The Vatican's paper has moved up to the 1970s with its cultural critiques, saying that The Blues Brothers is a Catholic classic.

It's all part of L'Osservatore Romano's efforts to be more relevant. David Gibson in the above link says this effort has made the Vatican paper a "trendy and topical read." Sure, it's great that they've pardoned the Beatles and made a top 10 list of albums, but I don't think they've commented on much media produced after I was born. I suppose it's safer to say that what are now old classics are Vatican (paper) approved than to go out on the limb and comment on Lady Gaga.

Over the weekend, I watched a marathon of the most recent Batman movies (Batman Begins and The Dark Knight) and was struck by a scene that reflected the conversation between God and Abram that Alice Camille wrote about in her latest scripture column in U.S. Catholic. The question was how many innocent people it takes to save the world, or at least a city. It was an interesting theme for an action flick, but even then I thought, this is too old to comment on. It's not that I'm on top of all the trends, but at least both movies were made in the last 5 years.

Evangelicals definitely have us Catholics beat on being Relevant, as an evangelical magazine is titled. There's the top 10 albums of this summer rather than all time. I've seen articles and blog posts about TV shows I watch: Glee, The Office, Chuck.

One reason that we started soliciting reviews from our readers is that we know we can't keep up with everything going on in culture today. It's not just books, but movies, TV shows, music, new media. If there's something you want to review from a Catholic perspective, just let us know and help us be more "relevant." What in today's culture would you like to see Catholic publications cover?