Here's a view of "Water Walk" in McAllen. Catherine Hardwicke was the architect and principal designer of this multi-family condo project.
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.
Hardwicke's profile will go up in Hollywood if this movie is a huge success.
Go for it!
Beautiful...
Borat was funny. Lots of people here liked it as well.
'Thirteen' was terrible. Pandering and exploitative.
Yes. You're right. A stinker. Hopefully the Nativity story will be a lot better.
Anyone know why it is PG, I want to take my lower elementary age children to see it?
Also old news. There was nothing in it any different from growing up on the South Side of Chicago in the '70's.
The only thing I can think of that would make it PG are King Herod's actions.
The ad in Yahoo shows the PG rating due to violence. Probably the slaughter of the innocents by Herod at the beginning of the movie.
http://thenativitystory.com/?engine=adwords!8614&keyword=%28the+nativity+story%29&match_type=
Here's the official website for the movie. The PG rating symbol says it includes some violent content.
Arfan (#59) took his 9yr old daughter to see it, and she liked it.
Are you going to see 'The Nativity Story' this weekend?
Traveling east from Persia is what took the Magi so long to reach the Holy Land...they had an awful time hiring a junk to take them from China around Cape Horn to the Pillars of Hercules.
There's a wonderful photo book that includes the stills from the movie. It's an absolutely beautiful book. It's called The Nativity Story. I'm not a big photo book purchaser but the price was right (less than 20 dollars) and is a really nice book for the Christmas collection.
I thought it was very well done. They presented Joseph in a manner that most movies of this genera do not. A strong, supportive man who is willing to sacrifice for the wellbeing of his family.
The detail to the time period is done as well as The Passion was.
It was interesting to see how the director presented how the people in the town treated Joseph and especially Mary after it was known she was with child.
Some of the details in the story are a little shaky. The Wise Men appearing on the same night as Jesus's birth. The star of Bethlehem being three planets aliening together.
The woman who played Mary was just perfect, a wonderful choice.
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