Stigmata

Rating:
Summary: Hollywood doing religion like Milli Vanilli doing music
Review: Hollywood depicting ANYTHING religious is such a mind-numbing experience anymore -- nothing but the same tired stereotypes and caricatures.

Stigmata defeats itself because of its painfully ignorant (or malicious?) portrayal of Catholicism in particular and "organized religion" in general ..... as with any such bigotry -- whether racial, ethnic, religious, etc -- it ultimately appeals only to that core audience of sympathetics, in this instance those who will never open their minds or hearts to religion anyway. In sum, it only preaches to the choir.

Stigmata hedges its bet (probably safely) that its viewers themselves have no understanding of Catholicism other than what comes from tabloids or from (equally ignorant) news reporters or from discussions among (equally ignorant) acquaintances. Stigmata posits that the Catholic Church has squelched a "secret" gospel.

However, Stigmata neglects to mention that the secret gospel has been published for years, and it neglects to mention that NO expert on religion considers that lost "gospel" to be anything other than a low-quality fraud. Such concealment by the filmmakers is the most profound aspect of the film because of its rich irony or, more accurately, hypocrisy. (Exposition: the Creators of the film perpetrated a fundamental fraud in order to advance their premise that a particular religion has defrauded its followers. Nothwithstanding the obvious hypocrisy, if done INTENTIONALLY then it was truly brilliant -- although I suspect this gives it way too much credit.)

Stigmata is the equivalent to someone publishing the "lost" provisions of the U.S. Constitution - which announce that there really is no right to free speech. No matter how strongly the government denounced or discredited the story, there would always be those (such as the black helicopter crowd) who would believe it -- after all, why ELSE would the government denounce it unless it was true! This sort of bass ackwards reasoning will always exist, and always provide a target audience willing to shell out $8.50 and be manipulated like sheep.

Serious study of religion, philosophy, life? Gag.

Shallow, mindless entertainment? Maybe, but with emphasis on the "shallow" and "mindless".

Rating:
Summary: Not very good at all!
Review: Stigmata centers around the story of a woman who becomes stigmatic. This means she is afflicted by the 5 wounds of christ. The problem with this movie definetly isnt the story. It has great potential, good plot and some good effects. These are the problems. Terrible casting aside from Byrne. The direction is all over the place. The film is so unclear. Whoever dircted this should have been fired. A few good moments but nothing worth seeing. End Of Days was 10 times better! Not for people who are offended by these severly reliogusly films. Not reccomended

Rating:
Summary: The Messenger Must Be Silenced...
Review: Wow. I was literally speechless after watching this film. It was kind of like a mix between "The Exorcist" and some MTV flick...I guess it would best be described as a stylish thriller. Anyway, it is a great film. Patricia Arquette is so incredibly creepy when she is possessed by that priest guy. The whole film has an eerie feeling to it, and it doesn't let up until the film is over. I'd also like to add that there are some pretty gross scenes when Frankie (Arquette) gets the wounds of Christ...You've been warned.

Rating:
Summary: Surprisingly Good
Review: When I got this movie, I was expecting not much. But what I got was a suspensful, thoughtful and intriguing movie. The acting is spectacular. I recommend it highly.

Rating:
Summary: Disturbing
Review: This movie makes you think and question what one might believe.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting
Review: I was hesitant to watch this movie. I didn't particularly care for the previews and 'possession' movies are ususally so incredible (and poorly done) that I'm unable to abandon my skepticism long enough to get involved.

Not so with this one! There were enough accurate facts (e.g., the Gospel of St. Thomas was found in 1954 and it quotes Christ as saying "split a piece of wood, I am there. Lift up the stone and you will find me there."; Christ's wrists would most likely have been nailed, not his hands, etc.) to make it believable.

Furthermore, the special effects were fantastic!

Don't be too quick to scratch this one off your 'to see' list!

Rating:
Summary: not a bad movie
Review: Contrary to all my expectations, Stigmata turned out to be a nice picture, even interesting at times. Forget about the storyline, stigmata is basically about the gospel of Thomas, the alleged "fifth gospel", which the Church refuses to recognize. Why so? because it undermines the basis on which the Church has grown throughout the centuries. In fact it states that THERE IS NO NEED FOR A CHURCH... needless to say, I downloaded the document shortly after having watched the film! Don't be fooled, there is no evidence that the words which Thomas reported are the true ones spoken by Christ himself ( but still, it's an interesting reading... ;-). Stigmata finds itself between religion and new age which makes it hip, doesn't it?

Rating:
Summary: A wonderful, original film!
Review: Wow! This was such a great film! I can't wait till it comes out to own! STIGMATA was very original, yet very entertaining. The always wonderful Patricia Arquette did an outstanding job with her character, Frankie Page. The music is also great, which isn't surprising since Billy Corgan was the music producer. This film will definitely make you think twice about being a little TOO religious! Go get STIGMATA right now :)

Rating:
Summary: Contrived but effective (SPOILER WARNING)
Review: SPOILER WARNING: This comment contains specific references to plot elements that reveal the ending. It is strongly recommended that you see the film before reading this review.

'Stigmata' uses as its premise the actual existence of the gospel of Thomas, a gospel taken from a scroll found in 1945, and condemned by the Catholic Church as heresy. This gospel gives essentially the same message as the gospel in the film, that the kingdom of God is of this earth and it is not about heaven, churches or religion. But clearly, the gospel in the film is not Thomas, despite the allusion at the end of the film. Thomas was written in Greek not Aramaic, and has been dated by scholars to the second century, hardly contemporaneous with Jesus. The film is a highly contrived fictional yarn that imaginatively invents a scroll of Jesus' words and then takes the religious mythos of stigmata and combines it with the mythos of possession (in ways not consistent with either) as a device to reveal the plot of the Church to keep the gospel a secret.

We are asked to believe that an atheist gets stigmata (no such event has ever been reported) as the result of possession by the spirit of a dead human whom she never knew (this is the purview of the devil; human spirits are not thought to possess living beings) because she touched his rosary beads (also touched by her mother, the boy who sold them to her and Father Kiernan without effect). Ok, I guess that's what fantasy films are supposed to do, conjure improbable situations out of the imagination. Still, it takes liberties that distort and misrepresent religious beliefs, which is always risky business. While watching this film, I had to pretend I didn't know what I know. Once over this hurdle, it was an fascinating, engaging and frightening story.

There are other strange inconsistencies and unanswered questions though. Father Alameida was a good and pious man. Yet he possesses Frankie with an evil vengeance and attempts to use Frankie to sexually seduce Kiernan, beating him from pillar to post when he doesn't consent. That's just not consistent with who Alameida was. Also, why was Frankie strong enough to throw Kiernan around the room like a rag doll, but helpless to stop Cardinal Houseman from choking her? And what was all the dripping water about? If that was explained somewhere, I must have missed it.

Comparisons between this and 'The Exorcist' are misplaced. They really had nothing in common other than the fact that the main character was possessed. There is one scene during the rage following Frankie's seduction attempt of Kiernan that had obvious elements of comparison but that was about it. This was not an exorcism and the devil was nowhere to be found.

From a filmmaking standpoint, this film was terrific. Rupert Wainwright does a marvelous job from start to finish with this film. The photography was fantastic. The use of the camera perspectives, scene set up and various techniques including slow motion, double exposures, rapid fire jump cuts and reverse slow motion were all fabulous (though sometimes used to excess) and added power and impact to create some very scary footage. I've read complaints about the sound, but the sound on the DVD copy I had was great with excellent surround effects. It was a bit loud at times but not so much that I had to ride shotgun on the volume control.

This was a marvelous breakthrough performance for Patricia Arquette. When she was in Frankie mode she was sometimes arrogant and self centered, and at others sweet, helpless and terrified. When in possession mode she was powerful and frightening. She handled all these states believably and with aplomb.

Gabriel Byrne also gave a wonderful performance as Father Kiernan. He achieved just the right balance between intellectual skepticism and self doubt with a genuine concern for Frankie.

Overall, I really enjoyed this film. Yes, the story was flawed, but not irretrievably. As a supernatural thriller it was first rate. I rated it an 8/10. Not for the squeamish.

Rating:
Summary: What MTV would make --- if it made movies
Review: I tried to figure out who the producers and director of this bomb thought would be the likely audience profile for this movie. My best guess is they decided their target audience would be people who:

(1) Regard MTV VJs as witty, brilliant thinkers,

(2) Have spent more time in their life reading cereal boxes than the Bible,

(3) Would prefer books with "lots of pictures" to those with nothing but words,

(4) Have had their principal exposure to Catholic teachings come from people who know more about Martian horticulture than true Catholic teachings,

(5) Think that Cosmo and Vogue are literary masterpieces,

(6) Are angry that Bart Simpson never won an Emmy for best actor,

(7) Think Melrose Place is a deep, thought-provoking series about real life.

Sorry for the sarcasm, but this movie cries out for it. Some reviewers have suggested approaching this movie with an open mind. I recommend approaching it with a gas mask.