Month: September 2012

Beautiful film, Mixed acting

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I had a chance to see the new Anna Karenina movie at our local cinema this afternoon and I’d highly recommend it. The acting is a bit variable but the conception, the beautiful theatrical sets, Joe Wright’s direction, and Tom Stoppard’s script are wonderful. Of course the book’s themes have had to be heavily edited and truncated but, for the most part, the film is moving and engaging.

Jude Law is effective as Karenin and Aaron Taylor-Johnson is well-cast. Ms. Knightley looks wonderful, of course, but is too limited an actress for this role.

Holy Cross

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Today is the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross which commemorates the day in 335 A.D. when Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre was dedicated. Built on the site where St Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine, is said to have found the true cross.  Holy Cross is seen as a feast and symbol of Christ’s triumph over death.

Crosses in the courtyard outside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre which I visited in March 2011:

Courtyard of Holy Sepulchre
Crosses in Jerusalem

 

The Collect for Holy Cross day in the Church of England:

Almighty God,
who in the passion of your blessed Son
made an instrument of painful death
to be for us the means of life and peace:
grant us so to glory in the cross of Christ
that we may gladly suffer for his sake;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.