Rose Pacatte

A Victorian musical with toys, childlike wonder and magic; a transformative visit to the North Pole; a documentary about the people who answer letters to Santa; and a family holiday story under the shadow of U.S. immigration policy — stream these picks and feel uplifted.

There can be more to a zombie movie than dead people. "Dawn of the Dead," "Shaun of the Dead" and "Juan of the Dead" lifted my idea of zombies on the screen to the level of social, political and the religious.

Review: Director Bernardo Ruiz and producer Andrea Cordoba explore the largest non-white voting bloc in the country — Latinos — and mobilization efforts to increase their turnout in the 2020 election.

Family Theater Productions digs into the archives for "Pray," a film on its founder, a Holy Cross priest whose indefatigable commitment to prayer, the rosary and Our Lady has put him on the path to canonization.

Headmaster since 1974, Benedictine Fr. Edwin Leahy emphasizes, "We don't call St. Benedict's a campus, and we don't use the term 'student body.' We are a community."

Film review: The most frightening film of 2020 is Amazon's "All In: The Fight for Democracy," a documentary with Stacey Abrams about the history — and current state of — voter suppression in the United States.

Movie review: In the best live-action film to come from Disney in a very long time, the juxtaposition between adversaries Mulan and Xianniang, both women hiding their identity, is one of the high points.

"Fatima," being distributed via pop-up drive-ins, portrays Mary's appearance to three children in 1917. The film is artistic, accurate and offers moving moments between its mother-daughter characters.

Review: Set at a Catholic high school, this fictional portrait of a young man who dreams of being a chef moves a goalpost in how we should acknowledge the full personhood of people who have mental illnesses.

Film review: Even with the in-depth approach this documentary takes, perhaps we will remain ambivalent about Flannery O'Connor's attitude on race. The thing we cannot ignore is the core of her writing — the mystery of life and the workings of grace in all her characters.

Book review: Drawing on theology, Scripture, philosophy and anthropology, in Let's Talk About Truth, Ann Garrido has some serious things to say about truth in the post-truth age.

Review: I was moved and glad that Bryce Dallas Howard's first feature film, "Dads," included dads from all around the world who are doing the best they can — and even a little more. 

Review: "Screened Out" acknowledges we have free will, but with addictive social media sites and gaming, it's not always a sure thing that a person can change his or her online life without intervention.

"Walking the Good Red Road: Nicholas Black Elk's Journey to Sainthood" is a documentary about the man who may become the second Native American and first male American Indian to be canonized a saint.

Review: This FX series is about women and identifying, negotiating, taking and shaping personal, political, corporate, social and cultural power in American life. Phyllis Schlafly is the opposite of a radical feminist, or even a Christian feminist.

Review: The new original Netflix series follows the story of a young woman in an arranged marriage of the Satmar Hasidic community. Loosely based on a memoir, its goal was to show a universal story. This review includes an interview with one of the series producers, Anna Winger.

There is nothing like being unexpectedly homebound, as the coronavirus has done to us all. NCR film critic Sr. Rose Pacatte suggests some movies we can watch together as grownups, families with children, or solo.

"The Banker" is based on an incredible true story of two men who, after creating wealth for themselves, moved to social activism by creating opportunities for their neighbors.

Commentary: Of the 50 or so Oscar-nominated films, I have seen 29, a number of them among my top 13 favorites of 2019. My test: Is the story told in such a compelling way that I would watch this film again?

Commentary: All I could think was how much sex trafficking goes on around the Super Bowl and how Sunday's halftime performance seemed like a hypersexed ad as a subtext for what what's really happening.