For some cradle Christians, no matter what flavor of traditional belief we were raised in and then left behind, a secret hunger for the Kingdom of Heaven still animates us. Which is just a way of saying I'd like to go see the flick: watching fine actors chew over philosophical and ethical dilemmas remains immensely satisfying.
I think this is why I like Man for All Seasons so much. Especially these days, seeing a movie where someone actually gives a shit about SOMETHING is encouraging.
What I love about those nostalgic for a simpler Catholic moment is how woefully bad faith (or maybe hopelessly deluded) they feel from the outside. You have the current "tradcath" movement —shouldn't a movement angriest about no longer hearing Latin Mass have a Latin moniker...? Facete Ecclesiam Infallibilem Iterum, I guess). And those who long for a Church of unimpeachable authority would have to go back two thousand years, when Roman Christians were still meeting in graveyards ab urbe muris.
What struck me (HARD) decades ago was my insight that the church was not just hiding its pedos but effectively endorsing their actions by (pretty openly, near as I could tell) sending the signal that "Yeah, we got pedos, but we know there's pedos everywhere – this is simply the place where they can feel safe". As an outsider, I was shocked by how easy it was to grok this so many years before the Boston Unpleasantnesses brought it to light here (as if only when it happens in this country is it really real)*. I even recall several people I knew scoffing at the reporting – as if the Boston Globe was actively propagandizing without evidence.
No one wants to hear this about themselves, nor the renowned** multigenerational institutions...
All to say, I guess "picking John" means something I missed...I mean, other than the relatively large number (24? 25? Oh so many Johns), who ought to care?
*I know – not the first – just using it as a more-or-less well-known recent example.
**I get it about renown – it holds sway whether deserved or no – hell, I'm still just aspiring to nown
When the current Pope selected his name I thought it telling that it took 1000 years for the papacy to honor a saint known for his humility, piety, and charity.
Even I, having not a rat's patoot to give about it, was somehow moved that my home (Ciudad de San Francisco) got some minor honor by association somewhere in there...or maybe I simply* thought it cool that Francis was giving us a H/T...
John XXIII acted pretty liberally and the tradcaths hate his updates to the church. Choosing John XXIV would be slap in the face to Opus Dei and the tradcaths
Seriously, my contempt for the Roman Catholic Church has cooled since I’ve needed my ire for the Supreme Court and the Republican Party. And when will we see the movie about the Court’s corruption and fascism? I guess if Trump’s elected, never.
The quiet takeover of the Supreme Court by not just Catholicism but Opus Dei should be the subject of a movie or two in itself (my evangelical Protestant upbringing, who constantly referred to them as "the Beast," labels this very concerning).
Yeah, but you know Hollywood, they'd have to portray Scalia as better than he really is, just to make things interesting. Movie Scalia would have doubts, or at least questions, when Real Scalia had only certainty in his awful, awful ideas.
Thanks for this. After soaking in "First Reformed"* for film club a couple months ago, I probly had my fill for a decade or so, but still intrigued. This review helps, and is a good example of why well-crafted criticism is valuable.
Best quote from Schrader about his relationship to the church:
[What can you say about working with Scorsese?] “His cultural background is urban, it’s Roman Catholic, and Italian. Mine is suburban or rural and it’s Dutch Calvinist. It’s Dutch. So he was raised in churches that look like chapels, I was raised in churches that look like courtrooms."
I didn't but spent a week in the reviews and the interviews and a couple other flicks of his just to get a sort of feel for him. And there was a weird thing on the side – mostly taking note of how he keeps repeating himself in his facebook posts, as if he doesn't remember earlier posts.
It’s not my favorite movie, but it is my favorite Director is commentary. He really talks a lot about how films are made, particularly slow films. My favorite of his recent films is Card Counter and Master Gardener is very good too.
I have emerged from my humanness to a place outside. I find all things in theater and in life require a suspension of disbelief.
Take this election - PLEASE! How can I have so many persons close to me so clueless, who are voting for obvious incompetence?
Are people so easily mesmerized by robes and rings?
A friend of mine looks forward to seeing this film. Raised Catholic, he like you harbors nostalgia.
I watched Matewan again the other night, or most if it. That is my equivalent. I want to believe there are still people like the Sid Hatfield character who show up on the right side and shoot straight with both hands.
Even if I never fired a gun in my own life. Get it, my metaphor here? I told you: I am no longer human. You should suspend your disbelief and join me.
I was born 4th generation RLDS on my mother's side. When I was 20 years old, I left that church and studied for 2 years with a priest. As it turned out, the Catholic Church did not want my pro-choice lesbian foul mouth ass, surprise surprise, but those two years of studying with the priest and a catechumenate group in the mid-1980s gave me a perspective on the differing generations and their attitudes regarding their religion, if they were cradle Catholics.
The younger people, for the most part, just sort of sat through Mass without thinking much. Stand sit kneel Rinse and repeat. And if the sermon goes over 10 minutes they all flip out. Being used to RLDS sermons, during which the speaker would say fervently that he could go on and on and then did .... I found the brevity of Catholic sermons extremely refreshing.
Many of the older Catholics, including my initial catechumenate sponsor, who was replaced after the priest learned that she had taken me to a tradCath parish that was not in Union with Rome to show me what a tridentine Mass was like, openly yearned for the church of their 1950s childhood, when nobody had to think for themselves, you just ask the priest.
The child sexual abuse scandal in the church did not figure in the news cycle until over a decade after I had been bounced from the catechumenate, but by then, because of my involvement in abortion rights activism, I had already learned to deeply distrust and eventually more or less despise the Catholic hierarchy and priesthood. Today, my main interaction with Catholicism is when I ask the priest on the sidewalk who's leading prayers for slutty women seeking abortions at the clinic they're protesting how many altar boys he's fucked this week. While I'm at it this morning, I should probably run out and get myself measured for a lightning rod. 😂
Having watched Sorrentino’s Young Pope and New Pope several times it’s very hard for me to imagine seeing a Pope movie and not being terribly disappointed. That show is just fucking nuts (watch the opening credits for all the episodes of New Pope and you’ll thank me) and I’d wager that the acting is at least equal to the show you are writing about and the cinematography and ostentatious costumes better. But on your recommendation I’ll give it a go.
I'd watch Ralph Fiennes in anything, even a movie about Catholicism, which I have no understanding of beyond popular culture. My "forever fiancé" (I'm not getting married again, Dave, so don't get me a ... damn it!) tricked me into seeing The Substance last week. I am not a fan of body horror, especially in a theater with other folks, but WOW/HOLY SHIT. What a ride! Demi Moore is incredible.
"Like most mainstream media shows, we were constantly trying to have balanced panel discussions. But we always had a problem: It was very difficult to find Republicans who weren’t crazy."
Oy gevalt. Neuro-typical culture. I'm out. Is it Friday already?
Apologies for not yet reading the latest Hardcore post. I'm hoping you'll note Drumph's somewhat disastrous Madison Square Garden event (First Nazi really at MSG, albeit the old one, since 1939. Unfortunately the crowd didn't beat the hell out of them as they did then).
My wife and I enjoyed the audiobook version of the novel (we went through dozens of titles over the course of our innumerable drives back and forth between the Bay Area and Cedars-Sinai in West Hollywood), and was delighted to learn that a film version was in prospect (and, as someone has said earlier in the thread, she’d be prepared to watch Ralph Fiennes in anything). She looked forward to seeing it, but at the beginning of last week her disease, after besieging her for twenty-eight months, flattened the last ramparts and sacked the city, and following a harrowing six days she died at home (by prearrangement, although she asked for that element to be soft-pedaled among a certain segment of her circle who would be further distressed on—come to think of it—religious grounds) on Sunday evening.
It felt heartless in a way, but twenty-two hours after that last faint breath, and following the earnest advice a couple of hours earlier of the social worker assigned to me by the hospice people to spend as little time in the house as possible in the coming days, I betook myself to a local theatre and took myself out of myself by sitting through 𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘷𝘦, accompanied by Lina’s nephew. Afterward we walked down the street just in time for him to make his 7:00 shift tending bar (a dim old establishment of the “dive” variety), where he stood me a shot and a beer. Then I walked home and went to bed.
Apart from warmly endorsing it I’ve no insights to add to Roy’s review, except perhaps to note that the vaping “trad reactionary” was portrayed by Sergio Castellitto rather than Rony Kramer.
Fiennes was okay but that role was written for DeVito.
Should have cast it with the entire cast of Goodfellas. Pope Pesci.
I would pay money to see that —
What about Whoopi in the Rosellini role
my daughter'a contribution --
Bellini - Fozzie
Sister Agnes - ms piggy
Benitez - Kermit (bc frog)
Tremblay - Pepe
Tedesco - Sam the eagle
Guys who count the votes : statler & Waldorf
For some cradle Christians, no matter what flavor of traditional belief we were raised in and then left behind, a secret hunger for the Kingdom of Heaven still animates us. Which is just a way of saying I'd like to go see the flick: watching fine actors chew over philosophical and ethical dilemmas remains immensely satisfying.
Live it vicariously -- it's almost like that's what movies are for...
I think this is why I like Man for All Seasons so much. Especially these days, seeing a movie where someone actually gives a shit about SOMETHING is encouraging.
What I love about those nostalgic for a simpler Catholic moment is how woefully bad faith (or maybe hopelessly deluded) they feel from the outside. You have the current "tradcath" movement —shouldn't a movement angriest about no longer hearing Latin Mass have a Latin moniker...? Facete Ecclesiam Infallibilem Iterum, I guess). And those who long for a Church of unimpeachable authority would have to go back two thousand years, when Roman Christians were still meeting in graveyards ab urbe muris.
Fun, huh?
What struck me (HARD) decades ago was my insight that the church was not just hiding its pedos but effectively endorsing their actions by (pretty openly, near as I could tell) sending the signal that "Yeah, we got pedos, but we know there's pedos everywhere – this is simply the place where they can feel safe". As an outsider, I was shocked by how easy it was to grok this so many years before the Boston Unpleasantnesses brought it to light here (as if only when it happens in this country is it really real)*. I even recall several people I knew scoffing at the reporting – as if the Boston Globe was actively propagandizing without evidence.
No one wants to hear this about themselves, nor the renowned** multigenerational institutions...
All to say, I guess "picking John" means something I missed...I mean, other than the relatively large number (24? 25? Oh so many Johns), who ought to care?
*I know – not the first – just using it as a more-or-less well-known recent example.
**I get it about renown – it holds sway whether deserved or no – hell, I'm still just aspiring to nown
When the current Pope selected his name I thought it telling that it took 1000 years for the papacy to honor a saint known for his humility, piety, and charity.
Even I, having not a rat's patoot to give about it, was somehow moved that my home (Ciudad de San Francisco) got some minor honor by association somewhere in there...or maybe I simply* thought it cool that Francis was giving us a H/T...
*Simple, by the ton, is how I roll.
Not a Catholic but
John XXIII acted pretty liberally and the tradcaths hate his updates to the church. Choosing John XXIV would be slap in the face to Opus Dei and the tradcaths
“End-of-life set” 😵😱
at least it swings
"all that old Vatican jazz"
Genuflect, genuflect, genuflect!
Boner pills, prostate pills, high-blood-pressure pills, collect the full end-of-life set!
Don't forget the anti-cholesterol pills, the anti-diabetes pills, and the anti heart failure pills
Cue Tom Lehrer:
https://youtu.be/pvhYqeGp_Do?si=sT2aO8pT1_selpdp
Seriously, my contempt for the Roman Catholic Church has cooled since I’ve needed my ire for the Supreme Court and the Republican Party. And when will we see the movie about the Court’s corruption and fascism? I guess if Trump’s elected, never.
The quiet takeover of the Supreme Court by not just Catholicism but Opus Dei should be the subject of a movie or two in itself (my evangelical Protestant upbringing, who constantly referred to them as "the Beast," labels this very concerning).
Yeah, but you know Hollywood, they'd have to portray Scalia as better than he really is, just to make things interesting. Movie Scalia would have doubts, or at least questions, when Real Scalia had only certainty in his awful, awful ideas.
I was about to reach for a crack about how it would end up being The Odd Couple in robes. But--omfg--this exists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalia/Ginsburg
omfg is right. I'll have to remember this the next time I hear someone plead for a "return to civility."
Nice review. I tend to go out for the thoughtless movies. Something like this I'll wait to stream. And I will now that I've read your positive review!
"makes me feel like part of something bigger than myself. "
I have REBID for that.
Thanks for this. After soaking in "First Reformed"* for film club a couple months ago, I probly had my fill for a decade or so, but still intrigued. This review helps, and is a good example of why well-crafted criticism is valuable.
Best quote from Schrader about his relationship to the church:
[What can you say about working with Scorsese?] “His cultural background is urban, it’s Roman Catholic, and Italian. Mine is suburban or rural and it’s Dutch Calvinist. It’s Dutch. So he was raised in churches that look like chapels, I was raised in churches that look like courtrooms."
Did you watch First Reformed with the Director’s commentary? Well worth it.
I didn't but spent a week in the reviews and the interviews and a couple other flicks of his just to get a sort of feel for him. And there was a weird thing on the side – mostly taking note of how he keeps repeating himself in his facebook posts, as if he doesn't remember earlier posts.
It’s not my favorite movie, but it is my favorite Director is commentary. He really talks a lot about how films are made, particularly slow films. My favorite of his recent films is Card Counter and Master Gardener is very good too.
I have emerged from my humanness to a place outside. I find all things in theater and in life require a suspension of disbelief.
Take this election - PLEASE! How can I have so many persons close to me so clueless, who are voting for obvious incompetence?
Are people so easily mesmerized by robes and rings?
A friend of mine looks forward to seeing this film. Raised Catholic, he like you harbors nostalgia.
I watched Matewan again the other night, or most if it. That is my equivalent. I want to believe there are still people like the Sid Hatfield character who show up on the right side and shoot straight with both hands.
Even if I never fired a gun in my own life. Get it, my metaphor here? I told you: I am no longer human. You should suspend your disbelief and join me.
Matewan's wonderful. "I wouldn't piss on him if his heart was on fire."
I was born 4th generation RLDS on my mother's side. When I was 20 years old, I left that church and studied for 2 years with a priest. As it turned out, the Catholic Church did not want my pro-choice lesbian foul mouth ass, surprise surprise, but those two years of studying with the priest and a catechumenate group in the mid-1980s gave me a perspective on the differing generations and their attitudes regarding their religion, if they were cradle Catholics.
The younger people, for the most part, just sort of sat through Mass without thinking much. Stand sit kneel Rinse and repeat. And if the sermon goes over 10 minutes they all flip out. Being used to RLDS sermons, during which the speaker would say fervently that he could go on and on and then did .... I found the brevity of Catholic sermons extremely refreshing.
Many of the older Catholics, including my initial catechumenate sponsor, who was replaced after the priest learned that she had taken me to a tradCath parish that was not in Union with Rome to show me what a tridentine Mass was like, openly yearned for the church of their 1950s childhood, when nobody had to think for themselves, you just ask the priest.
The child sexual abuse scandal in the church did not figure in the news cycle until over a decade after I had been bounced from the catechumenate, but by then, because of my involvement in abortion rights activism, I had already learned to deeply distrust and eventually more or less despise the Catholic hierarchy and priesthood. Today, my main interaction with Catholicism is when I ask the priest on the sidewalk who's leading prayers for slutty women seeking abortions at the clinic they're protesting how many altar boys he's fucked this week. While I'm at it this morning, I should probably run out and get myself measured for a lightning rod. 😂
Having watched Sorrentino’s Young Pope and New Pope several times it’s very hard for me to imagine seeing a Pope movie and not being terribly disappointed. That show is just fucking nuts (watch the opening credits for all the episodes of New Pope and you’ll thank me) and I’d wager that the acting is at least equal to the show you are writing about and the cinematography and ostentatious costumes better. But on your recommendation I’ll give it a go.
I'd watch Ralph Fiennes in anything, even a movie about Catholicism, which I have no understanding of beyond popular culture. My "forever fiancé" (I'm not getting married again, Dave, so don't get me a ... damn it!) tricked me into seeing The Substance last week. I am not a fan of body horror, especially in a theater with other folks, but WOW/HOLY SHIT. What a ride! Demi Moore is incredible.
Off topic, but there's been a sighting of a real-life Buff Toehold https://plus.flux.community/p/cnns-ryan-girdusky-fiasco-is-part
"Like most mainstream media shows, we were constantly trying to have balanced panel discussions. But we always had a problem: It was very difficult to find Republicans who weren’t crazy."
it’s incredibly difficult to find Republicans who can engage in discussion and don’t have racist skeletons in their closet—or on their front patio.
and won't let those skeletons fly on air
Darn, I was hoping for a Roman Catholic version of The Oscar. Sadly, Tony Bennett was not available.
Oy gevalt. Neuro-typical culture. I'm out. Is it Friday already?
Apologies for not yet reading the latest Hardcore post. I'm hoping you'll note Drumph's somewhat disastrous Madison Square Garden event (First Nazi really at MSG, albeit the old one, since 1939. Unfortunately the crowd didn't beat the hell out of them as they did then).
My wife and I enjoyed the audiobook version of the novel (we went through dozens of titles over the course of our innumerable drives back and forth between the Bay Area and Cedars-Sinai in West Hollywood), and was delighted to learn that a film version was in prospect (and, as someone has said earlier in the thread, she’d be prepared to watch Ralph Fiennes in anything). She looked forward to seeing it, but at the beginning of last week her disease, after besieging her for twenty-eight months, flattened the last ramparts and sacked the city, and following a harrowing six days she died at home (by prearrangement, although she asked for that element to be soft-pedaled among a certain segment of her circle who would be further distressed on—come to think of it—religious grounds) on Sunday evening.
It felt heartless in a way, but twenty-two hours after that last faint breath, and following the earnest advice a couple of hours earlier of the social worker assigned to me by the hospice people to spend as little time in the house as possible in the coming days, I betook myself to a local theatre and took myself out of myself by sitting through 𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘷𝘦, accompanied by Lina’s nephew. Afterward we walked down the street just in time for him to make his 7:00 shift tending bar (a dim old establishment of the “dive” variety), where he stood me a shot and a beer. Then I walked home and went to bed.
Apart from warmly endorsing it I’ve no insights to add to Roy’s review, except perhaps to note that the vaping “trad reactionary” was portrayed by Sergio Castellitto rather than Rony Kramer.
Damn.
So very sorry about the news.
The night out was the right thing to do (and perhaps a kind of wake, improvised by you and the nephew). Her memory is, and will ever be, a blessing.
I am sad for you because of your loss
Best wishes to you.
Condolences.
Deepest condolences.
My condolences to you and your family on the loss of your wife.