Word: vatican
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Some critics might swat Angels & Demons with tepid adjectives - "bustling" and "fumbling" spring to mind - but the only review that really matters came in last weekend. L'Osservatore Romano, the official newspaper of Vatican City, described this sequel to The Da Vinci Code as "more than two hours of harmless entertainment, which hardly affects the genius and mystery of Christianity" and "a video game that first of all sparks curiosity and is also, maybe...
...years back, the Vatican, the seat of power for the Roman Catholic Church, had waxed apoplectic over The Da Vinci Code - both the Dan Brown book and Ron Howard's 2006 movie version. According to the director, the Holy See blocked his attempts to shoot scenes of Angels, another Brown novel, in the Roman churches where much of it is set. So Howard must have found L'Osservatore Romano's genial review an unexpected blessing, somewhere between a celebratory puff of white smoke and the mild penance of 10 Our Fathers and 10 Hail Marys. We also hear that...
...next Pope, and threatened to murder them and, that very night, blow up St. Peter's Square with a vial of antimatter stolen from a Geneva research lab. In Rome by sundown, Langdon finds adversaries in a stern Cardinal (Armin Mueller-Stahl) and the head of the Vatican's Swiss Guards (Stellan Skarsgard), and two allies in a passionate young Vatican priest (Ewan McGregor) and a scientist (Ayalet Zurer) from the antimatter lab. The meat of the story occupies about five hours that evening, as Langdon rushes from one holy site to another, trying to save lives and solve...
...serial-killer thriller, not far from the Saw series in its devoutly clinical depiction of distressed bodies. (See the eyeball on the floor! Gasp as plump rats snack on a dead Cardinal's face!) For adults who are or were Catholic, the movie is a backstage story of Vatican politicking, à la Monsignor and The Godfather Part III; it paints the College of Cardinals as possibly the only ruling body older and more removed from mundane realities than the U.S. Supreme Court. For conspiracy buffs, there's the notion that the Holy Fratricide might be an inside job, which recalls...
Another encounter on Monday also failed to go according to Vatican plans. An evening ceremony in East Jerusalem to champion inter-religious dialogue was interrupted by an unscheduled diatribe by Palestinian Muslim cleric Sheikh Tasir al-Tamimi, who condemned Israel's attacks on Palestinians and its control over Jerusalem's holy sites. The diminutive and elderly Pope appeared a bit shaken by the outburst, and the event was cut short as the Vatican delegation quickly left the meeting hall. Papal spokesman Father Federico Lombardi, who has been working overtime to react to events, called the Muslim cleric's actions...