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Keywords: Richard Leonard

  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The time to look away from abuse crisis has gone

    • Richard Leonard
    • 28 January 2016
    18 Comments

    This is one of the angriest films you will ever see. In the Bible we hear about righteous anger, where God or humanity realises something is so wrong and sinful that 'holy anger' is the first and right response. At its best in the scriptures this anger leads to justice, making things right. Spotlight is an occasion for holy, righteous anger and every adult Catholic should see it.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Racist Oscars need to lift their game

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 21 January 2016
    2 Comments

    It's less than a year since we lamented the lack of non-white faces among 2015's Oscar nominees. This year the situation is even grimmer, with not one non-white face among 20 nominees for acting awards, despite a raft of clear contenders. It is ironic, because at first glance, concepts of empowerment and inclusion seem to have been at the forefront of Academy members' minds. The theme of bringing marginalised or oppressed groups into the centre, or of restoring power and dignity to vulnerable individuals from whom it has been stripped, run through many of this year's nominated films.

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  • RELIGION

    A messy birth and a vulnerable baby

    • Richard Leonard
    • 18 December 2014
    21 Comments

    At a Christmas party, I met the charge nurse of the maternity ward. Pleading that because I was a celibate I would never be at a birth, I enquired if I might be allowed to come and see'. … Mary and I met six hours into her labor, which was an unusual circumstance within which to meet your birthing partner.' She had very little small talk, maybe because she had no breath at all.

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  • RELIGION

    A funny thing happened on the way to the Vatican

    • Richard Leonard
    • 18 March 2013
    8 Comments

    Francis stood there alone for the cruellest time. This is why members of royal families never appear on balconies alone: you can only wave so often. The Latin Americans went nuts. This guy is now the most famous Argentine ever, jumping Che, Evita and Maradona. Like 'Francis', they specialise in one-name handles too, but with friends like that ... 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    In defence of 'adults only' video games

    • Michael Mullins
    • 20 February 2012
    3 Comments

    Opponents of the government's proposed R18+ video game classification argue that playing violent video games leads to violent behaviour. But researchers have found mental health to be a more reliable predictor of negative outcomes.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Cinema: the secular temple

    • Barbara Creed and Richard Leonard
    • 18 March 2009
    3 Comments

    People have stopped going to church, but they still have an eye for and an expectation of the mystical. At the cinema, spectators, primed by the structures of the cinema itself, enter into a mystical experience with the shadow world being played out before them.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Critics with the measure of a good film

    • Richard Leonard
    • 03 October 2007
    1 Comment

    Accepting a peer award recently, Sydney Morning Herald film critic Paul Byrnes declared serious film criticism to be in trouble. 'Much of the public now believes that a great film can't be great unless the box office makes it great.' He has a point.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    History rises amidst film's humane depth

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 11 July 2007

    Lucky Miles is an outrageous buddy comedy set in 1990 in the Western Australian wilderness, with echoes of September 11, border security, and the totalitarian Indigenous intervention. This topicality borders on prophetic, as the film was conceived seven years ago.

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  • CONTRIBUTORS

    Richard Leonard SJ

    • Richard Leonard
    • 17 May 2007

    Rev Dr Richard Leonard SJ is the director of the Australian Catholic Film Office and author of Movies That Matter: Reading Film Through The Lens of Faith.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Walking through a human zoo

    • Richard Leonard
    • 02 April 2007
    1 Comment

    With his mother coming and going from the house and his life, Augustine has to find his way to adulthood. Running With Scissors feels like walking through a human zoo where we observe the insane antics of one caged character after another.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Politically correct dancing

    • Richard Leonard
    • 02 April 2007
    1 Comment

    A new ocker comedy depicts young protégés at a suburban dance school immersing themselves in choreographies about starvation, people dying of AIDS and the nuclear holocaust.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Jesuit critic says Da Vinci Code reveals Christians' ignorance of faith

    • Michael Mullins
    • 27 February 2007

    Fr Richard Leonard has said that The Da Vinci code's main achivement is to expose the level of ignorance among Christians about their own history and how the New Testament was compiled.

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