Posted on 12/01/2006 5:42:28 AM PST by Dr. Scarpetta
Are you ready for “The Passion of the Christ: The Prequel”?
The self-explanatory “The Nativity Story” arrives at local theaters in time for the holidays, and it’s a sweet, live-action version of an elementary-school Christmas pageant.
The big story behind the scenes is that Australian Keisha Castle-Hughes, this film’s Blessed Virgin, is pregnant in real life at age 16, which is the kind of publicity money can’t buy. As Mary, she is young, strong and vulnerable, but her performance is a bit of a blank slate.
The action begins with a paranoid Herod ordering the murder of all Hebrew first-born male children to thwart a prophecy that a king will be born to take his place.
In flashbacks, Mary’s Aunt Elizabeth conceives a child at an advanced age, a child who will become Christ’s forerunner, John the Baptist, and Mary is visited by the semitransparent, wingless angel Gabriel Joseph, the industrious and handsome young carpenter, lives conveniently across the way from Mary.
Meanwhile, back in Persia, the three Magi - Melchior, Balthasar, and Shemp, I mean, Gaspar) - seem more like the THREE STOOGES than WISE MEN. They’re watching three heavenly bodies align and bickering over whether to mount a camel-borne expedition to the East.
The film, directed by Catherine Hardwicke has less in common with Pier Paolo Pasolini’s neorealistic landmark “The Gospel According to St. Matthew” (1964), Martin Scorsese’s controversial “The Last Temptation of Christ” (1988) and Mel Gibson’s gore-splattered “The Passion of the Christ” (2004) than with the blandly earnest Hollywood biblical epics of the 1950s and ’60s. Screenwriter Mike Rich followed the leads provided in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.
For her part, Hardwicke - who shot in southern Italy, where both Pasolini and Gibson preceded her - brings a refreshingly enlightened view of women’s roles and details the lives of her biblical characters. Mary’s mother, Anna, for example, makes and sells designer goat cheese, which she rolls in thyme, in the village.
The dialogue is in English and Hebrew and advances the plot, but does not reveal much about characters’ inner selves. The film’s climax relies too heavily on canned, choral music. The first of the expected offspring of “The Passion,” “The Nativity Story” is an after-Sunday-school special.
Probably King Herod's decision to order the murder of all boys under the age of 2, in order to kill the newborn King spoken of by the Magi.
She is playing Mary, she isn't Mary. Her conduct does not take away from the beauty of the movie.
She's not a woman, she's a 16-year-old girl who is pregnant in real life.
Yep, when an hysterical God-hater makes statements like this, I am encouraged.
Yep, when an hysterical God-hater makes statements like this, I am encouraged.
FReepers are pretty hypocritical when it comes to actors/actresses politicians, etc., they support or do not support.
If it's something they like, they dismiss personal life. If it's something they DON'T like, well, "PERSONAL character matters!!!"
paulat, I love the movie. I do not endorse or condone the actresses lifestyle.
Actually, the NYT review was rather flattering for the movie. The end of that quote above was "and that's not a bad thing".
The NYT liked the movie, even though they included the requisite dig on The Passion, like the Boston Herald reviewer did.
A lot of people loved Bill Clinton and didn't "endorse or condone the lifestyle."
What's the diff?
By this time everyone knows that the girl playing Mary is pregnant, but we prefer to focus on the biblical story of Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus. The fact is that the girl playing Mary is pregnant, and while unfortunate, has nothing to do with the nativity story.
Her life style does not.
The NYT's actually liked the movie?
...so, God does not judge the individual?
...and do you want teenage girls seeing this movie...knowing that the star is knocked up?
Do I want teenage girls seeing the movie? By all means yes I do want both male and female teens to see this movie.
Yes she will be judged, as will we all.
Thanks for the answer.
It just seems that FReepers excuse personal behavior only when they want to (and I've been a FReeper since 1999!)
Yep, I have been a FReeper since Feb of 99 myself.
Fury at school's PC Yule song
FURIOUS parents are banning kids from a school party after the head introduced PC versions of festive songs.He is insisting on a reggae-themed Twelve Days of Christmas with the line “Partridge In A Pear Tree” changed to “Cornbird In A Palm Tree”.
Instead of “Twelve Lords A-Leaping” or “Ten Pipers Piping”, kids will sing about “Six Limbo Dancers” and “Seven Steel Band Beaters”.
Other changes include a ruling that Christmas classic Away In A Manger will not be sung but performed in SIGN LANGUAGE.
And Rocking Around The Christmas Tree becomes Rocking Around The Shops.
The decision to ditch the traditional nativity play in favour of a calypso concert has angered parents.
More than 100 have signed a petition demanding a return to a Christian Christmas — or they will keep their kids away.
Mum Michelle Geddes, 32, said: “I have no problem with the kids learning about other cultures — but now it is Christmas. This is a time for Christian people to celebrate.
“To turn it into some sort of politically correct function with a Caribbean flavour is just not on. They want the kids to sing about Four Pumpkin Pies instead of Turtle Doves and it is just winding all the parents up.
“When it comes to the one tradition we have left they have to go and change it. This is Britain and we want a traditional British Christmas for our kids.”
The producers, directors, authority figures, and adults in this movie didn't abuse, impregnate, or give oral sex to this teenage girl who starred in the movie. This is a 16 yr old girl playing a part in a movie who made a big mistake in her young life. Bill Clinton was the authority figure who abused his office. (and since you seem to think it matters, I've been a Freeper since 1998!)
6 limbo dancers??
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