Vanity Projects - Chronicles

Reviews of Father Stu, Moonfall, and The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent . . .

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Comments (2)

LADY FROM SHANGHAI is a masterpiece.

July 10, 2022 Andrea Ostrov Letania Reply

Regarding Father Stu, I couldn’t disagree more. Which I think points to the kind of Catholicism that is being dramatized in this for the most part shoddily made movie. The theology behind this movie is closer to the traditional Catholicism of Mel Gibson (who plays Stu’s father) than that of the contemporary Catholic Catholic Church. The point at which these two could intersect is in a character who embodies an older type of masculinity now found mainly in immigrant communities and sports. The movie makes this point clunkily explicit in Stu’s response to the envious milquetoast seminarian who’s there because his dad wants him to be a priest– his line about the Church being in need of someone who acts like a “gangster.” I guess I believe Mel Gibson’s 31-year-old girlfriend wrote and directed this movie, but I thought I detected some pointers from Stu’s “dad” –in the way it presented, cartoonishly a lot of the time but still, a masculine experience of faith won through intense physical suffering. This experience was portrayed authentically and movingly in spite of the horrible music, language, etc., by Wahlberg and was supported when it needed to be by the writing and directing.

July 13, 2022 MARGARET Reply

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