Arts & Culture

Ron Clements, a renowned animator, screenwriter and producer-director of award-winning Disney films, visited with students Sept. 13 at his alma mater Bishop Heelan High School in Sioux City, Iowa.

Bono, the lead singer of the Irish band U2, said he told Pope Francis that in Ireland “it looks as though the abusers are being more protected than the victims. And you could see the pain in his face.”

For all its spells and incantations, the witchcraft-themed fantasy “The House With a Clock in Its Walls” (Universal) lacks magic. Though some of the humor works, the film makes little impression and registers as only passable entertainment.

Rocks, mineral debris and even dust from space are kept in special collections, museums and laboratories all over the world, and the Vatican Observatory took the first small step to help curators make a giant leap in coordinating their efforts globally.

“A Simple Favor” (Lionsgate), director Paul Feig’s glossy screen version of Darcey Bell’s 2017 novel, is undeniably ingenious.

“The Fisherman’s Tomb: The True Story of the Vatican’s Secret Search” by John O’Neill recounts a journey through centuries of history and the decades-long archaeological dig to find the bones of St. Peter.

“Unbroken: Path to Redemption” (Pure Flix) continues Zamperini’s story, this time with an emphasis on the woes that beset him after he returned home at the end of the global conflict and his eventual embrace of evangelical Christianity.

A crisis of faith can certainly serve as the basis for a compelling drama. In the case of the Evangelical film “God Bless the Broken Road” (Freestyle), though, the cards feel stacked, albeit for the right outcome, with the result that the protagonist’s doubts themselves seem unconvincing.