Month: March 2013

Jesus On Screen

On By cherylmahoneyIn Historical Fiction, Reviews10 Comments

JesusI don’t usually do reviews on Friday, but today is Good Friday, leading up towards Easter Sunday, and I just watched a movie that is immensely appropriate to the day.  It has the very simple title of Jesus and was originally a TV miniseries from 1999, though it plays like a three-hour movie (and there were only a few obvious commercial breaks!)

I watched at least part of this when it first aired, but all I remembered was Jesus having a conversation with the devil, and a vague image of Jesus walking down the road and joking around with his disciples.  Not a lot to go on trying to find the movie again–but obviously it worked out.  And it turned out to be a fantastic movie–I ordered the DVD from Amazon before I even sent back my Netflix disc, and I searched IMDB to see if the director has done any other Biblical movies (he has!)

So what blew me away so much?  Oddly enough, it really may be encapsulated by that moment of Jesus joking around with his disciples.  This is the most joyful Jesus I can remember seeing in…maybe any movie.  The church teaching is that Jesus is fully human and fully divine, but the divinity seems to get more play in movies.  Usually it’s all very serious, every word he says is a solemn and profound pronouncement.  Most often, the humanity gets expressed in suffering.  I’m not saying any of that isn’t important, and this movie gives those moments too–but there are also a lot of moments where you get the feeling that it’s a good time hanging out with Jesus.  Or just that he knows how to live a normal human life, and goes through periods of learning, uncertainty and change.

The movie opens slightly before Jesus (Jeremy Sisto) begins his public ministry.  We don’t often see Jesus with Joseph, and I really liked this movie’s exploration of Jesus’ relationship with his adoptive father.  Mary figures in quite a bit too, and while there isn’t a full scene of the Nativity, Mary and Jesus do have a conversation or two reminiscing over family stories.

Jesus begins his ministry with the baptism by John, and then goes into the desert for a very interesting Temptation sequence.  This was a particularly clever Satan, who is clearly evil but convincingly persuasive.  Although, while the desert sequence was mostly good, I could have lived without the image of Jesus with a severely blistered sunburn…

Jesus then starts collecting disciples, and I love that not only is Jesus very human, real and alive, everyone else is too.  There are about six of the Apostles who get some development, and without spending a lot of time on most of them, I still got a sense of all of them as people, not just distant figures in Bible stories.

As one representative example, I’ll take the calling of Simon Peter.  Peter and his friends have been fishing and caught nothing.  Jesus tells them to take the boat out and he’ll tell them where to drop the nets to catch fish.  Peter scoffs at the whole thing (because what does this guy know about fishing anyway?), but says he’ll do it to prove a point about this supposed Messiah.  When the nets come in miraculously full of fish, Peter is completely flummoxed–and Jesus starts laughing.  There’s nothing remotely mean about it, but it’s so clear that Jesus is having fun teasing Peter.  I love that.

There are lots of moments like that.  The movie walks a nice line, because while it is fun, at the same time, Jesus is also a profound teacher who takes his mission seriously, and has an important message about love and compassion.  It’s not all just larks, there’s a spiritual depth as well.  And there are serious moments–as when Jesus cries over a Roman soldier killed by Zealots (not Biblical, I don’t think, but I like it).

One of the other major characters in the story is Mary Magdalene (Debra Messing).  Overall I thought her portrayal was wonderful, although (rather like the blisters in the desert) I could have lived without two very brief, gratuitous scenes of Mary Magdalene, um, at work.  The movie conveyed everything needed in another scene of her watching Jesus forgive the woman caught in adultery.  We didn’t need the more sensationalist moments.  The tradition of Mary Magdalene as a prostitute isn’t Biblical, but I don’t object to it generally, and the movie used it for the most part in a very profound way to convey a message about forgiveness and releasing judgment.  Another nice touch was the relationship between Mary Magdalene and Mary, Jesus’ mother.  They’re next to each other in paintings of the Crucifixion a lot, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen it really explored.

On the villain side of the story, Pontius Pilate (Gary Oldman) and King Herod are threaded throughout the movie, rather than only coming in at the very end.  Herod has his own issues, particularly around John the Baptist, and Pilate is working political manuevers to make sure he stays in good with Rome.  By the time we reach the Passion, we know Pilate very well, and I like seeing Pilate as a human too.  Not a very nice one, but human.

The movie successfully makes the bridge from a largely light-hearted ministry to the intense end of Jesus’ life.  The Raising of Lazarus is something of a turn in the tone, I think, as it’s handled in a more solemn way, and that leads into the last week of Jesus’ life.  Satan returns in the Garden of Gethsemane, which I thought was an excellent touch.  The Passion is intense and bloody (as is probably inevitable), but it is mercifully brief.

And after the Crucifixion, there are a couple of lovely scenes with Resurrection appearances.  I don’t know why exactly, but the Passion seems to get far more focus in movies than the Resurrection (more dramatic?), which is too bad because there are wonderful Resurrection stories in the Bible.  Another ten minutes in this part would have been even better, but at least there were some wonderful moments.

I have a tradition of watching Jesus Christ Superstar leading up to Easter, but I may have to expand that tradition a bit.  Jesus is a wonderful movie, and I have to love a Bible-retelling that frequently made me smile.  And not only because it led Netflix to send me an email with the subject line, “Has Jesus arrived yet?”  🙂

Other reviews:
Charles Tatum’s Review Archive
Canadian Christianity
Anyone else?

Buy it here: Jesus

Chalice by Robin McKinley

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Reviews13 Comments

ChaliceFor the second year in a row, I began the Once Upon a Time Challenge with a Robin McKinley re-read.  Last year it was Rose Daughter, a surreal “Beauty and the Beast” retelling.  This year it was Chalice, about a beekeeper trying to take on a very difficult magical role.

Chalice is set in a fascinating magical realm that I so wish we could spend more time in.  The land is divided into demesnes (rather like Fiefdoms) each of them ruled over by a Circle, twelve individuals with specific roles, bonded together by magic.  The first member of the Circle is the Master, the hereditary Lord of the demesne.  The second member is the Chalice, who binds the demesne together, tending to everything from magically encouraging fellowship among the Circle to quieting restless earthlines.

In Mirasol’s demesne, an unstable Master and his Chalice died suddenly together, sending the land into disarray.  In desperation, the Circle summons the Master’s brother, now a Fire Priest, the last blood heir who can assume the duties of Master.  Meanwhile, Mirasol finds the powers of a Chalice suddenly erupting within her, and she must find a way to learn and manage her new role.

This is a fairly slim book, but hard to summarize, because the world and the magic system is so integral and so complex–and not quickly explained in the book!  McKinley has a tendency to throw the reader into a novel without a lot of explanation, and then drop dribs and drabs of information as we go.  I often find that frustrating in books, but McKinley is generally quite good at making it work.  All the same, I think I did enjoy this book more on a reread because I had a clearer context at the beginning.

It’s a truly fascinating world and magic system, and it all ties together into the larger conflict.  The demesne is threatened both from within and without, from political manuevering and from the land literally fighting the instability brought on by human actions.  Mirasol and the new Master have to work together to hold the demesne together, while dealing with their personal internal struggles, and with conflict among the people around them, who have serious reservations about a Fire Priest Master.

Mirasol is an excellent heroine, one who is clearly strong, intelligent and good-hearted, but doesn’t entirely believe she has any of those qualities.  She’s a beekeeper who is suddenly dealing in things so much bigger than her former realm, and she’s struggling to learn the role and duties of Chalice.  Even more, her struggle is how to stay Mirasol within the Chalice, and carve her own unique path.

I pretty much can’t avoid liking the Master as a hero.  He’s dark and terrifying and mysterious (it’s that Fire Priest thing), while kind and caring underneath the intimidating exterior.  I love dark, brooding heroes with hearts of gold, and this is one of the most clearly good heroes of that type.  His magic is also just so intriguing.  As a Fire Priest, he’s been physically transformed so that he’s not quite human anymore, and he’s struggling to adapt to this return home.

Arguably, this is McKinley’s third “Beauty and the Beast” retelling, though unlike the first two, which lift direct elements from the fairy tale, this is only the tale in its themes.  It is a story about a girl who finds herself, while helping a man who lost his humanity learn to be human again…but all the surrounding details are different.  Still, I’m sure the themes are deliberately there.  Somewhere I heard McKinley say that “Beauty and the Beast” is THE story for her, the one she’s really telling, to a greater or lesser extent, in all of her novels.  That is certainly abundantly clear here.

If there’s a flaw in the book, it’s that the ending is too fast.  It’s completely right.  I love the way things work out, all the earlier hints and clues are there to set up the conclusion, and the details are all immensely satisfying.  But it happens so quickly!  The first time I read Chalice, I read the ending twice, because I just couldn’t get the emotional resolution so fast.  This time, I found myself rereading individual paragraphs, trying to linger on key moments.  The point here is that I love the whole thing…I just wish there was more of it.

This is among my favorite McKinley books, and I highly recommend it.  I also recommend having honey on hand while you read…remember, Mirasol is a beekeeper, and honey figures prominently!

Author’s Site: http://www.robinmckinley.com/

Other reviews:
Starlight Book Reviews
Bookshelves of Doom
Beauty Is a Sleeping Cat
Anyone else?

Buy it here: Chalice

Princess of the Midnight Ball

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Reviews, Young Adult19 Comments

Princess of the Midnight BallSomewhere in the last couple of years, “The Twelve Dancing Princesses” (or, “The Shoes That Were Danced to Pieces”) became one of my favorite fairy tales.  I’ve read many retellings, and even wrote one for NaNoWriMo 2011.  For the Once Upon a Time reading experience this year, I decided to go back and re-read one of the first retellings I encountered, Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George.

This is a lovely, magical retelling that evades the typical pitfalls of the story, while shining mostly for its two lead characters.  The point of view is split between Galen, a young soldier just returning from a long war and taking up a job as under-gardener at the palace; and Rose, the oldest princess, trying to hold her sisters together as they suffer through a curse, evading questions about their mysteriously worn-out slippers.

Rose and Galen both have a way of looking harmless, with unexpected depth and strength beneath.  Rose is a pale, beautiful princess–but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have intelligence and strength of will.  Galen is a gardener who spends his spare time knitting–which proves to be a surprisingly valuable skill.  When I think about it, the two of them don’t spend much time together.  But I don’t really think about it when I’m reading the book, and this is a rare occasion when I find myself completely buying into a very cute romance, even when the characters don’t really have much opportunity to get to know each other.

The other eleven princesses largely run together, which tends to happen quite a bit in these retellings.  It actually worked rather well in this one, though, I think because George hit a very nice balance of giving me just enough information, while not making me feel like I should be knowing/remembering more.  I’m not sure that makes sense…but for example, on the princesses’ ages: Rose and Lily are the two oldest, at eighteen and seventeen.  Petunia and Pansy are the youngest, seven and six.  The other eight exist in some vague space in between, and while I don’t know precisely how old they are, I also never felt like I needed to know.

Similarly, I had a slight sense of the personalities of roughly half the princesses, and that seemed to be enough.  George has a nice way of never asking the reader to remember the princesses’ personalities, because it’s self-evident whenever that particular princess is referenced.  Poppy is the boisterous one, and it was no effort to remember that because she’s always being boisterous whenever we see her.

For the most part this is a very light retelling, though there are a few moments of genuine creepiness.  It follows pretty close to the original fairy tale, and comes up with some very nice explanations and backstories, filling in the empty spaces in the Brothers Grimm’s much shorter tale.  Some retellings move farther away from the original and it works…but others have completely floundered in the process.  This one didn’t try to go too far, and succeeded very well within its own scope.

I remembered this as one of the best of the retellings I’ve read, though it was hard to judge since I read it before most of the others.  Happily, I was right!

Author’s Site: http://jessicadaygeorge.com/

Other reviews:
Lili’s Reflections
The Dead Authors’ Club and More
Bird on a Pencil
Anyone else?

Buy it here: Princess of the Midnight Ball

Saturday Snapshots: Come Away to Fairyland

On By cherylmahoneyIn Saturday Snapshot14 Comments

“Come away, O human child: To the waters and the wild with a fairy…” – William Butler Yeats

Spring has begun this month, and with it, the Once Upon a Time Challenge on Stainless Steel Droppings (my launch post here)…and so I have fairyland on my mind.  I’ve never climbed through a wardrobe, been abducted by the Green Wind, or fallen through a rabbit hole, so I can’t share photos from the various places those routes would take you 🙂 and cameras probably wouldn’t work anyway.  But as regular readers know, I have gone rambling about Kensington Gardens, where Peter Pan flew to when he “ran away from home and lived a long, long time with the fairies.”

Part of the fun of the Gardens is that there are no plaques or ceramic fairies or touristy things to point out the different sites of interest.  You have to take a quest, with J. M. Barrie’s The Little White Bird as your guide, and find the magic spots yourself.

Fortunately, the fairies seem not to object to cameras!

P1010296If you look closely, you can see one of the “paths which make themselves”–at night, of course, which is when everything really magical happens in the Gardens.

P1010608These are flowers along the aptly-named Flower Walk.  Barrie tells us that fairies caught abroad by humans will pretend to be flowers.  His advice on the best way to spot a fairy is to stare at a “flower” until it can’t help winking at you.  (I don’t know what that would look like either!)

18 Branch of BeechThis is the branch of the Weeping Beech in the Flower Walk, where Peter Pan spent the night immediately after running away from home.

P1010308If you can’t find some fairy dust, and reliable directions on how to fly past the second star to the right, you can at least go see the island in the middle of the Serpentine.  Peter spent some time living there too, until he built a boat and (eventually) learned how to fly.

The Gardens are not the most exotic or showy of fairylands, but they’re certainly the most accessible–and they are every bit as charming as J. M. Barrie.

If you feel like visiting fairylands, even in books, why not join up with the Once Upon a Time Challenge?  And of course, you can also find more Saturday Snapshots on At Home with Books!

Blog Hop: Five Books to Grab

On By cherylmahoneyIn Blog Hop, Ruminations14 Comments

I’m joining in with the Book Blogger Hop again today, when bloggers discuss bookish topics!

book blogger hop

This week’s question is: What are the top 5 books you would grab in an emergency?

I’m not entirely sure what this question means…I mean, the five books I would read during a personal crisis are not necessarily the same five books I would choose if I was only going to have access to five books for an extended period…  But let’s assume the point here is, which five books would you choose if you could only have five books.  Say, on an extended spaceflight to Mars.  I like that better than the idea of being stuck on a desert island, where I’d need books about survival on a desert island!

So if I was on a long spaceflight and could only bring five books…

1) The Bible, although that’s so obvious it almost feels like cheating.

2) The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (unabridged), because I read so quickly, I’d need something that would last.  Which is an argument in favor of the Bible too, apart from spiritual inspiration.

3) Susan Kay’s Phantom because, I mean, it’s Susan Kay’s Phantom and I just madly love it.

4) The Little White Bird by J. M. Barrie because it’s a wonderful, lovely, magical book.  Plus, even a spaceflight to Mars would probably have its alarming and homesick moments, and this would make a perfect comfort read.  George Davies, the boy who inspired David in the book, brought a copy with him to the trenches in World War I.

5) And finally, The Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery, because I couldn’t possibly get by without any Montgomery, and this is my favorite of her novels.  Though I’d be tempted to bring Volume I of her journals instead.

And if, as I know I surely would, I decided to toss a pair of shoes out of my luggage and squeeze in two more books…

6) The Song of the Lioness quartet by Tamora Pierce–there is an omnibus edition, so it could be counted as one.  Alanna is the most inspiring of heroines, and every so often, everyone needs to believe that they can do anything.

7) Something Terry Pratchett…possibly Night Watch.  Because of course I’d need something funny too.

And then I’d probably have to discard some more clothes so that I could bring something by Edgar Rice Burroughs, and also If You Want to Write by Brenda Ueland, and a spaceflight to Mars really would be a good moment to read some favorite Star Trek books, and so we begin to see why I have three enormous bookcases in my small apartment!

So if you had to grab five books, for a spaceflight to Mars or maybe if you were on a desert island, what would you snatch up?