Home Video Picks & Passes 09.01.19

A farm-focused documentary is deemed a ‘pick.’

(photo: via IMBD)

The Biggest Little Farm (2019) PICK

A Dog’s Journey (2019) — PASS

The Secret Life of Pets 2 (2019) — PASS

Unplanned (2019) — PICK


New Blu-ray/DVD releases include four films of possible interest to Catholic audiences. Two are worth catching; two others, not so much. 

The two worth catching are both fact-based. The Biggest Little Farm is a documentary about a naively idealistic California couple’s efforts to farm in harmony with nature. And Unplanned is based on the conversion story of Planned Parenthood facility director-turned-pro-life-activist Abby Johnson. 

Both films tell intriguing stories with just enough complications to make them interesting, though they’re also tidy enough to have a promotional vibe.

Movies to skip: A Dog’s Journey, a mawkish tale of doggy reincarnation and human misery that plays like a Precious Moments version of a harrowing country song, and The Secret Life of Pets 2, more fragmented, half-baked kiddie fare from the Minions crew.

 

CAVEAT SPECTATOR: The Biggest Little Farm: Bloody aftermath of animal predation. Older kids and up. Unplanned: Disturbing ultrasound images of an unborn child being dismembered; much medical gore and brief images of fetal parts; some cursing; a couple of sexual references. Older teens and up.

Maya Hawke as American writer Flannery O'Connor in the 2024 film "Wildcat."

Jessica Hooten Wilson and Father David Pivonka (May 4)

Flannery O’Connor scholar Jessica Hooten Wilson gives her take on the film Wildcats and what animates the Catholic 20th-century writer’s prophetic imagination. Franciscan University of Steubenville’s president Father David Pivonka joins us to explain why Franciscan University has pushed back against the new interpretation of the Title IX rule.