Wicked (Part 1): Movie Review

 

A Magical Journey: A Review of "Wicked"

The highly anticipated film adaptation of the beloved Broadway musical "Wicked" has finally arrived, and it is nothing short of a spectacular triumph. Directed by Jon M. Chu and featuring a star-studded cast, "Wicked" brings the enchanting world of Oz to life in a way that is both visually stunning and emotionally resonant. Here’s why "Wicked" is a must-watch for fans of the musical and newcomers alike.

A Stellar Cast

The casting of "Wicked" is a dream come true for fans. Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande shine in their roles as Elphaba and Glinda, respectively. Erivo’s portrayal of Elphaba, the misunderstood green-skinned girl who becomes the Wicked Witch of the West, is both powerful and poignant. Her vocal performance is nothing short of breathtaking, capturing the raw emotion and complexity of her character. Grande, on the other hand, brings a delightful charm and effervescence to Glinda, the popular and bubbly Good Witch. Their chemistry on screen is palpable, making their friendship and eventual rivalry all the more compelling.

Visual Spectacle

One of the standout features of "Wicked" is its visual splendor. The film’s production design, costumes, and special effects are a feast for the eyes. From the vibrant and whimsical Emerald City to the dark and mysterious forests of Oz, every scene is meticulously crafted to transport viewers into this magical world. The use of CGI is seamless, enhancing the fantastical elements without overshadowing the story. The attention to detail in the costumes, particularly Elphaba’s iconic black hat and Glinda’s sparkling gowns, adds an extra layer of authenticity and enchantment.

Faithful Adaptation

Fans of the original Broadway musical will be pleased to know that the film stays true to its source material while also offering fresh interpretations. The screenplay, adapted by Winnie Holzman (who wrote the musical’s book) and Stephen Schwartz (who composed the music and lyrics), retains the heart and soul of the stage production. Iconic songs like "Defying Gravity," "Popular," and "For Good" are beautifully performed and choreographed, capturing the essence of the musical’s themes of friendship, identity, and acceptance.

Emotional Depth

"Wicked" delves deep into the backstory of the Wicked Witch of the West, offering a nuanced and sympathetic portrayal of Elphaba. The film explores themes of prejudice, power, and the consequences of our choices, making it a thought-provoking and emotionally resonant experience. Erivo’s portrayal of Elphaba’s journey from an outcast to a powerful and misunderstood figure is both heartbreaking and inspiring. The film also highlights the complexities of Glinda’s character, showing her growth from a superficial and self-centered girl to a compassionate and wise leader.

Musical Brilliance

The music of "Wicked" is one of its greatest strengths, and the film does not disappoint in this regard. Stephen Schwartz’s score is brought to life with stunning orchestration and vocal performances. Erivo’s rendition of "Defying Gravity" is a showstopper, capturing the defiance and determination of Elphaba’s character. Grande’s performance of "Popular" is both hilarious and endearing, showcasing her comedic timing and vocal prowess. The film’s musical numbers are expertly staged and choreographed, making them a visual and auditory delight.

Conclusion

"Wicked" is a magical and mesmerizing film that captures the heart and soul of the beloved musical. With stellar performances, breathtaking visuals, and a faithful adaptation of the original story, it is a must-watch for fans and newcomers alike. The film’s exploration of themes such as friendship, identity, and acceptance makes it a thought-provoking and emotionally resonant experience. Whether you’re a longtime fan of the musical or discovering it for the first time, "Wicked" is sure to leave you spellbound.

I watched the film with my nephew and sister. It was amazing. We enjoyed it. The music, dancing, story plot, imagery, and acting were all superb.  Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande did extremely well.  While the original 1938 Wizard of Oz is an untouchable classic and work of art, this "prequel" is its postmodern equivalent. The movie brought the movie theater number 8 in the Bronx to full applause at the film's conclusion.  The film has some inclusive facts such as a disabled character in a wheelchair and some gay personas.  However, the roles are not overbearing nor pontificate to the audience.  This film is fun for the family with a lot of positive messages.  

 

Harry Potter Books Banned by Priest

Just in time for the new school year, Harry Potter is in the news again, but not for literature related reasons.  A Catholic priest in Nashville, Tennessee has removed and banned books from a school library at St. Edward Catholic Church.  This is not the first time accusations against Harry Potter books have been presented by religious groups. Fr. Gabriel Amorth, one of the chief exorcists of Rome said in 2011 that Harry Potter can lead to evil.

Fr. Daniel ReeHill, pastor of St. Edward Catholic Church claims that the Harry Potter book series misrepresents the idea of magic.  Magic is presented as being both "Good and evil."  He claims that the spells or curses used in the book series are actual spells and curses used by Wiccans or those who are into the occult.

Harry Potter was written by J.K. Rowling and have sold over 500 million copies worldwide.  The book follows a young wizard named Harry Potter who attends the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Reehill sent an email to staff at St. Edward Catholic school, he wrote:

"The Harry Potter series of books have been removed from the St. Edward school library for several reasons. These books present magic as both good and evil, which is not true, but in fact a clever deception. The curses and spells used in the books are actual curses and spells; which when read by a human being risk conjuring evil spirits into the presence of the person reading the text.
I have consulted several exorcists, both in the United States and in Rome, and they have recommended removing the books from circulation, the books also use nefarious means to attain the goals of the characters, including the 'good' characters. A morally good act requires the goodness of the object, of the end, and of the circumstances together. The Harry Potter books do not follow this premise; rather they promote a Machiavellian approach to achieving the ends they desire with whatever means are necessary.
The books also glorify acts of divination; of conjuring the dead, of casting spells among other acts that are an offense to the virtue of religion – to the love and respect we owe to God alone. Many reading these books could be persuaded to believe these acts are perfectly fine, even good or spiritually healthy. St. Edward is committed to advancing the Catholic faith and teaching the standards of sound doctrine to instill strong Catholic moral values. Books and other materials which present a possible threat to our faith will not be promoted by our church or school."

Father Reehill also cited the Catholic Church's catechism which states:

The Catechism, the teaching of the Church, states that, "All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to 'unveil' the future. Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone." (CCC 2116)

What do you think about this story?  Post below on disqus. Be sure to follow the guidelines for posting a comment.  Here is my opinion.  As a bibliophile, I cringe at the thought of book banning or book burnings.  Books are sacred things. They help us learn and force our brains to think critically and internally.  I am a fast learner but have noticed that I learn better when I read things instead of listening to someone teaching me something. Reading has helped open my mind to many things, including God and religion.

I understand what Fr. Reehill is coming from, but I feel his concerns are reactionary and exaggerated. Harry Potter is simply a fictional work, nothing else.  In order to get possessed or have some demonic presence attach itself to someone, that someone must invite it in freely.  Reading a book does not do this.  While not mathematically accurate, I would say that 99% of the time, kids reading Harry Potter are not even aware of evil, spells etc in the same way adults are, especially religious ones.  By simply reading something with content that relates to spells and curses, one does not invite evil in.  If this were the case, then we all would invite evil every time we read the mentioning of Satan in Scripture.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church itself specifically states what we are to avoid.  Reading books is not mention.  What is mentioned is the consultation of horoscopes, astrology, palm reading etc.

Harry Potter, while silly and full of magical content is just innocent reading which engages the imagination. With the onset of the internet and cell phones, reading has gone down.  Harry Potter has helped alter this trend. Many kids are not hooked on reading. This is a good thing.  Think about it. Satan wants the downfall of human beings. How does helping kids read and learn help in his endeavor?  I assume keeping humans ignorant is the way to go if satan wants to make humanity fall more.

As for the spells in the books being real, I cannot truly say for sure that this is accurate. I am not sure where this claim comes from. If a priest says that the spells in Harry Potter are real, one must ask: How does he know?  This means he is reading actual spell books or is associating with witches.  I have yet to see evidence that shows the spells in Harry Potter are actual spells.  If they are, why has there not been a copyright infringement lawsuit filed by the creators or writers of these spells?

I think Harry Potter is harmless reading.  Parents should decide what they want their kids to read. As long as a child is actively religious, there is no need to fear spells and the like.  The latter does not work anyhow.  No power exists alongside that of God's.  A spell has no power. It is just empty words.  Only God has power.  Satan itself cannot act unless it is with permission from God!

The Church has to be careful with engaging in book censorship or burning again.  History shows that the Church has attempted to censor works of literature out of paranoia. This is not a good attitude to take in the 21st century. We do not want to repeat history. Censorship shows paranoia and insecurity.

I think atheist reading material is more dangerous than Harry Potter books. Atheist reading content makes you stupid. I have never seen a kid get possessed after reading Potter. But I have seen friends become cognitively lethargic after reading Dawkins, Krauss etc.




Source:

https://www.churchmilitant.com/news/article/priest-pulls-harry-potter-books-from-school-for-curses-and-spells

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/harry-potter-books-banned-nashville-catholic-school-bans-series-read-by-a-human-being-risk-conjuring-evil-spirits/

https://www.foxnews.com/us/harry-potter-banned-catholic-school-evil-spirits

https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisettevoytko/2019/09/03/catholic-school-bans-harry-potterbut-according-to-free-speech-advocates-its-nothing-new/

https://www.cnsnews.com/blog/michael-w-chapman/catholic-school-removes-harry-potter-books-says-curses-spells-are-real

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/harry-potter/8915691/Harry-Potter-and-yoga-are-evil-says-Catholic-Church-exorcist.html

Rosa Rubicondior - All In The Name Of Jesus

At first, I thought Rubicondior's blog post would be about Jesus and the actions of His followers; however, she instead goes on a tangent writing about demons and people's interpretation of them in light of the understanding of the time. 

She cites St. Augustine, Michael Psellus, Richalmus, Richard Baxter, Athanasius and others in an attempt to appeal to authority. She grossly misinterprets their words and again shows that she is ignorant on the subject matter.

Futhermore, Rosa attempts to equate pagan ideas of demons with that of Christianity.  She goes on writing on incubi and succubi as if Christianity interprets demons in the manner the aforementioned are described.  

What is disturbing is not only Rosa's misunderstanding, but that she has plagiarized the information here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incubus.  It seems that Rosa splices up articles she finds on Google and makes minor adjustments before presenting it as her work.  This is academic fraud and dishonesty!

Rosa then makes the same mistake others do in claiming that the Papal bull Summis desiderantes affectibus somehow instigated the ideas she writes about.

The Catholic encyclopedia counters her claims:  

"It will be readily understood from the foregoing that the importance attached by many older writers to the Bull, "Summis desiderantes affectibus", of Pope Innocent VIII (1484), as though this papaldocument were responsible for the witch mania of the two succeeding centuries, is altogether illusory. Not only had an active campaign against most forms of sorcery already been going on for a long period, but in the matter of procedure, of punishments, of judges, etc., Innocent's Bull enacted nothing new. Its direct purport was simply to ratify the powers already conferred upon Henry Institorisand James Sprenger, inquisitors, to deal with persons of every class and with every form of crime (for example, with witchcraft as well as heresy), and it called upon the Bishop of Strasburg to lend theinquisitors all possible support.
Indirectly, however, by specifying the evil practices charged against the witches — for example their intercourse with incubi and succubi, their interference with the parturition of women and animals, the damage they did to cattle and the fruits of the earth, their power and malice in the infliction of pain and disease, the hindrance caused to men in their conjugal relations, and the witches' repudiation of the faith of their baptism — the pope must no doubt be considered to affirm the reality of these alleged phenomena. But, as even Hansen points out (Zauberwahn, 468, n. 3) "it is perfectly obvious that the Bull pronounces no dogmatic decision"; neither does the form suggest that the pope wishes to bind anyone to believe more about the reality of witchcraft than is involved in the utterances ofHoly Scripture. Probably the most disastrous episode was the publication a year or two later, by the same inquisitors, of the book "Malleus Maleficarum" (the hammer of witches).

 This work is divided into three parts, the first two of which deal with the reality of witchcraft as established by the Bible, etc., as well as its nature and horrors and the manner of dealing with it, while the third lays down practical rules for procedure whether the trial be conducted in an ecclesiastical or a secular court. There can be no doubt that the book, owing to its reproduction by the printing press, exercised great influence. It contained, indeed, nothing that was new. The "Formicaris" of John Nider, which had been written nearly fifty years earlier, exhibits just as intimate a knowledge of the supposed phenomena of sorcery. But the "Malleus" professed (in part fraudulently) to have been approved by the University of Cologne, and it was sensational in the stigma it attached to witchcraft as a worse crime than heresy and in its notable animus against the female sex. The subject at once began to attract attention even in the world of letters. Ulrich Molitoris a year or two later published a work, "De Lamiis", which, though disagreeing with the more extravagant of the representations made in the "Malleus", did not question the existence of witches. Other divines and popular preachers joined in the discussion, and, though many voices were raised on the side of common sense, the publicity thus given to these matters inflamed the popular imagination. Certainly the immediate effects of Innocent VIII's Bull have been greatly exaggerated.
Institoris started a witch campaign at Innsbruck in 1485, but here his procedure was severely criticised and resisted by the Bishop of Brixen (see Janssen, "Hist. of Germ. People", Eng. tr., XVI, 249-251). So far as the papal inquisitors were concerned, the Bull, especially in Germany, heralded the close rather than the commencement of their activity. The witch-trials of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were for the most part in secular hands."

Source: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15674a.htm


Rubicondior is obviously confused on what a demon really is.  Her copying and pasting of random views on the matter adds to her confusion.

The Cathecism of the Catholic Church has this to say on the matter:

391 Behind the disobedient choice of our first parents lurks a seductive voice, opposed to God, which makes them fall into death out of envy.266Scripture and the Church's Tradition see in this being a fallen angel, called "Satan" or the "devil".267 The Church teaches that Satan was at first a good angel, made by God: "The devil and the other demons were indeed created naturally good by God, but they became evil by their own doing."268
392 Scripture speaks of a sin of these angels.269 This "fall" consists in the free choice of these created spirits, who radically and irrevocablyrejected God and his reign. We find a reflection of that rebellion in the tempter's words to our first parents: "You will be like God."270 The devil "has sinned from the beginning"; he is "a liar and the father of lies".271
393 It is the irrevocable character of their choice, and not a defect in the infinite divine mercy, that makes the angels' sin unforgivable. "There is no repentance for the angels after their fall, just as there is no repentance for men after death."272
394 Scripture witnesses to the disastrous influence of the one Jesus calls "a murderer from the beginning", who would even try to divert Jesus from the mission received from his Father.273 "The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil."274 In its consequences the gravest of these works was the mendacious seduction that led man to disobey God.


395 The power of Satan is, nonetheless, not infinite. He is only a creature, powerful from the fact that he is pure spirit, but still a creature. He cannot prevent the building up of God's reign. Although Satan may act in the world out of hatred for God and his kingdom in Christ Jesus, and although his action may cause grave injuries - of a spiritual nature and, indirectly, even of a physical nature- to each man and to society, the action is permitted by divine providence which with strength and gentleness guides human and cosmic history. It is a great mystery that providence should permit diabolical activity, but "we know that in everything God works for good with those who love him."275

Source: Cathecism of the Catholic Church, http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p1s2c1p7.htm

The sources Rosa cites from must be taken into context.  The people at the time thought differently than we today.  Similarly, the words used back then do not have the same meanings as they do today.

As Catholicism was spreading throughout Europe it faced Paganism with its superstitions and ideas regarding witches and spirits.  The Church had to find a way to challenge these ideas.  The language in Church documents and documents of writers reflects the understanding and the attempts to communicate the Gospel to a particular people - most who were illiterate.

Not everything a saint wrote is part of doctrine.  This is what Rosa seems to imply indirectly by appealing to them.  Some wrote strange things - things incompatible with doctrine.  Aquinas was against the idea that Mary was Immaculately Conceived.  Even the Pope's writings are not dogma.  A book, essay, or even a homily is not official teaching just because it comes from a Pontiff.  The Pope can write, "There are aliens on Jupiter," this is not doctrine just because he wrote it.  Rosa and others must understand this.

Unfortunately, some Christians took their view of justice into their own hands and executed those suspected of witchcraft and other anti-Christian spirituality.  This is not the fault of the Church.  The Catholic Church never endorsed these acts.  These were committed by overzealous Christians who in the spirit of a pre-version of Jansenism took it upon themselves to punish in the name of God.  

Demons do exist.  The Catholic Church has been conducting exorcisms since its infancy.  In recent years, the number of these cases have increased.  However, this does not mean that the Church jumps to conclusions at every report of supposed demonic possession.  The Church heavily relies on Science to weed out mental illness or natural explanations prior to stepping in.