Happy all saints day!

Patron saint of painters: St. Luke, Fra Angelico, Catherine of Bolgna

Patron Saint of TV: St. Clare

Patron saint of music: St. Cecelia
Patron Saints of Poetry: Brigid of Ireland, Columba, David

Patron Saints of Writers: Francis de Sales, John the Apostle, Lucy, Paul the Apostle

"The glorious company of the apostles praise Thee.
The goodly fellowship of the prophets praise Thee.
The white-robed army of martyrs praise Thee.
All Thy saints and elect with one voice do acknowledge Thee,
O Blessed Trinity, one God!"

Happy All Saints Day to you as well.

Is there really a patron saint of TV? Wow. I would have voted for Lucy. I love Lucy.

Toward the end of Clare's life, when the was too ill to attend Mass, an image of the service would display on the wall of her cell; thus her patronage of television.

St Lucy would NOT make a good patron saint of TV as it is hard to watch TV with your eyes plucked out! She is the patron saint of the blind.

We're thinking of different Lucy's, I suspect. I agree that yours would not be a good candidate for patron saint of TV. :-)

Groan...

St. Clare has a lot of work to do.

The television writers, in particular, need her help just now!

Who's the patron saint of MP3 downloads? Streaming video? BitTorrent?

Yeah, there is, she is a chain-smoker and she hangs out with little kids in cardboard boxes.

Heh. I was just getting around to saying, those of you who didn't know that St. Clare is the patron saint of television, it may be too long since you saw Millions. (Or at least since you read my review -- it's in the first sentence.) You could pick a worse movie to watch on All Saints' Day.

Some excellent saint movies:

From the Vatican film list:
The Flowers of St. Francis (1950, Italian)
A Man for All Seasons (1966, English)
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1927, French/silent)
Monsieur Vincent (1947, French)

One to skip from the Vatican list:
Francisco (1989, Italian)

Others:
Faustyna (1995, Polish)
The Miracle of St. Therese (1952, French [though I've only ever seen the English dub])
Bernadette (1988, French)
The Song of Bernadette (1943, USA)
Apparitions at Fatima (1992, Portuguese)
Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima (1952, USA)

Not quite (canonized) saints yet:
Romero (1989, USA)
Molokai: The Story of Father Damien (1999, English)

I think all those are reviewed at Decent Films.

Another saint movie my family and I enjoyed was Padre Pio, Miracle Man. The actor, Sergio Castellitto, looks so much like Padre Pio it's spooky. A well done movie originally in Italian, I think.

Yes, that's one of the new series of Lux Vide lives of saints movies produced for Italian television, many of which are available in the US either through Ignatius Press or an outfit called Noshame specializing in Italian imports.

I like the entries I've seen (including Padre Pio); FWIW, I think they're good not great.

P.S. Coincidentally, I was just on the phone this afternoon with Charlotte Observer critic Larry Toppman, and as it happened we somehow got into a discussion of how his patron saint, Lawrence, was martyred -- roasted on a griddle taunting his executioners to be sure to flip him over and cook both sides evenly -- and Toppman was talking about getting "roasted" for some of his reviews and how he might bring up the St. Lawrence anecdote at his retirement or something -- and I was thinking (though I never got around to saying) that my patron saint also was a martyr... and the whole time I never even thought "Here we are talking/thinking about patron saints on All Saints Day."

Heh. The priest who officiated at my wedding and baptized my children is named Fr. Lawrence, so I've definitely heard the story of St. Lawrence's martyrdom before -- it suits Fr. Lawrence's sense of humour quite well.