Catholic PING!!
Thanks for update. . .a friend of mine caught it first time around and loved it. . .was sooo impressed; glad to see there will be an encore.
This movie was awesome, simply superb. Fr. Zaleski was definitely a man not afraid to stand up to evil! Anyone who can watch the movie and not get a tear in their eye from time to time isn't human, IMO.
I might watch it again this weekend!
Sorry, but I hated it. Cardboard characters (several surely invented out of thin air), a contrived whiff of a romantic interest to sex up the plot, and cartoon bad guys. I went back to it several repetedly as it aired to see if it'd improve, but was unable to keep watching more than 5 or 10 minutes at a time. A professional production, but irredeemably shallow IMHO.
It was excellent, watched it twice and can't wait to buy it.
The cast was perfect.
| TV movie on Pope John Paul II to air again this weekend New York, Aug. 24, 2005 (CNA) - By popular demand, the heroic, true story of Pope John Paul II returns to television. The four-hour movie, “A Man Who Became Pope,” will air again on the Hallmark Channel Aug. 27, at 7 p.m. (ET). The Aug. 15th U.S. premiere of the film set a weeknight audience record for the cable channel. Filmed on location in Krakow, Poland, and in the Vatican City, the film features an international cast, including Piotr Adamczyk as Karol Wojtyla and Raul Bova as Fr. Tomasz Zaleski, Karol’s close childhood friend and a martyr to the Nazis. Giacomo Battiato directed the film and it was produced by Pietro Valsecchi. “A Man Who Became Pope” was warmly received when screened at the Vatican on May 19. “The film presents scenes and episodes that, in their severity, awaken in the viewers an instinctive ‘turning away’ in horror and stimulates them to consider the abyss of iniquity that can be hidden in the human soul,” said Pope Benedict XVI. “At the same time, calling to the fore such aberrations revives in every right-minded person the duty to do what he or she can so that such inhuman barbarity never happens again.” Vatican press spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said Pope John Paul II had seen the film in its entirety in a private viewing before his death and was “very impressed” with the portrayal and “appreciated the many scenes” from that period of his life. |
I liked it; in fact, I thought it was excellent. I am not that great a fan of JPII, who I think should have done more to correct the horrible errors of the "spirit of Vatican II," but this was an excellent movie, and focused on what he did well and the events that had probably contributed a lot to his development and focus.
Thanks for the tip, brother. I will Tivo it