Friday, December 01, 2006

Weekend Movies Preview

Not much out there this weekend. I'm most intrigued by "The Nativity Story," which I haven't seen yet. Otherwise, it's a good time to catch up with the movies you haven't seen or want to see again, like "Volver." My bold prediction is that "Casino Royale" might actually have a chance to be #1 this week. It's been beating "Happy Feet" all week long (as you would expect when an adult film is facing a kid's movie on weekdays), but I think it will hold better than the penguin flick and finally be on top. It's certainly the film's last chance since next weekend brings Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet in "The Holiday," Leonardo DiCaprio's "Blood Diamond" and the wild card entry "Apocalypto."

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Today, we took our whole staff to see The Nativity Story, starring Keisha Castle-Hughes as Mary and Oscar Isaac as Joseph. My instant review is that it is faithful to the Biblical story, given that there is not a lot of scriptural text to work with in making the film. I agreed with Peter Chattaway of Christianity Today who said ” Castle-Hughes was a bit of a blank”.

Overall, I felt the strongest character was Joseph, who faced a cultural uncomfortable situation, (pregnant fiancĂ©e), yet continually showed us that he would do the right thing and make the right decision, in leading and guiding his family. In this film, Joseph is freed to show us the struggles that he faced – no whitewashing of the strain he felt in his home village and the sense of betrayal by Mary. Yet he shows us a sense of humor on the journey.

I think this was brilliantly filmed in Morocco, Italy, Nazareth and France and served as an authentic story-telling of the Nativity story when the God of the universe stepped into our reality and allowed His son to be born of a human mother.

Michael in New York said...

Thanks for the review. If the movie does well, I might interview the actor who played Joseph early this week. Was the comedy relief of the Three Wise Men ok, ie not too buffoonish? My first complaint about The Passion of the Christ was that it was not biblically or historically accurate (showing Jesus carrying the cross instead of the crossbeam ebing one obvious example). Glad to hear this film may be more faithful. After seeing the film (112 minutes long), you've got 19,999,888 minutes to go.