Fatima (Picturehouse), a fact-based drama from director and co-writer Marco Pontecorvo, recounts what may rank as the most remarkable series of religious events of modern times.
Namely, the 1917 apparitions of the Virgin Mother Mary (Joana Ribeiro) to three shepherd children near the Portuguese city of the title.
Those chafing under the travel restrictions imposed by the current pandemic may take comfort from The Rental (IFC), the story of an oceanside getaway gone fatally wrong.
Sex is more fun than being Catholic. That’s the basic message of writer-director Karen Maine’s semi-autobiographical drama Yes, God, Yes (Vertical).
The Outsider, by the London Tablet’s Vatican correspondent Christopher Lamb, is a sustained defence of Pope Francis. Lambert presents him as reviving the hopes of the Second Vatican Council and as inspirer of renewal movements throughout the Catholic Church. Occasionally he waxes lyrical in his praise.
There’s an adolescent quality to the nihilism that underlies director Max Barbakow’s feature debut, the romantic comedy Palm Springs (Neon/Hulu). Its frivolous and degraded view of matters sexual is equally immature.
The novels of British author CS Forrester (1899 to 1966) have proved a rich resource for Hollywood. In 1951, for example, Gregory Peck took the title role in Captain Horatio Hornblower, playing the protagonist of Forrester’s popular series of books about the Napoleonic Wars.