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Post by RhodoraO on Mar 8, 2017 15:09:58 GMT
TELEVISION REVIEW; A Portrait of Jesus as a Handsome Revolutionary By ANITA GATES; NOV. 13, 1999
The only real reason to watch ''Mary, Mother of Jesus'' is to see Christian Bale play Jesus as a confident, purposeful, sexy young revolutionary. After all the soft-spoken, sad-eyed Jesuses in movies past, Mr. Bale's interpretation is, pardon the choice of words, a revelation. When he gently but firmly tells Mary that he has to go on the road and leave her behind, and later -- shortly before the Last Supper -- when he tells her, ''Now it's nearly over,'' he could be Bobby Sands, the Irish Republican Army martyr, explaining to his mother why he has to go on a hunger strike. Or just about any young man with intense political convictions that go against the Establishment of the time. Mr. Bale has said that Che Guevara was one of his inspirations for the role.
Mr. Bale was born with a mixed blessing, at least for actors: striking good looks. This is often mentioned in reviews of his films, which include ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' (Demetrius), ''Velvet Goldmine'' (the journalist) and even ''Empire of the Sun'' (the boy), Steven Spielberg's 1987 film, when Mr. Bale was 14. In ''Mary, Mother of Jesus,'' this adds a welcome credibility to Jesus' remarkable popularity during the three short years he preached.www.nytimes.com/1999/11/13/arts/television-review-a-portrait-of-jesus-as-a-handsome-revolutionary.html
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Post by RhodoraO on Apr 16, 2019 21:45:21 GMT
A rare but interesting review at: www.thatsnotcurrent.com/buried-credits-christian-bale-mary-mother-jesus-1999/About Bale: "Christian Bale had come a long way since Treasure Islandhaving been in such popular films as Newsies, Swing Kids, Disney’s Pocahontas, and even the adaptation of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. His acting skills have improved greatly since he was a child and it is shown off quite well here. He oozes talent with an array of emotions; from curiosity, tenderness and wonder, anger, happiness, and sorrow, and is able to switch through all of those almost instantaneously, something I loved about him when I first saw him in American Psycho. My only problem here is he doesn’t seem to be able to harness that talent very well. Some scenes feel like the emotions he is portraying are slightly overpowering him, causing him to, yes, “over act,” and it doesn’t come across very well. It feels a little sloppy, but that’s only in a couple scenes, all of the rest of the movie he is quite fantastic."
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Post by RhodoraO on Jan 25, 2021 7:22:30 GMT
From an old Surfer's Guide Nov. 12-17, 1999, a funny mention:
"Sunday, Nov. 14 Mary, Mother of Jesus
Eunice Kennedy Shriver and her son Bobby served as executive producers for this look at the life of the mother of Jesus. Whether this had anything to do with the sins of omission in this film or not, I can't say, but there's no mention that Mary Magdalene ever made a living at the world's oldest profession, no sightings of Judas, and no scene of Jesus' doubt before his arrest -- distracting gaps in an otherwise engaging film. I was also terribly disturbed that Christian Bale ("Little Women") was cast as Jesus, not because of his skill as an actor -- he does a fine job -- but because he's so incredibly good looking. I don't remember going over it in Sunday school, but I'm pretty sure you go to hell for lusting after Jesus. Pernilla August ("Star Wars: Episode 1) is a strong, understated Mary.
9-11 p.m. EST on NBC"
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