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**_Very poorly structured_** > _I had a discussion with my director of photography, Eric Gautier, before the shoot: you have to start by filming the appearances of reality to attempt to attain a state of grace, film the weight of bodies to reveal the soul. It's also why I needed to have contact with something of the chaos of the modern world to finish my film. I wanted to explore the intimate side of the topic in a wider context. I went to film in the biggest refugee camp in the Middle East on the Syrian border. This historic tragedy makes us question what we are, our values, our history, a__nd what we are prepared to do to extend a helping hand to them._ - Xavier Giannoli; _L'Apparition_ Production Notes _L'Apparition_ [_The Apparition_] is a film with many of the prerequisite ingredients to produce a fine piece of work, not the least of which is an intriguing set-up with a built-in opportunity for weighty social and/or ecclesiastical commentary. However, whilst the idea is sound, the execution is poor, and due to some very basic missteps, the narrative's potential profundity is rendered singularly uninteresting. Written and directed by Xavier Giannoli (_Marguerite_), with Marcia Romano (_Sous le Sable_; _Marguerite_) and Jacques Fieschi (_Un Cœur en hiver_; _Yves Saint Laurent_; _Mal de pierres_) credited with "collaboration", the hook does a fine job of drawing the audience in. Jacques Mayano (Vincent Lindon) is a French photographer just returned from an unspecified war zone where his colleague was killed in a bomb blast. As a result of the explosion, Mayano is having aural problems and suffering from PTSD. Upon returning to France, he quickly becomes directionless, until he is contacted by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints – the body within the Vatican which investigates claims of miracles, with an eye towards possible canonisation. Mayano is told that a young girl named Anna (Galatéa Bellugi) claims to have seen a Marian apparition in a field just outside a small village. However, frustrated with the Vatican asking questions, as well as their scepticism regarding the validity of Anna's claim, the local parish priest, Fr. Borrodine (Patrick d'Assumçao), has cut off contact with the Church hierarchy, and is using a not-unwilling Anna to entice pilgrimages to the area, subsequently encouraging the devout to purchase items in a spectacularly tacky gift store. In an attempt to ascertain the merit, or lack thereof, of Anna's vision, the Congregation want Mayano to head an investigative team. So far so good. It's a fine _raison d'être_, and the first act is excellent, depicting Mayano learning the Congregation's inner workings, spending time in the Vatican Apostolic Library reviewing documents detailing both valid and invalid (as decreed by the Congregation) instances of miracles, travelling to the village, and meeting his team (a combination of secular and laity). However, once the investigation proper begins, the bottom falls out, as Giannoli seems to have no idea where to take the story. For a start, the film is far, far too long; clocking in at 144 minutes, it could easily have lost a half-hour without compromising the central narrative drive at all. In fact, the whole thing felt like a workprint; far too much fat on its bones, so much wasted motion, and no editing rhythm within individual scenes, many of which continue for several beats after they have come to what should be their natural conclusion. In tandem with this, there are so many half-developed subplots which never integrate with the main narrative - Mayano's PTSD and hearing problems, orphans, a children's home, adoption, mysterious letters, a missing girl, possible profiteering from Anna's visions. Additionally, with so much going on at a plot level, both Mayano and Anna are extremely under-written, with virtually no character development between them; Mayano is essentially an archetypal "atheist photographer," and Anna is very much a cipher. However, the biggest problem is that the film simply can't make up its mind as to what it wants to be - an examination of canonical doctrine or a standard mystery. And because of this pseudo-schizophrenic quality, the plot is shaky at best, with the superficial far outweighing the substance. Related to this, the film concludes with a wholly unnecessary and poorly conceived twist that plays out as relatively unrelated to what we've just spent the last two hours watching, focusing as it does on a character we haven't met up to the penultimate scene. Another problem, given the inherently evocative nature of the subject matter, is that Giannoli misses a perfect opportunity for critique. You'd expect that a contemporary film dealing with what is increasingly looked upon as arcane dogma would engage in some way with the issues that that dogma throws up; the nature of apparitions in both a contemporary and a historical sense; the Church's attitude to instances where they were unable to debunk the claimant; their attitude to cases where they were able to prove a hoax; the process of investigating an apparition, and the Congregation's prerequisites for approving canonisation; their tendency to mix the ordained with the professional on the investigative teams, such as historians, psychologists, and scientists. None of these issues are explored in any way, as the film sets up an intriguing providential-based framework, but then fails to introduce the scrutiny with which to analyse the surrounding themes. Essentially, the film says nothing of interest about anything. For his part, however, Giannoli certainly seems to think it does. In the film's EPK, he says of Mayano, > _he has come across a world in which proof counts for nothing and the invisible world keeps its secrets._ And this is essentially where the problem lies; the twist simply doesn't integrate with the rest of the film, and ends up working against the presentation of faith, diluting Giannoli's thematic concerns to the point where it's difficult to tell what he is trying to say. If the film is truly about the invisible world keeping its secrets, why does he feel the need to introduce a twist which thoroughly explains all of those secrets? Similarly, of the Congregation's work, Giannoli states, > _one should not imagine that the Church hopes for and encourages the authentication of apparitions. On the contrary, I think they are a hindrance to them. Faith doesn't need proof or it's no longer faith._ However, the film is literally about an attempt to find that proof, and once again, the twist compromises the apparent intention. Giannoli also refers to the film as > _a thorough documentary investigation into the supposed proof of the existence of God._ There's no evidence of this at all in the finished product, where perhaps some kind of engagement with the issues thrown up by, for example, agnosticism or noetics might have been interesting. And for evidence that films dealing with this kind of deeply esoteric/metaphysical subject matter can work, one need only compare _L'Apparition_ with films such as Jessica Hausner's _Lourdes_ (2009) or Dietrich Brüggemann's _Kreuzweg_ (2014). In _Lourdes_, a woman (Sylvie Testud) confined to a wheelchair makes a pilgrimage to the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, hoping to regain the use of her legs, and in the process engages with issues such as the Church as a profit-centred business, the nature of divine healing, and the role of vehement scepticism contrasted with that of blind faith. _Kreuzweg_ tells the story of Maria (Lea van Acken), a fourteen-year-old girl from a fanatical Catholic family, whose only desire in life is to become a saint. With this in mind, she sets about replicating Jesus's path in Golgotha through the fourteen Stations. The film engages with a myriad of conundrums and challenges; an indictment of religious fundamentalism, the nature and power of obsessive faith, the likelihood or unlikelihood of genuine miracles, the place of divinity in the modern world, the Church's attitude to suffering, and the validity of secular interference in ecclesiastical matters. _L'Apparition_ gets nowhere near this level of analysis. Instead, it's two hours plus of serious people acting seriously, but not actually saying anything of note about anything, capped off with as ill-advised a twist as you're likely to see all year.
Lili, a pouty and voluptuous 14-year-old, is caravan camping with her family in Biarritz. She's self-aware and holds her own in a café conversation with a concert pianist she meets, but she has a wild streak and she's testing her powers over men, finding that she doesn't always control her moods or actions, and she's impatient with being a virgin. She sets off with her brother to a disco, latching onto an aging playboy who is himself hot and cold to her. She is ambivalent about losing her virginity that night, willing the next, and determined by the third.
Three close friends who have never left the outskirts of Dublin (much less Ireland) get the journey of a lifetime — a visit to Lourdes, the picturesque French town and place of miracles.
It is the mid 17th century. The Jesuits spread their influence in Central Europe. Maria, a young Countess lives in the castle. Father Had is a honest and ardent servant of the Society of Jesus. He is dedicated to his life's mission, and as such he is an ideal tool in the hands of his superiors, who have their own plans. Had becomes Maria's confessor. Her woman's charm, intelligence and energy, as well as her beauty, are a constant temptation to him. Jesuits are making pressure on Had to finally realize their plans. Will the Jesuits, at last, achieve their goals and take the castle?
A lonely telephone operator leading an empty, amoral life finds God – only to have her faith continually tested in ways beyond what she could have imagined.
In the midst of trying to legitimize his business dealings in 1979 New York and Italy, aging mafia don, Michael Corleone seeks forgiveness for his sins while taking a young protege under his wing.
In 1798, a feral boy is discovered outside the town of Aveyron, France. Diagnosed as mentally impaired, he is relegated to an asylum. A young doctor named Jean Itard becomes convinced that the boy has normal mental capacity, but that his development was hindered by lack of contact with society. He brings the boy home and begins an arduous attempt at education over several years.
The wife of an elite government official left her husband, and a young journalist is sent to investigate the case. But his boss has a hidden agenda.
As suggested by its title, Behind the News was a "stop the presses!" yarn set in a big-city newsroom. Lloyd Nolan is top-billed as a cynical reporter with a penchant for sticking his neck out too far. Frank Albertson costars as a cub reporter fresh out of journalism school, whose presence is resented by Nolan and his fellow workers. But it is Albertson who, after running afoul of the law, is instrumental in breaking up a ring of racketeers. Behind the News was remade by Republic as Headline Hunters (55).
Reporter Jane Arden goes undercover to try to expose a gang of jewel thieves and smugglers. Her mission becomes more dangerous when her identity is discovered early on by one of the gang leaders.
Towards the end of the 16th century, the Spanish conquerors living in the New World faced a serious problem: the evangelization of the indigenous people, who did not understand or accept Christianity due to their unshakable faith in their own religion. The court of the Inquisition cracks down on heretics and the natives prepare for a general uprising ...
Anaïs is twelve and bears the weight of the world on her shoulders. She watches her older sister, Elena, whom she both loves and hates. Elena is fifteen and devilishly beautiful. Neither more futile, nor more stupid than her younger sister, she cannot understand that she is merely an object of desire. And, as such, she can only be taken. Or had. Indeed, this is the subject: a girl's loss of virginity. And, that summer, it opens a door to tragedy.