the Jonah-like reaction he had when he realized God was calling him to return to Japan to evangelize some of the very men who had brutalized him perfectly captured his unique candor: “All the way over the Pacific Ocean, I was resentful, even when I arrived in Japan.