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That ’70s feeling

This week’s new movie releases look back: Murder on the Orient Express, Last Flag Flying, Novitiate

The Last Detail: Let’s all join Jack Nicholson in a toast to that crazy decade, shall we?
The Last Detail: Let’s all join Jack Nicholson in a toast to that crazy decade, shall we?

Novitiate? The Devils.

Movie

Novitiate *

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<em>One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nunnery</em>? <em>Full Metal Habit</em>? Writer-director Margaret Betts takes a striking fact — the Catholic Church in America experienced a mass exodus of its women religious in the years following the Second Vatican Council — and uses it to craft a hysterical piece of fiction, shot through with the “exaggerated or uncontrollable emotion or excitement” that the adjective implies. Margaret Qualley stars as Sister Cathleen, a young woman so unhappy with her mother’s romantic choices that she resolves to marry someone less fallible: God. And it is God — the abstract, authoritative entity — who is incessantly referenced here, even though nuns are traditionally known as Brides of Christ. Bringing merciful, loving Jesus into the picture would no doubt complicate matters for the unmerciful, unloving Reverend Mother (Melissa Leo). Her countenance alternates between a stony smile and a twisted snarl, except for the moments when the changes wrought by Vatican II threaten to loosen her iron grip over her young charges. Then she simply goes to pieces. We learn a lot about the fervid emotions of the religious hopefuls and the harsher elements of religious discipline — and given Sister Cathleen’s reasons for signing on, her experience makes some sense — but precious little about what their conventual life entails, how it will be changed by the Council, or why thousands of women eventually broke their vows and shed their habits. Was it really over broken hearts?

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Last Flag Flying? The Last Detail.

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Murder on the Orient Express? Murder on the Orient Express.

No Greater Love? It ain’t exactly Winter Soldier, but it does involve war footage and traumatized vets.

God’s Own Country? Well, Brokeback Mountain is set in the ’70s...part of it, anyway.

And I don’t know how Scott managed to review Caniba without mentioning Cannibal Holocaust, but he did.

Also reviewed, incredibly enough: Daddy’s Home 2.

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Two poems by Marvin Bell

“To Dorothy” and “The Self and the Mulberry”
The Last Detail: Let’s all join Jack Nicholson in a toast to that crazy decade, shall we?
The Last Detail: Let’s all join Jack Nicholson in a toast to that crazy decade, shall we?

Novitiate? The Devils.

Movie

Novitiate *

thumbnail

<em>One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nunnery</em>? <em>Full Metal Habit</em>? Writer-director Margaret Betts takes a striking fact — the Catholic Church in America experienced a mass exodus of its women religious in the years following the Second Vatican Council — and uses it to craft a hysterical piece of fiction, shot through with the “exaggerated or uncontrollable emotion or excitement” that the adjective implies. Margaret Qualley stars as Sister Cathleen, a young woman so unhappy with her mother’s romantic choices that she resolves to marry someone less fallible: God. And it is God — the abstract, authoritative entity — who is incessantly referenced here, even though nuns are traditionally known as Brides of Christ. Bringing merciful, loving Jesus into the picture would no doubt complicate matters for the unmerciful, unloving Reverend Mother (Melissa Leo). Her countenance alternates between a stony smile and a twisted snarl, except for the moments when the changes wrought by Vatican II threaten to loosen her iron grip over her young charges. Then she simply goes to pieces. We learn a lot about the fervid emotions of the religious hopefuls and the harsher elements of religious discipline — and given Sister Cathleen’s reasons for signing on, her experience makes some sense — but precious little about what their conventual life entails, how it will be changed by the Council, or why thousands of women eventually broke their vows and shed their habits. Was it really over broken hearts?

Find showtimes

Last Flag Flying? The Last Detail.

Sponsored
Sponsored

Murder on the Orient Express? Murder on the Orient Express.

No Greater Love? It ain’t exactly Winter Soldier, but it does involve war footage and traumatized vets.

God’s Own Country? Well, Brokeback Mountain is set in the ’70s...part of it, anyway.

And I don’t know how Scott managed to review Caniba without mentioning Cannibal Holocaust, but he did.

Also reviewed, incredibly enough: Daddy’s Home 2.

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Sponsored

The latest copy of the Reader

Please enjoy this clickable Reader flipbook. Linked text and ads are flash-highlighted in blue for your convenience. To enhance your viewing, please open full screen mode by clicking the icon on the far right of the black flipbook toolbar.

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At 4pm, this Farmer's Table restaurant in Chula Vista becomes Acqua e Farina

Brunch restaurant by day, Roman style trattoria by night
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Filmora 14’s AI Tools Streamline Content Creation for Marketers

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