The Nativity Story hasn't had a particularly blessed advent into the holiday movie scene, but there are apparently some very positive things to say about this retelling of the Biblical account of Jesus' birth.
Critics haven't been universally kind to the movie, although the main criticism I seem to hear is that it's "dull"--and that, of course, is all in the eye of the beholder. I would imagine non-Christian movie critics are approaching the movie with a bias to begin with anyway, simply because it is a movie about Jesus. I can't imagine them wildly applauding it.
Disappointing response
Reportedly, the movie's creators are very disappointed in the response of Christian moviegoers to the film. This article by Dan Wooding quotes the movie's producer, Marty Bowen: "I thought it was incredibly disheartening for a variety of different reasons, not the least of which is you hear this common lament from moviegoers that America feels like Hollywood has lost touch with what they want to see. People feel like there is too much violence in movies and too much disrespect towards the family.
“Now finally a Hollywood studio has stepped up and put their money where their mouth is and has committed to making and releasing a movie, not on a couple of screens but rather on a very big very large fashion – more than three-thousand screens around the country -- and giving the audience what they say they want and yet that sense of urgency in that audience isn’t there to go and see it."
Angela Hunt talks about the movie
Be that as it may, I was delighted today to interview one of my favorite authors, Angela Hunt, who wrote the novelization based on the movie's screenplay. In this 1 min. 12 sec. soundclip from our interview, Angela talks about her reactions to seeing the film.
Meantime, Plugged-In Online has good things to say about the film, concluding: "Christmastime moviegoers will undoubtedly leave the theater more filled with the true Christmas spirit than when they arrived. Even better, as screenwriter Mike Rich told Plugged In Online, ['If we can get viewers to go beyond Matthew's and Luke's early chapters, and maybe even get to the Gospel of John, then this movie will have served its purpose.'"
Read more about Angela Hunt's development of "The Nativity Story" novel at her blog.
Related Tags: The Nativity Story, movies, entertainment, Christian, fiction, Angela Hunt
No comments:
Post a Comment