Posted on 12/01/2006 5:45:36 AM PST by Sybeck1
It is up to 46%
Lot of Christian bashing on the site.
Absolutely. In fact, one of the Berrigan brothers (I think I'm remembering the name right), the radical leftist priests, played a bit part and acted as a consultant to the movie. The propaganda aspect is definitely there. But, yeah, it's a great movie and like you say, now that liberation theology has faded you can enjoy the movie, which is beautiful in all other ways, without feeling overly irked by the lefty political message.
The Passion of the Christ wasn't artsy enough for you??
I'm not into "artsy", but if what you mean is, Was it good enough art for you? (and we agree that film is an art, right?) then my answer is, I don't know, I guess it was okay. It was no masterpiece, that's for sure, and it concerns me that it's being perceived as such. For lots of Christians The Passion has become the 10 on their 1-to-10 movie scale. If things were right in the world of Christian art, it would be generally recognized as being about a six.
Aesthetic discernment is one of those things that has to be consciously and diligently worked at to be maintained. Unfortunately this is an area where Christianity has dropped the ball, big time. Though I'm a Christian now, I wasn't raised as one. I've got kind of an outsider's persective and I can tell you that from the outside this lack of understanding and skill in the arts is painfully obvious. To the extent that fighting the culture war well depends on knowing how art works, Christianity in America has put itself at a very real disadvantage.
Here's an article by a Catholic movie critic called Why Do Heathens Make the Best Christian Films Oh man, is he ever right on target:
http://catholiceducation.org/articles/arts/al0294.htm
Towards the bottom he lists what look like some good Christian-themed movies, mostly by non-Christians, that are probably worth checking out. Plus a list of Christian movies by Christians which naturally should be avoided if at all possible. He puts the two lists side by side for contrast and it is indeed very telling.
BTW, have you ever heard of Robert Godwin? He writes a fairly amazing blog called OneCosmos:
http://www.onecosmos.blogspot.com/
I noticed from your profile that you're a skeptic about religion. Godwin is one of the *very* few writers about spiritual things who I can imagine being persuasive to an intelligent skeptic.
Review *bump*.
I'll probably go see it out of curiosity.
It would be interesting to see what the Catholic Church says about the movie The Mission.
Thank you for being so polite and informative.
Did the Spanish and the Portguese sign a treaty? Yes they did. Did that change what countries owned what land in South America, yes it did.
The reviews I have read say it isn't risky enough or passionate enough. There isn't heart behind the story telling.
No it is not sappy,artless hokum. The production values are quite good, over all. The first half is better than the last, which to become Christmas pageant-like. Fact is, good films such as Monsieur Vincent, about Vincent DePaul, are pretty much ignored by film-makers. Ditto, The Keys of the Kingdom, which is not even on DVD, because it is NOT sappy. This even though it was really Gregory Peck's break-through role.
I believe Medved is an orthodox Jew as well. So, I appreciate his objectivity in liking a movie about the most famous Jew in world - Jesus!
I think it's very much a case of going to the well too often. The basic nativity story has been told so many times, between 4th grade classes, tv and movies.
It looks very well done to me and I would probably see it on DVD.
The director is Christian lady who poured her heart into it and strived to make it as authentic as possible without deviation from scripture.
From the website scenes and trailers, it looks wonderful, especially for young children and adults.
I will be renting the DVD and then purchasing it for the family library if it is as good as it seems.
I am not sure you are accurate at all. The director is devoutly Christian and she poured her heart into it. She mentions in a website interview that she felt she was 'called' to make this film.
Click on the link below and then on 'videos' on the lower left.
Then click the videos by Mike Rich and also the director Catherine Hardwicke.
http://thenativitystory.com/?engine=adwords!8614&keyword=%28nativity%29&match_type=
A couple of weeks ago there was a different prelease website that had .wmv files by Catherine and Mike Rich. In those videos Catherine talks of her Christian upbringing and her devotion to this film.
I don't know what happened to that website. It may still exist.
I am not sure where you got your information but it is not what is freely seen on the internet.
Click on the link below and then on 'videos' on the lower left.
Then click the videos by Mike Rich and also the director Catherine Hardwicke.
http://thenativitystory.com/?engine=adwords!8614&keyword=%28nativity%29&match_type=
In the 'Featurette: Director Catherine Hardwicke' video she says near the beginning that she felt she was called to do this movie. Near the end of that video she says "Over my whole life I studied the Bible as a kid, and I read, went to Sunday School, so it is an amazing opportunity to do this project about faith."
The way I see it is if Hollywood, meaning the money and decision authority, is willing to allow such directors as Catherine come do a film about the birth of Christ in an authentic way, then they are attempting to return film scripts to traditional values. I welcome that and will give the film my $$$ support. I hope the $$$ returns on this film will encourage Hollywood execs to continue to 'get with the program' of giving Americans an inspired reflection of their deepest held beliefs.
It is better artistically than s things like "Pass it on." which gets good reviews, because it fits the liberal template. They like "message" movies; they just don't like the Christian message.
The vrse they quoted really dealt with the second advnet not the first. But I thought them ovie was good, but Biblically accurate.
I just checked the Christianitytoday.com website and saw there was a review of this movie. They gave it 3 of 4 stars. I skimmed the review, and it was generally very positive, calling it the first "blatantly Christian" movie since ---"the bathrobe epics of the 1960s." I was unaware of this website, but was VERY impressed a week or so ago when I googled a movie I had just seen "Little Children" with Kate Winslet, and saw the website come up on the first group of results for reviews. The reviewer stood up VERY well to more secular reviewers, and was WAY more independent-minded than I expected him to be, on an avowedly Christian website. He also had a brilliantly insightful way of describing the use of a voice-over narrator in LITTLE CHILDREN that I never saw matched in any regular magazine or newspaper reviews of it.I am not a Christian, but considering all we have learned in the last several years, I think the time is right to see this movie, whether or not it represents the pinnacle of the filmic art.
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