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30-second movie reviews -- in verse!

Deacon Steven D. Greydanus Blogs

Reel Faith
Reel Faith

Here’s something I had fun doing: 30-second movie review videos—some in rhyming verse, some not!

The five spots below were created for my cable TV show “Reel Faith,” which I co-host with David DiCerto. Our next full season is this summer, but the show’s not entirely on hiatus: We did a mini-season over Christmas (the last episode of which you can still watch online), and last week we taped a special one-hour Academy Awards episode that I believe will be airing this Sunday (I’ll let you know).

Now David and I have done a series of 30-second spots that run on NET as advertisements for the show, and are available online at YouTube.

Regular readers are probably familiar with my predilection for writing reviews in verse (including haiku), and I’ve done readings for a number of these on the air, including singing my Scooby-Doo review to the tune of the “Scooby-Doo” theme song on “Fully Alive” with Greg and Lisa Popcak. This is the first time I’ve performed reviews in verse on video, though.

Three of the 30-second spots below, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, Tangled and The Tourist, are in verse. The other two, True Grit and Rabbit Hole, are prose. I hope to do some more 30-second spots in the near future, both in verse and prose.

Enjoy! And, if you enjoy ’em, share the YouTube links with others who may enjoy them too.


Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (full review)


True Grit (full review)


Tangled (full review)


Rabbit Hole (full review)


The Tourist

If you enjoyed those, here are all my written reviews in verse!

Deacon Steven D. Greydanus

Deacon Steven D. Greydanus Deacon Steven D. Greydanus is film critic for the National Catholic Register, creator of Decent Films, a permanent deacon in the Archdiocese of Newark, and a member of the New York Film Critics Circle. For 10 years he co-hosted the Gabriel Award–winning cable TV show “Reel Faith” for New Evangelization Television. Steven has degrees in media arts and religious studies, and has contributed several entries to the New Catholic Encyclopedia, including “The Church and Film” and a number of filmmaker biographies. He has also written about film for the Encyclopedia of Catholic Social Thought, Social Science, and Social Policy. He has a BFA in Media Arts from the School of Visual Arts in New York, an MA in Religious Studies from St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Overbrook, PA, and an MA in Theology from Immaculate Conception Seminary at Seton Hall University in South Orange, NJ. Steven’s writing for the Register has been recognized many times by the Catholic Press Association Awards, with first-place wins in 2017 and 2016 and second-place wins in 2019 and 2015. Steven and his wife Suzanne have seven children.

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