• April Fool's!
• Dove Foundation Announces Crystal Seal Awards
  
• "Knowing" Screenwriter Ryne Pearson
• Hallmark Airs "Love Takes Wing" and "Love Finds a Home"
  
• "The Imposter" Hits a Lot of Right Notes
• "Angels & Demons": Vatican Advocates Caution, Not a Ban
• Prospect of Salvation in the Film "Knowing"
  
• Observing Holy Week

Hi <<First Name>>,

Are you a jokester? If so, then you probably had a great time this week with April Fool's Day. I really enjoy a good prank. It can be either a simple one like swapping house numbers, or a complex, well thought out plan demanding precise timing and flawless execution.

My friend Karen and her husband Troy played simple but effective tricks on each other all day long. First, she called him on the way to work and said she was out of gas. Could he please come get her?

Then he had the school nurse call her and tell her she needed get their son because he was sick. Normally she'd jump in her car and go to the school, but decided to call the nurse first.

As a payback, Karen asked the nurse to call Troy and say she was on her way to the school and really mad. He caved and called Karen to tell her "April Fool's!" The next thing you know a bouquet of flowers in a beautiful vase appeared in our office with a sweet card from Troy. All was forgiven.

Lesson learned: if you're going to spend the day playing jokes, have a plan in place to settle things at the end of the day.

From the screening room,

Angela Walker
ChristianMovieNews.com

Dove Foundation Announces Crystal Seal Awards

The Dove Foundation announced today the winners of the CRYSTAL DOVE SEAL, an award designed to highlight Hollywood’s film-making achievements for the vast and diverse family audience. The CRYSTAL DOVE SEAL pays special tribute to those studios who demonstrated increased awareness of the value of providing the huge family audience with more appropriate choices. 

In February, nearly 2,000 online voters selected the "best of the best" Dove Family-Approved movies for 2008.
Dove Foundation co-founder and CEO Dick Rolfe just returned from Los Angeles where he presented the solid crystal trophies for the following movies: 

Best Drama
Fireproof 

Sherwood Pictures, Sony Provident Entertainment

Best Action Adventure
Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

Walden Media

Best Comedy
Bedtime Stories

Walt Disney Pictures

   

Best Animated Feature
WALL-E

Pixar Animation and Walt Disney Pictures

      

Best Musical
High School Musical 3: Senior Year 
Walt Disney Pictures

Best Documentary
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

Premise Entertainment

Best Limited Release
All Roads Lead Home

Waldo West Productions

“Dove Family Approved movies are all winners where profits are concerned,” said Rolfe. “Films that elevate rather than denigrate the human spirit are bound to appeal to a wider audience. It is a win-win scenario – the movie-going public has a wider variety of appropriate movies to choose from and the film industry has the potential for larger revenues garnered through the distribution pipeline.”

Ryne Pearson is a published novelist with five books (soon to be six) in print, one of which was the source novel for the 1998 Bruce Willis film Mercury Rising. Father of two sons and a devout Catholic who has two priests that are uncles, Ryne's faith worldview comes through in his latest screenplay for the Nicolas Cage film Knowing.

When you watch the finished film, what parts of it are closest to your original idea and story?

Ryne:    It would be the father-son relationship and the journey they take to finding out there is something bigger. My original ending was different than what's there, but the theme of it is the same, that there's something bigger. That remained.

There is a theme I didn't write, which is one of my favorite themes in the movie now. That is the last scene with John Koestler (played by Nicolas Cage) when he returns to his family and his father. His father says, "This isn't the end," and John says, "I know." That's my favorite theme in the whole movie, and I didn't write it.

I didn't intend to write this as a religious movie or anything like that. To me, the natural thing was if you are confronted with knowing that things are going to end, what do you naturally turn to? You turn to questions like, "Is there something after this?"

[ Read more... ]

by Angela Walker

In a surprising move, the Hallmark Channel is playing films based on the last two books of the tremendously popular Love Comes Softly series on two consecutive weekends. Love Takes Wing will show on Saturday, April 4th, and Love Finds a Home airs on Saturday, April 11th. The six previous films were all shown at least six months apart between 2004 and 2008.

Review by Angela Walker

Johnny C is a rock star. He's the front man for Grand Design, a Christian band. He's a unique man with a unique talent, but his addiction to pain medication is taking over his life. Night after night, he stands before screaming crowds of fans, and the adulation of the fans is quickly replacing the love of his wife and daughter in his priorities.

[ Read more... ]

by Kevin P. Donovan - Christian Post

A Vatican official says it would be better for the Church to advise believers to be cautious when it comes to the upcoming movie Angels & Demons rather than calling for bans against it.

Archbishop Velasio De Paolis, president of the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See, believes doing the latter could result in a “boomerang effect.”

[ Read more... ]

by Marc T. Newman, Ph.D.

Are we a great cosmic accident, or is there a purpose to life on this planet? This question informs debate in college philosophy classrooms, school board schisms over evolution, deathbed discussions, and is the central controversy in the latest film from director Alex Proyas, Knowing. Adapted from the story by Ryne Douglas Pearson, Knowing follows the spiritual awakening of John Koestler, an MIT scientist drowning in drink and disbelief after the apparently meaningless death of his beloved wife in a hotel fire. In an unfinished dream home, he struggles to parent his precocious and often combative son, Caleb. At work, he poses questions to his students about determinism and randomness, indicating, in an unguarded moment, that he no longer believes that life has meaning.

The Robe: Special Edition - DVD One of the greatest biblical epics of all time.	Dateline Jerusalem - DVD The trial, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus as TV News would cover it today
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