CBS miniseries on Pope John Paul II targeted to air in the fall
The Seattle TimesWednesday, July 6, 2005 - Page updated at 12:00 AM
TV briefs: Holm to portray pope in fall CBS miniseries
Sir Ian Holm, who played Bilbo Baggins in the big-screen "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, will portray Pope John Paul II in CBS's forthcoming four-hour miniseries about the late pontiff.
"Pope John Paul II" (tentative title) will follow Karol Wojtyla from his high-school days in Poland through his death in April. The '81 assassination attempt will be included.
Holm will play Wojtyla beginning with his election to the papacy in 1978. No casting yet for the younger pope-to-be.
The miniseries, to be shot in Italy and Poland, is targeted to air in November. Historians at the Vatican were consulted on the script and the producers have been granted access to St. Peter's Square.
"Passion of the Christ" soundtrack extended into symphony; world premiere in Rome
John Debney on a Soundtrack-Turned-SymphonyROME, JULY 4, 2005 (Zenit.org).- The composer of the soundtrack for film "The Passion of the Christ" has extended his original work into a symphony.
John Debney will conduct a world premiere of the symphony in Rome this Wednesday. He arrived here Friday for rehearsals. Beforehand, he gave ZENIT more insight into his work.
Q: Could you please give us a glimpse of what we're expecting here in Rome? Is there a difference between the symphony and the soundtrack?
Debney: Yes. Certainly, this whole idea started when I was composing music for the film with Mel Gibson and I thought it would be a nice idea to write a major new work that would be based upon some of the themes I had produced for the film, but with some additional thematic material.
more...
Freedom is never free: Whatever happened to signers of the Declaration of Independence?
Thanks be to God that we live in a free nation. Those patriots who died to make us free and who signed the Declaration of Independence knew, at first hand, that freedom is never free.
From the Baltimore Chronicle & Sentinel comes this July 4th reminder:
What happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence?Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died.
Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned; two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; another had two sons captured.
Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.
They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.
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Hollywood Left insists on subversive media text and subtext
From Moonbat Central comes reference to two recent articles:
NBC Anchor Brian Williams Equates Founding Fathers with TerroristsPosted by Michael Calderon @ Friday 1 July 2005, 8:16 am
Michelle Malkin has posted a story about how
NBC’s Brian Williams and several of his broadcast support staff equated our Revolutionary Founders with modern-day terrorists. It was not a slip of the old tongue. In addition to stating on his newscast last night that our Founding Fathers were "
certainly revolutionaries and might have been called terrorists by the British crown," Williams posted similar remarks on his blog.
Mr. Williams’ effort to mimick the moral equivalency arguments so fashionable among tenured radicals in university Peace Studies departments is both disappointing and idiotic.
more...andPosted by Richard Poe @ Friday 1 July 2005, 4:49 pm
Hollywood is floundering. The major film studios won’t admit it yet, but Hollywood filmmakers’ lemming-like attraction to anti-Western and anti-American themes is driving Tinseltown to bankruptcy. US audiences today simply refuse to spend their money to see enemy propaganda.
In Thursday’s FrontPage, Debbie Schlussel exposed the antiwar message of Steven Spielberg’s new film, War of the Worlds, in a broadside titled "
Close Encounters of the Leftist Kind."
We have previously explored on this blog the subversive subtexts of such films as
Star Wars, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith,
Kingdom of Heaven" (see Melanie Phillips’ "
The Moral Exhaustion of the West"), and even Steven Spielberg’s "
Saving Private Ryan."
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Assessing the NYTimes view of Conservative filmmakers in Hollywood
Ignatius Insight weighs in on a recent article in the NYTimes, previously noted in my post of June 30, that attempted to assess the impact of conservatives in Hollywood:
Ignatius InsightTuesday, June 28, 2005
"Action!" — The steady growth of Christian filmmakers in HollywoodA NYTimes piece,
"On the Right Side of the Theater Aisle," describes (in somewhat breathless, "ohmygoshwhataretheydoing?!" tones) the growing influence of political, social, and religious conservatives in Hollywood:
More recently, these familiar faces have been bolstered by new players from both inside and outside the system, many intent on using the documentary form to promote their conservative message. One, Stephen McEveety, 50, who struck gold as a producer of "The Passion of the Christ," recently left Mr. Gibson's Icon Productions to start his own film company. According to two people who have worked with him and who spoke anonymously to protect their industry relationships, Mr. McEveety, who declined to be interviewed, controls a $100 million fund devoted to making and promoting family-oriented movies. (Mr. McEveety did note in an e-mail message that his criterion for making films is whether "my kids would be able to see them," not politics.) He is collaborating with Mr. Bannon, 51, on two new Catholic-themed documentaries, one on cloning, and another on Pope Benedict XVI, which is budgeted at about $1 million.
The piece quotes Barbara Nicolosi, well-known in the world of St. Blogs for her
"Church of the Masses" blog. She is described by the NYTimes as a "Catholic activist." Nicolosi is, understandably, less than thrilled by the description and provides
a humorous (but telling) account of her conversation with the NYT reporter about the description.
