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The U.S. Catholic Conference's critic writes, "Rob Sitch's feel-good movie recalls Australia's role in the Apollo 11 mission with both humor and awe." The folks at Preview rave, "The Dish is smartly written with laughs throughout. And while the movie is certainly a comedy, more serious messages, like trusting others, consistently shine through."

Roger Ebert, who has often praised Sitch's last film The Castle as an overlooked comedy masterpiece, is impressed with this film as well. "With The Dish and The Castle, Sitch and his producing partner Michael Hirsh have made enormously entertaining … good-hearted movies. Recent Hollywood comedy has tilted toward vulgarity, humiliation and bathroom humor. Sometimes I laugh at them, but I don't feel this good afterward. The Dish has affection for every one of its characters, forgives them their trespasses, understands their ambitions, doesn't mock them and is very funny."

Just Visiting , a comedy about medieval knights who time-travel to modern-day Chicago, is getting mixed reviews. The film, which is a new American remake of the French blockbuster comedy Le Visiteurs, features two actors who starred in the original—Jean Reno and Christian Clavier.

Few critics in the religious media have caught up with the film yet, but Phil Boatwright at The Dove Foundation calls it "diverting and often-hysterical fluff." The U.S. Catholic Conference is less pleased, saying that this time travel farce "offers some mildly amusing jokes and neat special effects, but the slender, familiar premise is soon engulfed by a predictable turn of events." Mainstream critics were split, but Roger Ebert likes the film for some of the same reasons that he liked The Dish: "Just Visiting isn't low and dumb like so many recent American comedies. It depends on the comedy of personality and situation, instead of treading meekly in the footsteps of the current gross-out manure-joke movies."

I find Ebert's comments to be consistent with many of his recent reviews. He seems to be taking more of an interest in how good comedies have a sense of what is appropriate. Issues of shame, decency, and conscience are explored increasingly often in his writing. In my opinion, this is an exciting trend, considering he is the most widely read critic in the mainstream press. Perhaps his focus on these themes will challenge critics (both in the mainstream and in the religious media) and audiences to develop greater discernment and to pay closer attention to what they are consuming.

Jeffrey Overstreet is on the board of Promontory Artists Association, a non-profit organization based in Seattle, which provides community, resources, and encouragement for Christian artists. He edits an artists' magazine (The Crossing), publishes frequent film and music reviews on his Web site (Looking Closer), and is at work on a series of novels.

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April (Web-only) 2001, Vol. 45