Elite

MPAA (unrated) Fr. Dennis (2 ½ stars)
IMDb Listing - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1731982/

Elite (directed by Andres Ramirez, screenplay by Jean-Paul Polo, Josean Rivera Vaquer and José A. Rivera Vaquer) is a low budget ($200,000) Spanish language-English subtitled Puerto Rican crime / action film that is an entry at the 2011 Chicago Latino Film Festival. It is also the very first movie I’ve ever seen at a film festival and I have to say that I’ve enjoyed the experience. I enjoyed it not just for the movie, which was okay (not great but okay, but look at the budget ;-), but also for the context provided by the director Ramirez after the screening of the film.

Ramirez explained that Elite is novel because most films made with government subsidy or support in Latin America end up being "art films" and he and the others in this movie felt that there was a need to expand the horizons of what’s possible in the Puerto Rican film community. Action films are very popular, why not try to make an action film? Indeed, he noted that Elite was released two weeks after the release of the Expendibles (with Bruce Willis) in Puerto Rico and that Elite didn’t do altogether that badly and that since the making of Elite in 2010, at least 5 other projects of different genres have been given support to proceed. And I honestly think that is great!

And since Elite was such a low budget affair, the makers of the movie were able to have some fun with it. Notably, Ramirez explained that one of the actors Rodolfo Rodríguez (who played Féliz Flores, a key villain in story) asked if he could play his character "gay," saying that he always wanted to play a "gay mobster." And so Ramirez and the writers let him do it! These things are possible if you’re putting together a low budget affair ;-)

Still the movie, light as it often is, touches on some rather tough issues, notably the drug trade and the corruption that it carries with it, everywhere really, but also then in Puerto Rico.

The story begins 20 years in the past with a fictionalized Puerto Rican drug kingpin José Saldaña (played by John Garcia) telling a messenger from Pablo Escobar that whoever else Escobar may be elsewhere that "Aqui [en Puerto Rico] manda Saldaña. (I run things here)." Very good. The messenger leaves to carry the message back to Escobar, but as Saldaña leaves the meeting as well, he is stopped by a police road block and discovers that his right hand man of the last 5 years, Diego Torres (played by José Yenque) was an undercover cop. Angry at being so betrayed, he shoots Torres before being arrested.

In the next scene, the prosecutor Carlos Garcia (played by Ernesto Concepción, Jr) is making his closing argument against Saldaña, noting with sarcasm how Saldaña has tried to portray himself as an upstanding citizen (even though he was arrested after flagrantly assassinating a police officer, Torres, in cold blood). "Look at his fine dress, and his fine family sitting so nicely behind him, his wife, his two little children. Solo falta el perrito (All that's missing is the little dog ;-)." Saldaña is convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

More forward to 20 years later. For some reason after rotting away in jail for those 20 years, Saldaña is suddenly ordered transferred from one prison to another. On the way between the two prisons, the van carrying him along with the police escort are stopped, the police are killed and Saldaña is freed.

"How could that have be?" asks now Governor Carlos Garcia immediately suspecting some sort of an inside job and obviously worried for his safety and that of his family. His advisor Superintendente Angel Gil (played by José Brocco) suggests that the Governor organize an elite squad of incorruptible police officers to recapture Saldaña or if that proves impossible to "take care of him" in the way that Pablo Escobar was finally "taken care of." The Governor agrees and the Superintendent as well as his assistant Amanda (played by Monica Steuer) put together the squad that includes among others Sandra Torres (played by Denise Quiñones) the now grown daughter of the undercover police officer who Saldaña had killed in cold blood.

After a silly send-up of the requisite "training sequence" that these kind of films always seem to have, the squad sets about its work to find Saldaña. Included in this group of elite crime fighters is also a requisite "geek" pulled up from the police’s computer department and who had previously gotten a degree at MIT before returning back to San Juan.

In the meantime, Saldaña finds that he has his own problems. While certainly grateful that he was freed, he doesn’t exactly understand why, especially since his now grown sons Junior and Jaime (played by Leonardo Castro and José/Josean Rivera Vaquer) tell him that his rescue was actually put together by a strangely gay mobster acquaintance Félix Flores (played by Rodolfo Rodríquez). The elder Saldaña simply can’t get around Félix’s sexual orientation. "Much has certainly changed in the 20 years that I’ve in prison. How could it be that a gay man could now be (effectively) running our operation?" And he asks his two sons where they found Félix to begin with. They answer that he came to them "from the Bronx."

Okay, much happens, often in quite amusing ways (again, part of the intent of the movie was to be a "send up" of far more serious and far higher budget action films). And justice is done.

However, when the dust clears a question remains: Was the Elite squad assembled to apprehend or otherwise bring back to justice a dangerous fugitive or was it actually put together to simply help one crime family move in on the turf (and eliminate) another? Welcome to the ambiguities of the Drug War.

I liked this film and found it to be quite creative on a shoe-string budget. And I wish Andres Ramirez and the others involved in this film all well in the future! Who knows what else they’ll come up with in years to come ;-)


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Your Highness

MPAA (R) CNS/USCCB (O) Roger Ebert (1 star) Fr. Dennis (2 ½ stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1240982/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.usccb.org/movies/y/yourhighness2011.shtml
Roger Ebert’s review
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110406/REVIEWS/110409994

Your Highness (directed by David Gordon Green, written by Danny McBride and Ben Best) is a type of movie that I knew is out there, that I generally enjoy and that I’d find somewhat embarrassing to add to my blog. Still after reviewing a number of far more serious movies, what a relief it was to see something goofy, yes adolescent, reminiscent of jokes and stories that one’d hear by a campfire as a kid and later as a teen. Your Highness is something of a send-up of sword and sorcery stories, though that assumes that most such stories are deathly serious and many, in fact, are not.

In the movie, Danny McBride plays the loser younger prince Thadeous to an older ever dashing, ever successful, ever smiling brother prince Fabious (played by James Franco) who actually loves his younger brother very much, and probably thinks more of him than Thadeous thinks of himself. But that’s what makes Fabious so simultaneously irritating and fun to watch: He loves _everybody_, he’s _always_ smiling and always successful, whereas Thadeous lives life in the shadows, usually obscured by a cloud of dope, with his only friend Courtney (played by Rasmus Hardiker), Thadeous’ squire.

Things begin to come to a head when Fabious comes back successfully from yet another quest with the head of a cyclops, and a damsel that he rescued named Belladonna (played by Zooey Deschanel) who he wishes to marry. The cyclops had been a minion of the kingdom’s great nemesis, the evil warlock Leezar (played by Justin Theroux) and Belladonna had been Leezar’s prisoner. The King, Tallious (played by Charles Dance), so proud of his ever questing older son, decrees that so it shall be, and a wedding is set for the next day. Ever smiling, ever optimistic, Fabious asks his younger brother to be his best man. Thadeous accepts even though others in Fabious’ questing party make it clear that they feel he’s not worthy. Thadeous, thus gets stoned the next morning and blows off the wedding and Boremont (played by Damian Lewis), Fabious’ right-hand-man in this questing adventures, steps-in to take Thadeous’ place. In the meantime, it also becomes somewhat clear that Belladonna may have been a pretty “damsel in distress” but precisely because Leezar had kept her as a hostage for most of her life, she didn’t exactly have the refined manerisms of a princess.

None of this comes to matter, however, because Leezar appears at the wedding along with his _three_ very creepy mothers, steals Belladonna from the ceremony, and carries her off to his tower. The stoned Thadeous, of course, who along with his squire, spent the day harrassing and dispersing sheep of a bunch of similarly stoned peasants, misses all of this, and comes back to a castle heavily damaged from the battle in which Leezar took Belladonna, and back to a distraught Fabious, who now decides to go out on quest once more to retrieve the bride that he loves. The King, still furious at the absence of his younger son to all these events, orders Thadeous to join Fabious on this quest or else to never come back.

And so they depart the next morning. Much ensues, much of it both funny and very, very crude. As an example, Fabious insists that at the beginning of the quest they visit the “Good Wizard of the Woods” and joyful that Thadeous is with him this time, is happy to introduce him to said wizard. He tells Thadeous that “since a child,” he’s _always_ gone to the wisard for good advice at the beginning of every quest. When they get to the wizard's abode, it’s clear that the “good wizard,” while indeed capable of giving good direction (in this case through a magical compass that he gives Fabious and Thadeous) is one smiling but very creepy guy. Everybody seems to see the creepiness of the wizard except for the also ever smiling Fabious...

During their many adventures, the two also meet Isabel (played by Natalie Portman) a fearsome and very, very hot warrior who is out to avenge the deaths of her father and brothers. And it turns out that their quests are somewhat linked because Leezar was probably responsible for their deaths.

The movie is often very crude.  There is some rather unnecessary nudity in the movie (though not by way of either Deschanel's Belladonna or Portman's Isabel) but rather as a result of the questing party encountering a group of Amazon-like female warriors, who are led a very, very creepy male chieftain. Then there’s a very, very crude scene near the end of their adventure involving a rather aroused Minotaur that the party encounters in a requisite labyrinth (where minotaurs always live...).

Once more, the movie is definitely “not for everyone,” and people have asked why actors of the caliber of James Franco and Natalie Portman or for that matter Zoey Deschanel would "waste their time" with a movie like this.  But I do think "I get" part of the appeal (for both the actors and the audience).  It's a movie can be very entertaining for those who’ve liked these kind of stories or for those just want kick back and relax after after a long week (or after taking themselves _way too seriously_ for some time).  It must have been a blast to make this movie! 

And lest we get too high on our horses, I do wish to remind folks here that the Bible’s book of Judges contains many stories that can best be understood ones told as jokes or stories around a campfire some 3500 years ago. Of particular note is the story of Ehud the Assassin who slew the King of Moab with a homemade dagger, the story noting that the King of Moab was so fat that his rolls of fat swallowed the dagger in its entirety so that Ehud could not pull the dagger back out (Judges 3:12-27). Not denying the story’s possible or even probable historicity, it still sounds like a story that would have been quite popular among young men sitting around an Israelite campfire “back in the day.”

Anyway, please don’t live your lives like this, but (for some of you) enjoy the film ... ;-)


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Trust [2010]

MPAA (R) CNS/USCCB () Roger Ebert (4 stars) Fr. Dennis (3 ½ stars)
IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1529572/
CNS/USCCB review -
Roger Ebert’s review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110331/REVIEWS/110339996


Trust (directed by David Schwimmer and cowritten by Andy Bellin and Robert Festinger) is a timely, well written, well crafted and well acted cautionary tale about a 14 year old girl who meets someone online who terribly misrepresents himself and takes advantage of her.

The girl, Annie (played by Liana Liberato) is a quiet, still insecure freshman, trying out for the volloeyball team at a high school in a upscale suburb. In the movie the high school is New Trier High School and the suburb is Wilmette, IL. She meets someone, Charlie (played by Henry CoffeeChris ) on a teen oriented chat site who first presents himself as a 16 year old and one who _also_ plays on his school’s volleyball team (strange because most American high schools _don’t_ offer competitive boys volleyball). He gives her a few tips and whether these tips actually help her or not, she makes the team. Thus they become online friends. During the course of their online conversations, which soon extend to texting, the person on the other end, confesses to her that he’s actually 20, then 24, then a 26 year old grad student. That bothers her but continues to be nice. Of course, her parents, Lynn (played by Catherine Keener) and Will (played by Clive Owen) have no idea.

Finally, the same day as Lynn’s older brother heads off to college, she receives a text from her friend asking if they could meet. She responds, texting "?!?!" but eventually agrees. They meet in a nice suburban shopping mall. Her online friend turns out to be a mid-to-late 30-something year old man nonetheless comes dressed far younger than his age. She starts to cry, and asks "Is this a joke?" He tells her "no." She asks, "Why do you keep lying?" Here he lays it on, telling her that he _was_ worried about how she’d take his real age, but since "they _clicked so well_" and "had something _so special_" that he hoped if they only saw each other that "their age difference would not matter." Alone, sitting there in a lounge area in a mall, her initial resistance soon fails. He snowed her.

Eventually they start walking, eventually he gets her in his car. There gives her "a present" (lingerie) and tells her how much he’s dreamed of seeing her in it. Again, without physically hurting her in anyway, he’s manipulated the situation in a way that she simply does not know how to say no, or how to get out of the situation even if she wanted to. He takes her to his motel room ... And there, with the movie hinting that he video-recorded it all, he takes her virginity. Without resorting to any threat or any violence, he raped her.

Confused, overpowered by the various and conflicting emotions of that afternoon, all her parents and younger sister noticed that evening was that she was somewhat quieter at dinner than she was before. But Annie’s best friend had seen her in the mall, knows somewhat of the story leading up to the "mall date" and the next day in schools asks Annie "was that [creepy old guy] the guy???" Annie tells her defensively to mind her own business. But Annie’s friend as a 14 year old, apparently remembering past presentations given by school authorities on subjects like this (online predators, etc), goes to the guidance department of the high school to report the incident. The guidance counselor comes to Annie’s class to "to talk to her." Initially, Annie doesn’t put 2 and 2 together, but soon does because the police are there to take her statement. Annie’s mother gets a phone call as she’s running errands. Annie’s father, who works for an ad company in Chicago (that actually specializes marketing to "tweens") gets pulled out of a meeting with a phone call as well. Hundreds of high schoolers who have no idea what’s going on, see the police take Annie away in a squad car taking her to a hospital to get her rape tested. Her parents eventually meet her there.

What an unbelievable nightmare and a great presentation of how a rape victim often gets raped several more times by well meaning authorities seeking to do justice.

In the weeks that follow, Annie is given regular counseling, the counselor being played by Viola Davis. The counseling is of some help but Annie does not believe that she was raped until the FBI comes over to her home a number of weeks later to ask her if she knew any of four other girls, ages 12-15, that the man who had posed to her as "Charlie" had also groomed and raped/sexually assaulted. It is only then that Annie realizes what happened to her.

Trust is an excellent movie. Liana Liberato playing Annie and Clive Owen and Catherine Keener playing her parents are all outstanding in their roles. There are still more twists in the story that I have not mentioned here but "Charlie" is never found.

Trust is not a cheerful movie. But it can serve as a great discussion piece by parents to their children about the dangers of meeting someone online. They can truly be anyone.


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Hanna

MPAA (PG-13) CNS/USCCB (L) Roger Ebert (3 1/2 stars) Fr. Dennis (3 stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0993842/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.usccb.org/movies/h/hanna2011.shtml
Roger Ebert’s review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110406/REVIEWS/110409995

Hanna (directed by Joe Wright, story by Seth Lockhead with the screenplay co-written again by Seth Lockhead as well as David Farr) is a grim fairytale, the Brothers Grimm meet the Bourne series.

Let me explain: A father, Erik (played by Erik Bana) seeking to protect his daughter Hanna (played by Saoirse Ronan) after the death of her mother Johanna Zadek (played by Vicky Krieps) who dies under initially unclear circumstances, flees to the forests of the northern wilds where he raises her as best he can to defend herself. What northern wilds are they? Good question. Initially, I thought them to be Alaska or Canada, but they could have been Scandinavia or possibly even Russia (though the last case would have been least likely).

Erik tells his daughter that she is from Germany and has a grandmother in Berlin and that they will go to the Grimm’s house in Berlin to meet her. But before doing so, she will have to kill a woman, Marissa (played by Cate Blanchett) who killed Hanna’s mother and who is bent on killing her as well. Why this would be so is initially unclear.  However, it is clear that Erik was some sort of a spy -- a very good one -- who was capable of disappearing along with his daughter for many, many years.

Hanna grows up in the forests of the northern wilds and when she's 15, she begins telling her father that "she is ready to leave." Erik, like a "good father" is uncertain, but goes out to the back of their house and digs up a long hidden radio transmitter and tells Hanna that the decision to leave is now hers. The transmitter is a homing device, if she turns it on by pressing a big red button, it will forever blow their cover and Marissa will send agents to retrieve both of them.  Hanna’s left to ponder the matter as she goes to sleep.

The next day, Hanna sends her father off to do some hunting and when he comes back, he sees that she’s pressed the red button and turned on the transmitter. Hence, the clock is ticking. Very well, Erik shaves, has Hanna help him cut his hair, puts on a suit and tells her that whereas Marissa would certainly have him killed immediately, she would probably take Hanna prisoner first (giving Hanna the chance to kill Marissa). Erik says goodbye to Hanna and tells her to meet him as long planned in the Grimm’s House in Berlin after she takes care of Marissa. Erik disappears into the forests and soon enough Special Forces come to the house in search of Erik and not finding him, take Hanna to an "undisclosed location" worthy of the name.

The movie proceeds from there. In the process, the reason for Hanna’s mother’s death and for the authorities’ 15 year search for Erik is revealed, as well as why Hanna herself would be a target. 

The story is made all the more interesting by the realization that Hanna, 15 years old, has grown-up entirely in the woods. All she's known are the skills that Erik her father has chosen to teach her.  These while interesting and perhaps useful to her in her quite unique situation (there were people who were out to kill her) didn't include knowledge of even the most basic of electrical devices or even that of running water.  So as her father instructed her repeatedly, she also had to know how to quickly "adapt or die."

I found the movie to be a fascinating mashing of a Brothers Grimm-style fairytale and a post-Bourne Identity spy novel. Yes, there is violence but of a kind that has been common in PG-13 movies in recent years (lots of shooting and glass, etc shattering but very little actual blood/gore), much is left to the imagination. Agreeing with the PG-13 rating, I do think that Hanna would not be appropriate for young children.  However, by age 13 (becoming a teenager) there should no longer be a problem with viewing the film. And the movie is "teen appropriate" in another way.  For in rather strange, highly stylized (symbolic) way, Hanna is a parable about "growing up." ;-)


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Soul Surfer

MPAA (PG) CNS/USCCB (A-II) Roger Ebert (2 1/2 stars) Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1596346/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.usccb.org/movies/s/soulsurfer2011.shtml
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110406/REVIEWS/110409991

Soul Surfer (directed by Sean McNamara and co-written by him along with Deborah Schwartz and others) is a very nice story about Bethany Hamilton (played by Anna Sofia Robb) a cheerful 13 year old, who along with her best friend Alana Blanchard (played by Lorraine Nicholson) was growing-up in rural Hawaii, home schooled, surfing and attending a local Christian youth group, the youth group leader, Sarah, played by Carrie Underwood.

Bethany had loving parents (played by Helen Hunt and Dennis Quaid) as well as two older brothers. Life was good and she had dreams of becoming a champion surfer until one day she lost an arm (up to the shoulder) to a freak shark attack. Suddenly life had changed in all kinds of ways, both temporary and permanent. Remember folks, she was 13 at the time. And she does ask her youth group director: "How could this have been part of God’s plan?"

The rest of the movie is about answering that question and the plot proves not entirely predictable.  I do believe that throughout the movie there is an interplay of both blessedness and tragedy. At the beginning Bethany was growing up healthy, carefree, with a loving family and great friends in one of the most beautiful parts of the world. And to the movie’s credit, it does not apologize for that. Yes, growing-up a teenager in rural Hawaii, night surfing to the full moon and fireworks would be wonderful. Then she has her accident, what now?

Part of the answer does come when she goes with her youth group to Thailand to help survivors of the tsunami in its immediate aftermath. The contrast of images is so striking and poignant. The very same waves so beloved by the young people of Hawaii had caused so much destruction to others, including kids, in Thailand. And yet it’s not the waves’ fault. They can bring both joy and destruction. Once again, what to do now?

Without saying a word, the movie reminds us that Christianity is a faith that believes that any situation can become an invitation to kindness and any situation, indeed any tragedy, can be redeemed. 

ONE LAST NOTE, and one which I am not the only one to have noticed: In a movie, where almost all the protagonists were blond, Bethany’s one (surfing) rival in the movie, Malina Birch (played by Sonya Balmores) was brunette and one who had a propensity throughout the whole movie to wear (and always compete in) black. I found the symbolism unfortunate (carrying racial overtones) and I do believe that the movie would have been better served if the rival was either cast or dressed in a different way.  I mention this as one of a very small number of criticisms (though since I do mention it, IMHO a noteworthy one) of an otherwise outstanding youth-oriented film.


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Insidious

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  Roger Ebert (2 1/2 stars) Fr. Dennis (1 star)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1591095/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.usccb.org/movies/i/insidious2011.shtml
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110331/REVIEWS/110339994

Insidious, directed by James Wan and written by Leigh Whannell, who previously worked together on the Saw movies, is a low budgety affair made in the style of the recent Paranormal Activity movies. I went to see this movie in good part because I knew that a good number of our younger people will go to see it, and to be honest, I’m done with this type of movie for a while.

I found the first Paranormal Activity movie fascinating simply because of its low budget ($50,000, using a rented house, starring two as of then "no name" actors and filmed using a few higherp-end consumer video cameras). Paranormal Activity II, which I reviewed here, which made extensive "dramatic use" of domestic security cams was already getting tired. Insidious, which a number of reviewers compared more to the older Amityville Horror series of movies, continues the low budget gimmick. It’s set in two houses, a high school classroom and probably the high school’s theater (where "the Spectral Plane" region cryptically called "The Further" in this movie was certainly staged and filmed). The quality of some of the "demon costumes" and "manakin undead" even begin to fail Steven King’s "zipper on the back" test. All of this, no doubt, was done purposefully for a "low budgety" (it’s not real) feel.

To be honest though, I’m not sure I’d prefer a high quality version of this movie, because as far as I could see, the movie’s sole purpose was to say "boo."

Yes, there is a plot of sorts. A family headed by high school teacher, pa, Josh Lambert (played by Patrick Wilson) and stay at home ma, Renai Dalton (played by Rose Byrne) move into a new (larger) house following the birth of their third child. The oldest child, Dalton, about 6 y/o (played by Ty Simpkins) runs around the house in a superman’s cape and a wand. He also draws rather imaginative pictures (as six year olds do) that the parents pay no mind to until he doesn’t wake-up one morning.

The doctors tell the parents that Dalton’s in some sort of a coma possibly resulting from a run of the mill "fall" while playing "superman" the evening before he didn’t wake up. But it does not really make sense. What does start to happen is all sorts of strange things in the house while Dalton brought home from the hospital after some time and eventually on a feeding tube, continues to sleep in a comatose state.

Eventually, Renai begins to believe the house is haunted because of the strange things happening in the house and convinces her husband to move. They do, but the strange things continue to happen in the new house as well. Sufficiently spooked, Renai even invites a Catholic priest friend over at one point but Josh, her husband discourages her from pursuing that route further, reminding Renai that they are not religious. Wonderful ...

At this time, the mother-in-law, Lorraine Lanbert (played by Barbara Hershey) takes on a more important role suggesting to Renai that she invite an old friend of hers Elise Rainer (played by Lin Shaye) to make an assessment. After some comic relief provided by Elise’s two "Ghost Buster" like assistants, Elise tells John and Renai that she suspects that their son isn’t in a coma at all, but rather that he had been "astral projecting" himself at night to a place Elise called "the Further" and that Dalton somehow got lost up there in "the Further." Since their son’s body was "vacant" while his soul was lost out there in "The Further" all sorts of spirits of the dead and even demons were now coveting his body apparently as a vessel to animate in the absence of Dalton’s spirit, hence causing all the paranormal ruckus in the Lamberts’ homes since Foster’s "coma." The rest of the movie is about attempting to find Dalton’s soul out there "in the Further" and to bring it back.

However, since the secular world of spirits in this movie still has demons who apparently want our torment our souls, call me "biased" but I still prefer the Priest, Holy Water and the Rosary to the goofy and ultimately not altogether successful solution offered here. Leave the New Agey stuff on the bookshelf and just teach your kids about God and how to pray.


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The Borgias (TV miniseries on Showtime)

CNS/USCCB Review:
http://www.usccb.org/movies/tv/tv040311.shtml

NOTE AT THE BEGINNING OF MY OWN REVIEW:

Normally, my blog covers films.  However, since the miniseries The Borgias: The Original Crime Family (directed by Neil Jordon, Simon Cellan Jones, et al, written by Neil Jordon and Michael Hirst), about the papacy of Pope Alexander VI covers an very important and very scandalous period in Church history, I  thought to cover it here.  Note that since this is a _miniseries_, there is _no way_ that one can do anything but a preliminary review of it until the entire series is complete, because one simply can not know "what is coming."

Showtime.com does offer a free "sneek peek" of the first episode. From that episode, a couple of things appear to be reasonably clear:

(1) From a strict technical "period piece" stand-point the series promises to be outstanding. Jeremy Irons plays Rodrigo Lanzo Borgia who became Pope Alexander VI. He is a serious actor playing a serious role.

(2) There will be extensive nudity in the series. This nudity is fuzzed out in the "teaser episode" provided on Showtime.com’s website. However, that is a signal certainly that this series is _really_ "not for the kids." However, the subject matter – the Catholic Church in the truly most corrupt period of its history – is probably not for the kids either. It’s intended for the parents / adults. If the amount of nudity becomes ridiculous (a distinct possibility on cable...) then of course that will diminish the value of the whole series. Presently, this, and the larger question of whether the whole project has value, can not be determined until more of the series airs.

HISTORICAL ACCURACY - There will of course be legitimate concern about the historical accuracy of this series. Here I would say two things: (1) the makers of this series owe it to the public to be reasonably diligent providing a historically accurate portrayal of the times and (2) given the corruption of that period, there really wouldn’t be _much need_ to "make things up" that surpasses the historical record.

THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT - The Borgias: The Original Crime Family is about the Borgia family and the reign of Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo Lanzo Borgia) from 1492-1503.

The wikipedia article on Alexander VI has him with 7 children by several women. Previously, I had learned that he had 9 children by 3-4 mistresses and possibly another 2 children by another 1-2 mistresses.

Additionally, he married off (and annulled marriages of) his daughter Lucrecia several times, each time to promote a "balance of power" among the warring states of the Italian peninsula.

When I heard this in the seminary, I told the professor teaching the history course covering this period that for the first time I understood what Henry VIII was trying to do in England only a few decades later. Henry VIII too was arguably acting in the best interest of his realm trying desperately to get a healthy male heir to prevent another "War of the Roses" over succession that took place a 100 years beforehand.

Henry VIII would have certainly known of the scandals that Alexander VI was party to in Italy before his birth and must have been frustrated saying to himself "Alexander VI annulled several marriages of _his own daughter_ to "promote peace" in Italy, I'm trying to do the same here in England."

Anyway, Alexander VI was certainly party to more than a few scandals, so I do hope that the film-makers don't feel the need to invent more than is already in the record.

LESSONS TO BE LEARNED FROM THE PERIOD OF ALEXANDER VI? Well, I suppose, (1) No matter how bad things may seem, it _can_ "always be worse" :-), and (2) with power comes corruption. If the Pope was a nobody then it'd be easy for him to be a saint. (Today, in fact, the Pope doesn’t have the secular power that he had before, and by all accounts this has made for better holier Popes). And it wasn't as if in the time of the Borgias, the Pope became corrupt only when he became Pope. To even be in the running AT THAT TIME required that he come from a powerful family. And the Borgias were NOT the only powerful/corrupt family in Rome. Remember, there was a reason that the Papacy was moved (arguably by the French king) to Avignon for about a century in the 1300s. Rome was a mess.

Anyway, a good place to follow the historical accuracy of the period will certainly be on wikipedia. It won't be perfect either, because the period in question is contentious and the PEOPLE DO MAKE FUNDAMENTAL LIFE DECISIONS based on what they come to believe about this time (and other times of scandal).

FOR MYSELF. I am a Catholic and a Catholic priest. I am so, even in spite of times like that of Alexander VI. And I am so because I honestly do believe that the people involved at that time _didn't know any better_ and I do have a healthy respect for the corrupting influence of power.

Where there is power there is temptation. And to be honest, despite the awfulness of that time, I'm not sure that any of us could have done much better. And yet society, _any society_ needs leadership, and yes, sometimes, that leadership is lousy. What makes it hard sometimes to get good leadership is precisely because power has "its perks," and many people will choose to seek to benefit from those perks rather than seek to use power for the benefit of the common good.

Anyway, this series could easily descend into a pit of darkness, pretentiousness and scandal itself, or it could actually serve as a means of illuminating one of the darkest, complex and yes most corrupt periods in Church (and indeed world) history. And for an episode or two, we’ll have to wait and see what the series will be / become.

ADDENDUM:

Several weeks into the series (Apr 18), the series has continued to prove to be well done from a technical point of view _and_ reasonably accurate historically. Remember, that this is a dramatic series rather than a documentary series.  As such, there will be some artistic license taken by series' makers.  How much is of course the big question and how such dramatic licence will effect the over all trajectory of the story. 

For instance, it would be doubtful that a son of Alexander VI would have been as directly involved in the murder of an exiled Ottoman prince as portrayed in Episode 3 (to the point of first personally poisoning him at a "family get together" and then "finishing him off by personally smothering him with a pillow in the Ottoman prince's chambers after falling ill).  That Alexander VI would accept the Ottomon prince as an exile as a (paid) favor of the Ottoman Sultan of Constantinople is believable.  These kind of arrangements were certainly done all the time.  That Alexander VI would be offered an even higher price by the Ottoman Sultan to "dispose of" the pesky prince (and that Alexander VI would accept) is also believable. I'm positive that these kind of double dealings were also done.  But portraying Alexander VI's own sons to be so intimately involved in the Ottoman prince's murder after hamming up the Ottoman prince's relationship with the sons and Lucretia, Alexander VI's daughter, seems far more a dramatic device than something based on actual history. 

Perhaps the close relationship between the exiled Ottoman prince and the grown children of Alexander VI existed, and perhaps this _could be_ documented in a diary or in the memoirs of someone close to Alexander VI's family (in the memoirs of an aide or servant or in the the diary of one of Alexander VI's own children).  However, it's far easier to believe that the relationship between the Ottoman prince and the adult children of Alexander VI was played up in the series for dramatic effect. 

This example should give people a pretty good indication of how to follow/believe this series.  Some of the incidents are going to played up for dramatic effect.

Intelligent places to follow what other people think of the series are (1) on the discussion board for the series on the IMDb website (2) on the wikipedia website.

ADDENDUM (Nov 3, 2011) - Viewers could also consider the recent film Anonymous arguing the case that William Shakespeare did not write the plays attributed to him.  In the film, Queen Elizabeth I of England is presented as someone who may have produced as many as three illegitimate children, two during her reign.  I'd find it next to impossible to believe a scandal of this sort could have been hidden (and three times).  After all, in Protestant Elizabethan England she was known as the "Virgin Queen," a title not she did not taken-on by accident but rather in attempt to replace lingering devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary among the common people of England with a new and patriotic devotion to her.  On the other hand, if true (or even close to true), such a possibility gives an indication of the hypocrisy/lifestyle of the upper classes across Europe at the time and perhaps put the Borgia family's excesses in context: the Borgia family may have been awful, but it was not really all that different from other powerful families at the time.


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