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Full Text of ReadingsFriday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time Lectionary: 393The Saint of the day is Saint Camillus de LellisSaint Camillus de Lellis’ Story Humanly speaking, Camillus was not a likely candidate for sainthood. His mother died when he was a child, his father neglected him, and he grew up with an excessive love for gambling. At 17, he was afflicted with a disease of his leg that remained with him for life. In Rome he entered the San Giacomo Hospital for Incurables as both patient and servant, but was dismissed for quarrelsomeness after nine months. He served in the Venetian army for three years. Then in the winter of 1574, when he was 24, Camillus gambled away everything he had—savings, weapons, literally down to his shirt. He accepted work at the Capuchin friary at Manfredonia, and was one day so moved by a sermon of the superior that he began a conversion that changed his life. He entered the Capuchin novitiate, but was dismissed because of the apparently incurable sore on his leg. After another stint of service at San Giacomo, he came back to the Capuchins, only to be dismissed again, for the same reason. Again, back at San Giacomo, his dedication was rewarded by his being made superintendent. Camillus devoted the rest of his life to the care of the sick. Along with Saint John of God he has been named patron of hospitals, nurses, and the sick. With the advice of his friend Saint Philip Neri, he studied for the priesthood and was ordained at the age of 34. Contrary to the advice of his friend, Camillus left San Giacomo and founded a congregation of his own. As superior, he devoted much of his own time to the care of the sick. Charity was his first concern, but the physical aspects of the hospital also received his diligent attention. Camillus insisted on cleanliness and the technical competence of those who served the sick. The members of his community bound themselves to serve prisoners and persons infected by the plague as well as those dying in private homes. Some of his men were with troops fighting in Hungary and Croatia in 1595, forming the first recorded military field ambulance. In Naples, he and his men went onto the galleys that had plague and were not allowed to land. He discovered that there were people being buried alive, and ordered his brothers to continue the prayers for the dying 15 minutes after apparent death. Camillus himself suffered the disease of his leg through his life. In his last illness, he left his own bed to see if other patients in the hospital needed help. Reflection Saints are created by God. Parents must indeed nurture the faith in their children; husbands and wives must cooperate to deepen their baptismal grace; friends must support each other. But all human effort is only the dispensing of divine power. We must all try as if everything depended on us. But only the power of God can fulfill the plan of God—to make us like himself. Saint Camillus de Lellis is the Patron Saint of: HospitalsNursesHealthcare workersSick Saint of the Day, Copyright Franciscan Media

Friday of the 15th Week in Ordinary Time Optional Memorial of St. Camillus de Lellis, 1550-1614; at 17, he was afflicted with a disease of his leg, which stayed with him for life; he had an addiction to gambling, and at 24, gambled everything away; he accepted work at the Capuchin friary of Manfredonia, and sought entrance to the novitiate twice, but was rejected because of the disease of his leg; he went to San Giacomo hospital and became the superintendent, and devoted the rest of his life to the care of the sick; he was ordained a priest at the age of 34, and founded his own congregation; as superior, he devoted much of his time to the care of the sick Office of readings and Morning Prayer for 7/18/25 Gospel: Matthew 12:1-8

Matt Duffy from Vaughn Duffy Wines joins Steve Jaxon, Dan Berger and Daedalus Howell on California Wine Country today. Daedalus Howell is also in. He is doing an hour every weekday from 2 to 3 PM on Wine Country Radio. Vaughn Duffy specializes in Pinot Noir. They make 8 or 10 Pinot Noir wines from Russian River Valley and Petaluma Gap. Their tasting room is on Sonoma Highway next to Palooza Restaurant. Today he has brought two bottles of Pinot Noir. The San Giacomo vineyard and Uberroth vineyard, as well as a barrel sample of another Pinot Noir that is in production. Petaluma Gap In August there will be a tasting event that culminates on August 10 at a new venue in Santa Rosa called The Backdrop. There will be over 100 Petaluma Gap wines to taste. Petaluma Gap is one of the greatest wine growing regions that gets its cool climate from the wind. This keeps the acidity levels high. As the climate gets warmer, regions like Petaluma Gap will enjoy favorable conditions. The wind comes up every evening at about 5:00 and it is unstoppable. The region is ideal for Pinot Noir but they grow Grenache, Syrah and Blau Frankish. Great Pinot Noir will not be dark red, and Dan noticed that about these wines. California Wine Country is brought to you by Rodney Strong Vineyards and Davis Bynum Wines. Pinot Noir lovers have been drinking Petaluma Gap wines since even before the AVA of Petaluma Gap was establihed in 2017. Before that, it was all Sonoma Coast AVA. But Sonoma Coast is a gigantic area and it made sense to carve out the Petaluma Gap due to its unique conditions and results. The Wind to Wine Festival is coming on August 8, 9 & 10 with exclusive vineyard walks, winery tours and the great tasting on August 10 with super-chef Charlie Palmer. Matt Duffy and his wife Sarah Vaughn are about to make their sixteenth consecutive bottling. His first year working was 2007. After being a harvest worker and learning winemaking from the process of doing it. He and his wife bought some grapes in 2009 and started making wine, while he was still working his day job managing the crush facility. They have a tasting room in Kenwood in the Sonoma Valley. "The wine business is a long game. It takes a year or two to get your line into the bottle to sell it... You've got to stick it out... Keep going, keep growing... look for better vineyards every year."

Direttore Artistico del Lorenzo Perosi Festival, Don Paolo Padrini ci presenta l'ultimo concerto del festival Perosiano di questa sera Sabato 11 Gennaio all'interno della Chiesa di San Giacomo in Tortona.

Ultimo concerto del edizione 2024 del Perosi festival ricordando don Alberto Rossella

“Da Montserrat a Burgos, da Léon a Santiago: queste le tappe che compongono il cammino musicale verso la tomba di San Giacomo. Ogni tappa è identificata da un codice musicale, da cui sono tratti alcuni dei brani che i pellegrini medievali possono aver ascoltato durante il tragitto. Una silloge di generi musicali e diverse spiritualità: dalle forme devozionali del Llibre Vermell de Montserrat alla polifonia dotta del monastero femminile cistercense di Santa Maria de Las Huelgas a Burgos, passando per il monumento devozionale delle Cantigas de Santa Maria e concludendo con il Codex Calixtinus (nella foto). Un viaggio la cui guida è l'inno dei pellegrini di Santiago e la sua più nota acclamazione, Ultreya! Suseya!, che da secoli, nel saluto reciproco tra chi va e chi viene, rinfranca nell'incontro chi è in cammino.

Children play football in the spacious Campo San Giacomo in Venice, while people sit in local bars and cafes enjoying a drink in the late afternoon Venetian sunshine. The bouncing ball and cries of the children reflect off the reverberant spaces between the buildings in the campo. Recorded by Cities and Memory. 

Alcuni elementi della parabola di oggi ci offrono spunti interessanti di riflessione. Il tema dominante rimane quello della vigilanza, nell’attesa dello sposo che viene. Si ribadisce che non ci è dato di conoscere il momento o l’ora della sua venuta. Non possiamo quindi abbandonarci al sonno, né tantomeno rimanere al buio, privi dell’olio necessario per alimentare le lampade. Le due categorie di vergini vengono chiaramente definite come stolte o sagge, tutte chiamate ad accogliere lo sposo in arrivo nel cuore della notte con puntualità e il dovuto onore. Tutte e dieci hanno la lampada, tutte hanno ricevuto, come noi, il dono della fede. Tutte sono in attesa dello sposo e, al grido che annuncia il suo arrivo, tutte si destano per andargli incontro e illuminare il suo cammino verso la sala delle nozze. Sono consapevoli che la loro attesa non sarà priva di un premio adeguato: c’è per loro un invito e una partecipazione al banchetto nuziale. La differenza sta in un dettaglio che, però, si rivelerà di fondamentale importanza: l’avere o meno con sé l’olio per alimentare le lampade. San Giacomo ammoniva i suoi fedeli dicendo: “Che giova, fratelli miei, se uno dice di avere la fede ma non ha le opere? Forse quella fede può salvarlo?”. E, concludendo il suo discorso, affermava categoricamente: “La fede senza le opere è morta”. È come una lampada senza olio. Le conseguenze del ritardo e del mancato appuntamento con lo sposo sono davvero tragiche: solo le vergini che erano pronte entrano al banchetto nuziale, mentre le altre si sentono dire: “In verità vi dico: non vi conosco”. Restano escluse dalla festa, fuori, perché la porta per loro era già chiusa. Dobbiamo riflettere sui nostri ritardi e sulle nostre sprovvedutezze. Potrebbero significare per noi l’esclusione dalla festa finale, che attendiamo da tutta la vita.

Dal Vangelo secondo MatteoIn quel tempo, si avvicinò a Gesù la madre dei figli di Zebedèo con i suoi figli e si prostrò per chiedergli qualcosa. Egli le disse: «Che cosa vuoi?». Gli rispose: «Di' che questi miei due figli siedano uno alla tua destra e uno alla tua sinistra nel tuo regno». Rispose Gesù: «Voi non sapete quello che chiedete. Potete bere il calice che io sto per bere?». Gli dicono: «Lo possiamo». Ed egli disse loro: «Il mio calice, lo berrete; però sedere alla mia destra e alla mia sinistra non sta a me concederlo: è per coloro per i quali il Padre mio lo ha preparato».Gli altri dieci, avendo sentito, si sdegnarono con i due fratelli. Ma Gesù li chiamò a sé e disse: «Voi sapete che i governanti delle nazioni dóminano su di esse e i capi le opprimono. Tra voi non sarà così; ma chi vuole diventare grande tra voi, sarà vostro servitore e chi vuole essere il primo tra voi, sarà vostro schiavo. Come il Figlio dell'uomo, che non è venuto per farsi servire, ma per servire e dare la propria vita in riscatto per molti».Parola del SignoreCommento di Don Andrea, sacerdote della Diocesi di MondovìPodcast che fa parte dell'aggregatore Bar Abba: www.bar-abba

In quel tempo, si avvicinò a Gesù la madre dei figli di Zebedèo con i suoi figli e si prostrò per chiedergli qualcosa. Egli le disse: «Che cosa vuoi?». Gli rispose: «Di' che questi miei due figli siedano uno alla tua destra e uno alla tua sinistra nel tuo regno». Rispose Gesù: «Voi non sapete quello che chiedete. Potete bere il calice che io sto per bere?». Gli dicono: «Lo possiamo». Ed egli disse loro: «Il mio calice, lo berrete; però sedere alla mia destra e alla mia sinistra non sta a me concederlo: è per coloro per i quali il Padre mio lo ha preparato». Gli altri dieci, avendo sentito, si sdegnarono con i due fratelli. Ma Gesù li chiamò a sé e disse: «Voi sapete che i governanti delle nazioni dominano su di esse e i capi le opprimono. Tra voi non sarà così; ma chi vuole diventare grande tra voi, sarà vostro servitore e chi vuole essere il primo tra voi, sarà vostro schiavo. Come il Figlio dell'uomo, che non è venuto per farsi servire, ma per servire e dare la propria vita in riscatto per molti».

Full Text of ReadingsThursday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time Lectionary: 392The Saint of the day is Saint Camillus de LellisSaint Camillus de Lellis’ Story Humanly speaking, Camillus was not a likely candidate for sainthood. His mother died when he was a child, his father neglected him, and he grew up with an excessive love for gambling. At 17, he was afflicted with a disease of his leg that remained with him for life. In Rome he entered the San Giacomo Hospital for Incurables as both patient and servant, but was dismissed for quarrelsomeness after nine months. He served in the Venetian army for three years. Then in the winter of 1574, when he was 24, Camillus gambled away everything he had—savings, weapons, literally down to his shirt. He accepted work at the Capuchin friary at Manfredonia, and was one day so moved by a sermon of the superior that he began a conversion that changed his life. He entered the Capuchin novitiate, but was dismissed because of the apparently incurable sore on his leg. After another stint of service at San Giacomo, he came back to the Capuchins, only to be dismissed again, for the same reason. Again, back at San Giacomo, his dedication was rewarded by his being made superintendent. Camillus devoted the rest of his life to the care of the sick. Along with Saint John of God he has been named patron of hospitals, nurses, and the sick. With the advice of his friend Saint Philip Neri, he studied for the priesthood and was ordained at the age of 34. Contrary to the advice of his friend, Camillus left San Giacomo and founded a congregation of his own. As superior, he devoted much of his own time to the care of the sick. Charity was his first concern, but the physical aspects of the hospital also received his diligent attention. Camillus insisted on cleanliness and the technical competence of those who served the sick. The members of his community bound themselves to serve prisoners and persons infected by the plague as well as those dying in private homes. Some of his men were with troops fighting in Hungary and Croatia in 1595, forming the first recorded military field ambulance. In Naples, he and his men went onto the galleys that had plague and were not allowed to land. He discovered that there were people being buried alive, and ordered his brothers to continue the prayers for the dying 15 minutes after apparent death. Camillus himself suffered the disease of his leg through his life. In his last illness, he left his own bed to see if other patients in the hospital needed help. Reflection Saints are created by God. Parents must indeed nurture the faith in their children; husbands and wives must cooperate to deepen their baptismal grace; friends must support each other. But all human effort is only the dispensing of divine power. We must all try as if everything depended on us. But only the power of God can fulfill the plan of God—to make us like himself. Saint Camillus de Lellis is the Patron Saint of: HospitalsNursesHealthcare workersSick Saint of the Day, Copyright Franciscan Media

In quel tempo, si avvicinò a Gesù la madre dei figli di Zebedèo con i suoi figli e si prostrò per chiedergli qualcosa. Egli le disse: «Che cosa vuoi?». Gli rispose: «Di' che questi miei due figli siedano uno alla tua destra e uno alla tua sinistra nel tuo regno». Rispose Gesù: «Voi non sapete quello che chiedete. Potete bere il calice che io sto per bere?». Gli dicono: «Lo possiamo». Ed egli disse loro: «Il mio calice, lo berrete; però sedere alla mia destra e alla mia sinistra non sta a me concederlo: è per coloro per i quali il Padre mio lo ha preparato». Gli altri dieci, avendo sentito, si sdegnarono con i due fratelli. Ma Gesù li chiamò a sé e disse: «Voi sapete che i governanti delle nazioni dominano su di esse e i capi le opprimono. Tra voi non sarà così; ma chi vuole diventare grande tra voi, sarà vostro servitore e chi vuole essere il primo tra voi, sarà vostro schiavo. Come il Figlio dell'uomo, che non è venuto per farsi servire, ma per servire e dare la propria vita in riscatto per molti».

In quel tempo, si avvicinò a Gesù la madre dei figli di Zebedèo con i suoi figli e si prostrò per chiedergli qualcosa. Egli le disse: «Che cosa vuoi?». Gli rispose: «Di' che questi miei due figli siedano uno alla tua destra e uno alla tua sinistra nel tuo regno». Rispose Gesù: «Voi non sapete quello che chiedete. Potete bere il calice che io sto per bere?». Gli dicono: «Lo possiamo». Ed egli disse loro: «Il mio calice, lo berrete; però sedere alla mia destra e alla mia sinistra non sta a me concederlo: è per coloro per i quali il Padre mio lo ha preparato». Gli altri dieci, avendo sentito, si sdegnarono con i due fratelli. Ma Gesù li chiamò a sé e disse: «Voi sapete che i governanti delle nazioni dòminano su di esse e i capi le opprimono. Tra voi non sarà così; ma chi vuole diventare grande tra voi, sarà vostro servitore e chi vuole essere il primo tra voi, sarà vostro schiavo. Come il Figlio dell'uomo, che non è venuto per farsi servire, ma per servire e dare la propria vita in riscatto per molti».

Catechesi di Don Luigi Maria per la scuola di preghiera organizzata dall'azione cattolica dalla diocesi di Bologna e dalla parrocchia di San Giacomo fuori le mura. Mercoledì 18 ottobre 2023. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/esercizi-spirituali/message

In questo episodio emozionante di Motto Podcast, immergetevi nel mondo della stampa tattile insieme ai nostri conduttori straordinari, Roberto ed Elena. Siamo onorati di avere con noi Roberto Bentivegna della Centro Braille San Giacomo - Società Cooperativa Sociale di Bologna, una vera e propria istituzione nella comunità dei non vedenti. Preparatevi a un viaggio affascinante che attraversa la storia di questa stamperia unica, dalla sua fondazione ad opera di visionari che volevano fare la differenza, fino alle sue moderne incarnazioni che sfidano i limiti della tecnologia e dell'innovazione. Scoprirete il cuore pulsante dietro l'impresa: il perché della sua creazione, la passione che alimenta il suo sviluppo, e soprattutto, le persone che hanno trasformato un sogno in realtà. Roberto ci guiderà attraverso i meandri di come vengono create le stampe, svelando i segreti di un processo che combina sapientemente tradizione e avanguardia tecnologica per produrre materiale di lettura in Braille che arricchisce la vita di chi lo usa ogni giorno. Ma non ci fermiamo qui. Il nostro viaggio ci porterà a esplorare l'importanza vitale del Braille nel mondo contemporaneo. In un'epoca in cui le immagini e gli schermi dominano, il Braille rimane una fonte insostituibile di conoscenza, autonomia e inclusione per le persone non vedenti. Discuteremo anche di stampe innovative e della potenzialità rivoluzionaria del Braille applicato a varie superfici, aprendo nuove frontiere di accessibilità e design. Questo episodio è un inno all'innovazione sociale, alla resilienza e alla creatività. Che siate già appassionati del mondo del Braille o semplicemente curiosi di scoprire come la tecnologia possa creare ponti verso l'inclusione, siete nel posto giusto. Unitevi a noi in questa esplorazione di come le parole, trasformate in rilievo, possano toccare le vite in modi che mai avreste immaginato. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/roberto-lachin/message

Roberto Rossi Precerutti"Voci per un'ingannevole pace"Neos Edizioniwww.neosedizioni.itSe scopo del vivere è, in un certo senso, aspirare alla pace, da intendere come serena accettazione della dolente vulnerabilità connaturata in ogni essere umano, è pur vero che tale itinerario spirituale è reso impervio dall'insorgere di voci che, tra perdita e smarrimento, rivelano l'irraggiungibilità di una quiete scevra di pena e turbamento. Vincitore del Premio Mondello, più volte finalista al Premio Viareggio, Roberto Rossi Precerutti esplora, in questa sua ultima raccolta di versi intitolata Voci per un'ingannevole pace (Neos Edizioni), il bisogno squisitamente umano di una pace che mitighi la pena e il turbamento connaturati a ogni esistenza.Tuttavia, l'approdo a un'auspicabile condizione di superamento e sublimazione del dolore è reso quasi impossibile dall'insorgere di voci, cioè di volti e immagini di sofferenza e solitudine conservati nella memoria, tali da rivelare la fragilità e la finitudine del nostro essere nel mondo. L'unica barriera all'insensatezza delle cose potrà essere, forse, il fioco lume di bellezza affidato alla parola poetica, scommessa e vocazione insieme.La prima sezione del libro, Requiem, dedicata alla scomparsa di un'amica dell'Autore, affronta il mistero della fine che ci consegna al silenzio irriscattabile della perdita; motivo, questo, che trova la sua eco nella terza sezione, costituita dal testo che rievoca la tragica morte di uno dei più grandi artisti del Novecento, Nicolas de Staël, e quindi in Elegia, dove al tempo presente si mescolano bagliori di un passato perduto in vanità e chimere, e ancora nelle Piccole prose, amara autobiografia morale affidata a una tagliente prosa aforistica. Eppure, una speranza di senso affiora dalla suite Nel tempo grande, che conferisce alla scrittura il solo riscatto possibile, «nella trasparenza / della luce si riposa ogni / guarigione». Roberto Rossi Precerutti è nato a Torino nel 1953 da famiglia di antica origine, i Rossi dalla Manta, al cui ramo fiorentino appartenne Ernesto Rossi, illustre figura dell'antifascismo e propugnatore del pensiero federalista europeo. Medievista per formazione universitaria, i suoi contributi di saggista e traduttore (soprattutto dal francese e dall'antico provenzale, ma anche dallo spagnolo e dal catalano) sono apparsi prevalentemente sulla rivista «Poesia» e in alcune antologie dell'editore Crocetti e di Rizzoli-Corriere della Sera. Molte le sue raccolte poetiche, uscite in larga parte presso Crocetti e Aragno. Tra gli ultimi titoli: Genio dell'infanzia cattolica (Aragno 2021), Lo sgomento della grazia (Neos 2022). Più volte finalista al Premio ViareggioPoesia, gli sono stati conferiti prestigiosi riconoscimenti come il Premio Mondello (2006). Per conto della Fondazione «Ernesto Rossi – Gaetano Salvemini» di Firenze, di cui è socio, ha pubblicato per i tipi di Neos il saggio O poca nostra nobiltà di sangue. Le rimosse origini piemontesi di Ernesto Rossi (2020), cui hanno fatto seguito un'altra opera di carattere storico, San Giacomo di Stura (2021), dedicata a una fondazione monastica medievale del Torinese, e la traduzione dei Sonetti funebri di Luis de Góngora (2023). IL POSTO DELLE PAROLEascoltare fa pensarewww.ilpostodelleparole.itDiventa un supporter di questo podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/il-posto-delle-parole--1487855/support.

Contamos la historia de Rebeca Rods, cantante de Gospel que ha cantado en el descanso de la NBA en nueva York. Además, logran saber la última ruta del galeón San Giacomo di Galizia¡Gente, gente! Nos despedimos en nuestra última hora con los siguientes contenidos:La historia de Rebeca Rods, cantante de Gospel que acaba de regresar de Nueva York, donde ha cantado en el intermedio de un partido de la NBA, en el Madison Square GardenLogran saber la última ruta del galeón San Giacomo di Galizia, emblema de guerra de Felipe II, antes de hundirse en la ría de Ribadeo. Lo hablamos con Miguel San Claudio, doctor en Arqueología SubacuáticaEscucha ahora 'La Tarde', de 18 a 19 horas. 'La Tarde' es un programa presentado por Pilar Cisneros y Fernando de Haro que se emite en COPE, de lunes a viernes, de 16 a 19 horas, con 498.000 oyentes diarios, según el último EGM. A lo largo de sus tres horas de duración, "La Tarde" ofrece otra visión, más humana y reposada, de la actualidad, en busca de historias cercanas, de la cara real de las noticias; periodismo de carne y hueso.En "La Tarde" también hay hueco para los testimonios, los sucesos y los detalles más relevantes y a veces invisibles de todo lo que nos rodea. Esta temporada, Pilar y Fernando seguirán cautivando a la ‘gente gente' acompañados de los escritores Daniel Gascón...

Incontro con Alberto Toso Fei. Presenta Fabiana Dallavalle Lontano dall'assedio dei turisti, in una soleggiata laguna di Venezia, Alessandro Nicoli durante una gita in barca con la sua morosa trova un'antica moneta d'oro vicino all'isola abbandonata di San Giacomo in Paludo. È l'inizio di un'indagine intricata per capire cosa accomuni due omicidi, un frate esorcista, l'Hypnerotomachia - un libro vecchio di secoli che racchiude i segreti dei sogni - e Lord Byron, il celebre poeta che abitò a lungo a Venezia fra licenze e scandali, la cui ombra inquieta aleggia sull'intera vicenda. Edizione 2023 https://www.pordenonelegge.it/

Omelia della s. Messa del 28 Novembre 2023, Memoria di San Giacomo della Marca, tenuta da p. Gabriele M. Pellettieri, FI.

TESTO DELL'ARTICOLO ➜ https://www.bastabugie.it/it/articoli.php?id=7563BISOGNA BACIARE OGNI CROCE CHE IL SIGNORE PERMETTE NELLA NOSTRA VITAI santi hanno un legame profondo con la Croce, da San Francesco a Santa Veronica Giuliani, da Santa Brigida a Padre Pioda I Tre SentieriNel film The Passion di Mel Gibson c'è questa scena: consegnano a Gesù, ormai già una maschera di dolore e di sangue per le flagellazioni subite, la Croce; ed Egli s'inginocchia dinanzi ad essa e la bacia.Dunque, Gesù bacia il proprio patibolo. Il Cristianesimo esige - anzi possiamo dire: pretende - anche questo paradosso: baciare lo strumento del propria sofferenza.Ciò si spiega con la scelta che Dio ha fatto: salvare attraverso la sofferenza. Una scelta certamente misteriosa, ma vera, indiscutibile, che non si può negare. E se lo si volesse negare, si nullificherebbe il Cristianesimo stesso.Scrive san Luigi Grignon de Monfort nella sua Lettera agli amici della Croce: "Non accogliete mai una croce senza baciarla con umile gratitudine, e se poi la bontà di Dio vi favorisse di una croce un po' pesante, ringraziatelo in modo speciale e invitate altri a ringraziarlo. Fate come quella povera donna che, dopo aver perso tutti i suoi beni in un processo a lei ingiustamente intentato, fece subito celebrare una Messa con l'offerta dei dieci soldi che le erano rimasti, per ringraziare il Signore della buona sorte che le era capitata".Amare dunque la Croce, baciarla, ringraziare perché c'è... sembrano cose del tutto innaturali. Se si ragionassimo solo attraverso la carne (come direbbe san Paolo) saremmo nell'assurdo; ma se si ragionasse secondo lo spirito, allora si capirebbe tutto. Si capirebbe che è proprio la Croce di Cristo a rendere tutto intellegibile, tutto ordinato, tutto consolante, nell'opprimente caos del non senso che ci sarebbe se la Croce non ci fosse. Infatti, senza la Croce non si capirebbe come non disperarsi dinanzi al male.Nota di BastaBugie: Antonio Tarallo nell'articolo seguente dal titolo "La Croce, i crocifissi e i santi, un legame profondo" parla dei santi che hanno avuto un legame profondo con la Croce e, di conseguenza, con i crocifissi.Ecco l'articolo completo pubblicato su La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana il 14 settembre 2023:«Ti saluto, o Croce santa,/ che portasti il Redentor;/ gloria, lode, onor ti canta/ ogni lingua ed ogni cuor»: queste, le parole dell'inno che accompagnano la liturgia dei venerdì di Quaresima che precedono la Pasqua. Sono parole di un inno alla Croce - «vessillo glorioso di Cristo» e «salvezza del popol fedel» - che tutti conosciamo. Ed è proprio la Croce, signum fondamentale per il cristianesimo, ad essere esaltata nella festività che viene celebrata oggi dalla Chiesa cattolica. Contemplandola, le immagini si rincorrono.Fra questi fotogrammi ce n'è uno particolare: nella cappella maggiore della basilica di San Francesco ad Arezzo, vi è un affresco dal titolo L'Esaltazione della Croce (nella foto), opera di Piero della Francesca, uno dei capolavori della pittura rinascimentale. I colori e le forme creati dall'artista raccontano il rientro della Santa Croce a Gerusalemme per poter essere issata per la devozione. L'imperatore Eraclio I (la sua figura è andata perduta nell'affresco), dopo aver ripreso la Croce sconfiggendo Cosroe II, si appresta a riportarla in città, ma un angelo lo interrompe sulla via e ferma la sua parata trionfale. Il vescovo Zaccaria lo esorta, allora, a un atteggiamento d'umiltà: solo entrando scalzo, l'imperatore potrà riportare la Croce a Gerusalemme. È questa l'umiltà che si deve portare al Sacro Legno che ha visto Cristo sofferente e morente. Ed è questa l'umiltà che i santi hanno sempre dimostrato davanti all'inesplicabile mistero che è racchiuso in quel simbolo di morte divenuto per ogni cristiano simbolo di luce e risurrezione.Inevitabile, dunque, che tutti i santi abbiano avuto un legame profondo con la Croce e, di conseguenza, con i crocifissi, riproduzioni lignee o di altra fattura che iconograficamente ci presentano il momento del Cristo sul Golgota.San Francesco d'Assisi ha avuto con la Croce sempre un dialogo particolare, a cominciare dal Crocifisso di San Damiano, la famosa opera lignea davanti alla quale il Padre Serafico ha ricevuto la chiamata a servire la Chiesa di Dio, a "ripararla". Il crocifisso fu trasferito, nel 1257, nel protomonastero di Santa Chiara in Assisi dove si trova tutt'oggi: si tratta di un'icona di dimensioni 210×130 centimetri, databile intorno al 1100, di autore sconosciuto. L'opera lignea rappresenta il "Christus triumphans", cioè il "Cristo trionfante" sulla morte. La figura di Gesù è rappresentata non solitaria perché contornata da alcune figure: la Vergine Maria; san Giovanni; Maria Maddalena e Maria di Cleofa; Longino, il soldato romano che ferì il costato di Gesù. Poi, in basso a destra, vi sono: Stephaton, identificato come il soldato che offrì a Gesù la spugna imbevuta nell'aceto; e, in ultimo, poco sopra la spalla sinistra del centurione, si nota un piccolo volto che - secondo la convenzione del tempo - potrebbe essere attribuibile allo stesso volto dell'artista che ha dipinto l'icona. A chiudere tutta questa esplosione di figure, vi sono sei angeli, disposti alle due estremità del braccio orizzontale del crocifisso.«E anche adesso amo così caritatevolmente l'anima tua, che prima di privarmene, mi farei di nuovo mettere in croce, se fosse possibile. Imita l'umiltà mia; io, Re della gloria e degli Angeli, indossai vili panni e udii con le mie orecchie ogni insulto e disprezzo» (Rivelazioni). Sono parole d'amore cristiano quelle che Gesù rivolge a santa Brigida di Svezia. Tra la santa e il Cristo crocifisso vi è, infatti, un rapporto davvero unico: la dedizione per la Passione pone Brigida fra quelle aureole che hanno trovato in Cristo crocifisso non solo un'ideale di vita religiosa ma una vera e propria compenetrazione esistenziale. Come san Francesco rivive la Croce divenendo lui stesso alter Christus, così Brigida riesce a entrare nel Mistero del Golgota con una forza strepitosa, avvincente. Un segno visibile di questo dialogo è il crocifisso custodito, a Roma, nella basilica di San Paolo fuori le mura. Era il 1349 quando la santa partì alla volta della Città Eterna per partecipare al Giubileo che si sarebbe tenuto nel 1350, anno in cui verrà raggiunta dalla figlia Caterina. Assieme a lei, deciderà di fare visita in pellegrinaggio alle basiliche romane. E fu proprio durante uno di questi pellegrinaggi che avvenne l'incontro tra santa Brigida e il crocifisso ligneo della basilica romana. In questo luogo, Brigida, mentre contemplava il Sacro Legno, vide il volto di Cristo volgersi verso di lei. Cominciò, così, il dialogo fra i due: quello scambio di parole darà vita al libro delle Rivelazioni e alle Quindici Orazioni sopra la Passione di N.S. Gesù Cristo. Ancora oggi, quel crocifisso è lì, nella basilica, nella Cappella del SS. Sacramento fatta costruire in occasione del giubileo del 1725, a 375 anni dal prodigioso evento.Altra figura femminile, santa Veronica Giuliani, conosciuta come "la sposa di Cristo". Nel monastero delle Cappuccine a Città di Castello, vicino Perugia, è conservato il crocifisso che parlò a santa Veronica. Ai tempi della santa, si trovava nell'infermeria della struttura religiosa. Nel suo Diario mistico troviamo la descrizione prodigiosa dell'evento: «Schiodando un braccio dalla croce, mi fece cenno di avvicinarmi al suo costato. E mi trovai tra le braccia di Cristo crocifisso. Quello che ho provato allora non riesco a raccontarlo: sarei voluta rimanere per sempre sul suo santissimo costato».E davanti a un crocifisso in legno san Pio da Pietrelcina ricevette il 20 settembre del 1918, sei giorni dopo la festa dell'Esaltazione della Croce, le stimmate. Era mattina, il frate cappuccino aveva appena celebrato la Santa Messa e al momento del ringraziamento per il sacrificio eucaristico appena celebrato viene sorpreso da una sorta di riposo, «simile ad un dolce sonno», così lo descriverà anni avanti. Intorno a lui, il silenzio e solamente il volto gemente di Cristo sulla Croce del Golgota. Ed è in quel silenzio che dopo la comparsa di un «misterioso personaggio (...) che aveva le mani ed i piedi ed il costato che grondava sangue», san Pio si ritroverà con «mani, piedi e costato» traforati e grondanti di sangue.Altro grande importante crocifisso è quello di san Camillo de Lellis, il fondatore dell'Ordine dei Chierici Regolari Ministri degli Infermi, che - assieme ai suoi primi compagni d'avventura - era solito riunirsi a pregare in una saletta dell'ospedale romano di San Giacomo: in questo luogo vi era custodito un crocifisso in legno che oggi si trova in una cappellina della chiesa della Maddalena (sempre a Roma), meta di molti pellegrini. Le braccia di Gesù si presentano staccate dal Sacro Legno poiché - come viene narrato nella prima biografia ufficiale del santo, Vita del Padre Camillo de Lellis di padre Sanzio Cicatelli (1615) - Cristo gli venne in sogno in un momento di sconforto spirituale, esortandolo a continuare la sua missione: «Non temere pusillanime, continua, perché questa non è opera tua, ma opera mia!». Detto ciò, staccò le sue braccia dalla Croce,

We finally complete our mini-series on the 1980s movies released by Miramax Films in 1989, a year that included sex, lies, and videotape, and My Left Foot. ----more---- TRANSCRIPT   From Los Angeles, California, the Entertainment Capital of the World, it's The 80s Movies Podcast. I am your host, Edward Havens. Thank you for listening today.   On this episode, we complete our look back at the 1980s theatrical releases for Miramax Films. And, for the final time, a reminder that we are not celebrating Bob and Harvey Weinstein, but reminiscing about the movies they had no involvement in making. We cannot talk about cinema in the 1980s without talking about Miramax, and I really wanted to get it out of the way, once and for all.   As we left Part 4, Miramax was on its way to winning its first Academy Award, Billie August's Pelle the Conquerer, the Scandinavian film that would be second film in a row from Denmark that would win for Best Foreign Language Film.   In fact, the first two films Miramax would release in 1989, the Australian film Warm Night on a Slow Moving Train and the Anthony Perkins slasher film Edge of Sanity, would not arrive in theatres until the Friday after the Academy Awards ceremony that year, which was being held on the last Wednesday in March.   Warm Nights on a Slow Moving Train stars Wendy Hughes, the talented Australian actress who, sadly, is best remembered today as Lt. Commander Nella Daren, one of Captain Jean-Luc Picard's few love interests, on a 1993 episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, as Jenny, a prostitute working a weekend train to Sydney, who is seduced by a man on the train, unaware that he plans on tricking her to kill someone for him. Colin Friels, another great Aussie actor who unfortunately is best known for playing the corrupt head of Strack Industries in Sam Raimi's Darkman, plays the unnamed man who will do anything to get what he wants.   Director Bob Ellis and his co-screenwriter Denny Lawrence came up with the idea for the film while they themselves were traveling on a weekend train to Sydney, with the idea that each client the call girl met on the train would represent some part of the Australian male.   Funding the $2.5m film was really simple… provided they cast Hughes in the lead role. Ellis and Lawrence weren't against Hughes as an actress. Any film would be lucky to have her in the lead. They just felt she she didn't have the right kind of sex appeal for this specific character.   Miramax would open the film in six theatres, including the Cineplex Beverly Center in Los Angeles and the Fashion Village 8 in Orlando, on March 31st. There were two versions of the movie prepared, one that ran 130 minutes and the other just 91. Miramax would go with the 91 minute version of the film for the American release, and most of the critics would note how clunky and confusing the film felt, although one critic for the Village Voice would have some kind words for Ms. Hughes' performance.   Whether it was because moviegoers were too busy seeing the winners of the just announced Academy Awards, including Best Picture winner Rain Man, or because this weekend was also the opening weekend of the new Major League Baseball season, or just turned off by the reviews, attendance at the theatres playing Warm Nights on a Slow Moving Train was as empty as a train dining car at three in the morning. The Beverly Center alone would account for a third of the movie's opening weekend gross of $19,268. After a second weekend at the same six theatres pocketing just $14,382, this train stalled out, never to arrive at another station.   Their other March 31st release, Edge of Sanity, is notable for two things and only two things: it would be the first film Miramax would release under their genre specialty label, Millimeter Films, which would eventually evolve into Dimension Films in the next decade, and it would be the final feature film to star Anthony Perkins before his passing in 1992.   The film is yet another retelling of the classic 1886 Robert Louis Stevenson story The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde, with the bonus story twist that Hyde was actually Jack the Ripper. As Jekyll, Perkins looks exactly as you'd expect a mid-fifties Norman Bates to look. As Hyde, Perkins is made to look like he's a backup keyboardist for the first Nine Inch Nails tour. Head Like a Hole would have been an appropriate song for the end credits, had the song or Pretty Hate Machine been released by that time, with its lyrics about bowing down before the one you serve and getting what you deserve.   Edge of Sanity would open in Atlanta and Indianapolis on March 31st. And like so many other Miramax releases in the 1980s, they did not initially announce any grosses for the film. That is, until its fourth weekend of release, when the film's theatre count had fallen to just six, down from the previous week's previously unannounced 35, grossing just $9,832. Miramax would not release grosses for the film again, with a final total of just $102,219.   Now when I started this series, I said that none of the films Miramax released in the 1980s were made by Miramax, but this next film would become the closest they would get during the decade.   In July 1961, John Profumo was the Secretary of State for War in the conservative government of British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, when the married Profumo began a sexual relationship with a nineteen-year-old model named Christine Keeler. The affair was very short-lived, either ending, depending on the source, in August 1961 or December 1961. Unbeknownst to Profumo, Keeler was also having an affair with Yevgeny Ivanov, a senior naval attache at the Soviet Embassy at the same time.   No one was the wiser on any of this until December 1962, when a shooting incident involving two other men Keeler had been involved with led the press to start looking into Keeler's life. While it was never proven that his affair with Keeler was responsible for any breaches of national security, John Profumo was forced to resign from his position in June 1963, and the scandal would take down most of the Torie government with him. Prime Minister Macmillan would resign due to “health reasons” in October 1963, and the Labour Party would take control of the British government when the next elections were held in October 1964.   Scandal was originally planned in the mid-1980s as a three-part, five-hour miniseries by Australian screenwriter Michael Thomas and American music producer turned movie producer Joe Boyd. The BBC would commit to finance a two-part, three-hour miniseries,  until someone at the network found an old memo from the time of the Profumo scandal that forbade them from making any productions about it. Channel 4, which had been producing quality shows and movies for several years since their start in 1982, was approached, but rejected the series on the grounds of taste.   Palace Pictures, a British production company who had already produced three films for Neil Jordan including Mona Lisa, was willing to finance the script, provided it could be whittled down to a two hour movie. Originally budgeted at 3.2m British pounds, the costs would rise as they started the casting process.  John Hurt, twice Oscar-nominated for his roles in Midnight Express and The Elephant Man, would sign on to play Stephen Ward, a British osteopath who acted as Christine Keeler's… well… pimp, for lack of a better word. Ian McKellen, a respected actor on British stages and screens but still years away from finding mainstream global success in the X-Men movies, would sign on to play John Profumo. Joanne Whaley, who had filmed the yet to be released at that time Willow with her soon to be husband Val Kilmer, would get her first starring role as Keeler, and Bridget Fonda, who was quickly making a name for herself in the film world after being featured in Aria, would play Mandy Rice-Davies, the best friend and co-worker of Keeler's.   To save money, Palace Pictures would sign thirty-year-old Scottish filmmaker Michael Caton-Jones to direct, after seeing a short film he had made called The Riveter. But even with the neophyte feature filmmaker, Palace still needed about $2.35m to be able to fully finance the film. And they knew exactly who to go to.   Stephen Woolley, the co-founder of Palace Pictures and the main producer on the film, would fly from London to New York City to personally pitch Harvey and Bob Weinstein. Woolley felt that of all the independent distributors in America, they would be the ones most attracted to the sexual and controversial nature of the story. A day later, Woolley was back on a plane to London. The Weinsteins had agreed to purchase the American distribution rights to Scandal for $2.35m.   The film would spend two months shooting in the London area through the summer of 1988. Christine Keeler had no interest in the film, and refused to meet the now Joanne Whaley-Kilmer to talk about the affair, but Mandy Rice-Davies was more than happy to Bridget Fonda about her life, although the meetings between the two women were so secret, they would not come out until Woolley eulogized Rice-Davies after her 2014 death.   Although Harvey and Bob would be given co-executive producers on the film, Miramax was not a production company on the film. This, however, did not stop Harvey from flying to London multiple times, usually when he was made aware of some sexy scene that was going to shoot the following day, and try to insinuate himself into the film's making. At one point, Woolley decided to take a weekend off from the production, and actually did put Harvey in charge. That weekend's shoot would include a skinny-dipping scene featuring the Christine Keeler character, but when Whaley-Kilmer learned Harvey was going to be there, she told the director that she could not do the nudity in the scene. Her new husband was objecting to it, she told them. Harvey, not skipping a beat, found a lookalike for the actress who would be willing to bare all as a body double, and the scene would begin shooting a few hours later. Whaley-Kilmer watched the shoot from just behind the camera, and stopped the shoot a few minutes later. She was not happy that the body double's posterior was notably larger than her own, and didn't want audiences to think she had that much junk in her trunk. The body double was paid for her day, and Whaley-Kilmer finished the rest of the scene herself.   Caton-Jones and his editing team worked on shaping the film through the fall, and would screen his first edit of the film for Palace Pictures and the Weinsteins in November 1988. And while Harvey was very happy with the cut, he still asked the production team for a different edit for American audiences, noting that most Americans had no idea who Profumo or Keeler or Rice-Davies were, and that Americans would need to understand the story more right out of the first frame. Caton-Jones didn't want to cut a single frame, but he would work with Harvey to build an American-friendly cut.   While he was in London in November 1988, he would meet with the producers of another British film that was in pre-production at the time that would become another important film to the growth of the company, but we're not quite at that part of the story yet. We'll circle around to that film soon.   One of the things Harvey was most looking forward to going in to 1989 was the expected battle with the MPAA ratings board over Scandal. Ever since he had seen the brouhaha over Angel Heart's X rating two years earlier, he had been looking for a similar battle. He thought he had it with Aria in 1988, but he knew he definitely had it now.   And he'd be right.   In early March, just a few weeks before the film's planned April 21st opening day, the MPAA slapped an X rating on Scandal. The MPAA usually does not tell filmmakers or distributors what needs to be cut, in order to avoid accusations of actual censorship, but according to Harvey, they told him exactly what needed to be cut to get an R: a two second shot during an orgy scene, where it appears two background characters are having unsimulated sex.   So what did Harvey do?   He spent weeks complaining to the press about MPAA censorship, generating millions in free publicity for the film, all the while already having a close-up shot of Joanne Whaley-Kilmer's Christine Keeler watching the orgy but not participating in it, ready to replace the objectionable shot.   A few weeks later, Miramax screened the “edited” film to the MPAA and secured the R rating, and the film would open on 94 screens, including 28 each in the New York City and Los Angeles metro regions, on April 28th.   And while the reviews for the film were mostly great, audiences were drawn to the film for the Miramax-manufactured controversy as well as the key art for the film, a picture of a potentially naked Joanne Whaley-Kilmer sitting backwards in a chair, a mimic of a very famous photo Christine Keeler herself took to promote a movie about the Profumo affair she appeared in a few years after the events. I'll have a picture of both the Scandal poster and the Christine Keeler photo on this episode's page at The80sMoviePodcast.com   Five other movies would open that weekend, including the James Belushi comedy K-9 and the Kevin Bacon drama Criminal Law, and Scandal, with $658k worth of ticket sales, would have the second best per screen average of the five new openers, just a few hundred dollars below the new Holly Hunter movie Miss Firecracker, which only opened on six screens.   In its second weekend, Scandal would expand its run to 214 playdates, and make its debut in the national top ten, coming in tenth place with $981k. That would be more than the second week of the Patrick Dempsey rom-com Loverboy, even though Loverboy was playing on 5x as many screens.   In weekend number three, Scandal would have its best overall gross and top ten placement, coming in seventh with $1.22m from 346 screens. Scandal would start to slowly fade after that, falling back out of the top ten in its sixth week, but Miramax would wisely keep the screen count under 375, because Scandal wasn't going to play well in all areas of the country. After nearly five months in theatres, Miramax would have its biggest film to date. Scandal would gross $8.8m.   The second release from Millimeter Films was The Return of the Swamp Thing. And if you needed a reason why the 1980s was not a good time for comic book movies, here you are. The Return of the Swamp Thing took most of what made the character interesting in his comic series, and most of what was good from the 1982 Wes Craven adaptation, and decided “Hey, you know what would bring the kids in? Camp! Camp unseen in a comic book adaptation since the 1960s Batman series. They loved it then, they'll love it now!”   They did not love it now.   Heather Locklear, between her stints on T.J. Hooker and Melrose Place, plays the step-daughter of Louis Jourdan's evil Dr. Arcane from the first film, who heads down to the Florida swaps to confront dear old once presumed dead stepdad. He in turns kidnaps his stepdaughter and decides to do some of his genetic experiments on her, until she is rescued by Swamp Thing, one of Dr. Arcane's former co-workers who got turned into the gooey anti-hero in the first movie.   The film co-stars Sarah Douglas from Superman 1 and 2 as Dr. Arcane's assistant, Dick Durock reprising his role as Swamp Thing from the first film, and 1980s B-movie goddess Monique Gabrielle as Miss Poinsettia.   For director Jim Wynorski, this was his sixth movie as a director, and at $3m, one of the highest budgeted movies he would ever make. He's directed 107 movies since 1984, most of them low budget direct to video movies with titles like The Bare Wench Project and Alabama Jones and the Busty Crusade, although he does have one genuine horror classic under his belt, the 1986 sci-fi tinged Chopping Maul with Kelli Maroney and Barbara Crampton.   Wynorski suggested in a late 1990s DVD commentary for the film that he didn't particularly enjoy making the film, and had a difficult time directing Louis Jourdan, to the point that outside of calling “action” and “cut,” the two didn't speak to each other by the end of the shoot.   The Return of Swamp Thing would open in 123 theatres in the United States on May 12th, including 28 in the New York City metro region, 26 in the Los Angeles area, 15 in Detroit, and a handful of theatres in Phoenix, San Francisco. And, strangely, the newspaper ads would include an actual positive quote from none other than Roger Ebert, who said on Siskel & Ebert that he enjoyed himself, and that it was good to have Swamp Thing back. Siskel would not reciprocate his balcony partner's thumb up. But Siskel was about the only person who was positive on the return of Swamp Thing, and that box office would suffer. In its first three days, the film would gross just $119,200. After a couple more dismal weeks in theatres, The Return of Swamp Thing would be pulled from distribution, with a final gross of just $275k.   Fun fact: The Return of Swamp Thing was produced by Michael E. Uslan, whose next production, another adaptation of a DC Comics character, would arrive in theatres not six weeks later and become the biggest film of the summer. In fact, Uslan has been a producer or executive producer on every Batman-related movie and television show since 1989, from Tim Burton to Christopher Nolan to Zack Snyder to Matt Reeves, and from LEGO movies to Joker. He also, because of his ownership of the movie rights to Swamp Thing, got the movie screen rights, but not the television screen rights, to John Constantine.   Miramax didn't have too much time to worry about The Return of Swamp Thing's release, as it was happening while the Brothers Weinstein were at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival. They had two primary goals at Cannes that year:   To buy American distribution rights to any movie that would increase their standing in the cinematic worldview, which they would achieve by picking up an Italian dramedy called, at the time, New Paradise Cinema, which was competing for the Palme D'Or with a Miramax pickup from Sundance back in January. Promote that very film, which did end up winning the Palme D'Or.   Ever since he was a kid, Steven Soderbergh wanted to be a filmmaker. Growing up in Baton Rouge, LA in the late 1970s, he would enroll in the LSU film animation class, even though he was only 15 and not yet a high school graduate. After graduating high school, he decided to move to Hollywood to break into the film industry, renting an above-garage room from Stephen Gyllenhaal, the filmmaker best known as the father of Jake and Maggie, but after a few freelance editing jobs, Soderbergh packed up his things and headed home to Baton Rouge.   Someone at Atco Records saw one of Soderbergh's short films, and hired him to direct a concert movie for one of their biggest bands at the time, Yes, who was enjoying a major comeback thanks to their 1983 triple platinum selling album, 90125. The concert film, called 9012Live, would premiere on MTV in late 1985, and it would be nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Long Form Music Video.   Soderbergh would use the money he earned from that project, $7,500, to make Winston, a 12 minute black and white short about sexual deception that he would, over the course of an eight day driving trip from Baton Rouge to Los Angeles, expand to a full length screen that he would call sex, lies and videotape. In later years, Soderbergh would admit that part of the story is autobiographical, but not the part you might think. Instead of the lead, Graham, an impotent but still sexually perverse late twentysomething who likes to tape women talking about their sexual fantasies for his own pleasure later, Soderbergh based the husband John, the unsophisticated lawyer who cheats on his wife with her sister, on himself, although there would be a bit of Graham that borrows from the filmmaker. Like his lead character, Soderbergh did sell off most of his possessions and hit the road to live a different life.   When he finished the script, he sent it out into the wilds of Hollywood. Morgan Mason, the son of actor James Mason and husband of Go-Go's lead singer Belinda Carlisle, would read it and sign on as an executive producer. Soderbergh had wanted to shoot the film in black and white, like he had with the Winston short that lead to the creation of this screenplay, but he and Mason had trouble getting anyone to commit to the project, even with only a projected budget of $200,000. For a hot moment, it looked like Universal might sign on to make the film, but they would eventually pass.   Robert Newmyer, who had left his job as a vice president of production and acquisitions at Columbia Pictures to start his own production company, signed on as a producer, and helped to convince Soderbergh to shoot the film in color, and cast some name actors in the leading roles. Once he acquiesced, Richard Branson's Virgin Vision agreed to put up $540k of the newly budgeted $1.2m film, while RCA/Columbia Home Video would put up the remaining $660k.   Soderbergh and his casting director, Deborah Aquila, would begin their casting search in New York, where they would meet with, amongst others, Andie MacDowell, who had already starred in two major Hollywood pictures, 1984's Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, and 1985's St. Elmo's Fire, but was still considered more of a top model than an actress, and Laura San Giacomo, who had recently graduated from the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama in Pittsburgh and would be making her feature debut. Moving on to Los Angeles, Soderbergh and Aquila would cast James Spader, who had made a name for himself as a mostly bad guy in 80s teen movies like Pretty in Pink and Less Than Zero, but had never been the lead in a drama like this. At Spader's suggestion, the pair met with Peter Gallagher, who was supposed to become a star nearly a decade earlier from his starring role in Taylor Hackford's The Idolmaker, but had mostly been playing supporting roles in television shows and movies for most of the decade.   In order to keep the budget down, Soderbergh, the producers, cinematographer Walt Lloyd and the four main cast members agreed to get paid their guild minimums in exchange for a 50/50 profit participation split with RCA/Columbia once the film recouped its costs.   The production would spend a week in rehearsals in Baton Rouge, before the thirty day shoot began on August 1st, 1988. On most days, the shoot was unbearable for many, as temperatures would reach as high as 110 degrees outside, but there were a couple days lost to what cinematographer Lloyd said was “biblical rains.” But the shoot completed as scheduled, and Soderbergh got to the task of editing right away. He knew he only had about eight weeks to get a cut ready if the film was going to be submitted to the 1989 U.S. Film Festival, now better known as Sundance. He did get a temporary cut of the film ready for submission, with a not quite final sound mix, and the film was accepted to the festival. It would make its world premiere on January 25th, 1989, in Park City UT, and as soon as the first screening was completed, the bids from distributors came rolling in. Larry Estes, the head of RCA/Columbia Home Video, would field more than a dozen submissions before the end of the night, but only one distributor was ready to make a deal right then and there.   Bob Weinstein wasn't totally sold on the film, but he loved the ending, and he loved that the word “sex” not only was in the title but lead the title. He knew that title alone would sell the movie. Harvey, who was still in New York the next morning, called Estes to make an appointment to meet in 24 hours. When he and Estes met, he brought with him three poster mockups the marketing department had prepared, and told Estes he wasn't going to go back to New York until he had a contract signed, and vowed to beat any other deal offered by $100,000. Island Pictures, who had made their name releasing movies like Stop Making Sense, Kiss of the Spider-Woman, The Trip to Bountiful and She's Gotta Have It, offered $1m for the distribution rights, plus a 30% distribution fee and a guaranteed $1m prints and advertising budget. Estes called Harvey up and told him what it would take to make the deal. $1.1m for the distribution rights, which needed to paid up front, a $1m P&A budget, to be put in escrow upon the signing of the contract until the film was released, a 30% distribution fee, no cutting of the film whatsoever once Soderbergh turns in his final cut, they would need to provide financial information for the films costs and returns once a month because of the profit participation contracts, and the Weinsteins would have to hire Ira Deutchman, who had spent nearly 15 years in the independent film world, doing marketing for Cinema 5, co-founding United Artists Classics, and co-founding Cinecom Pictures before opening his own company to act as a producers rep and marketer. And the Weinsteins would not only have to do exactly what Deutchman wanted, they'd have to pay for his services too.   The contract was signed a few weeks later.   The first move Miramax would make was to get Soderbergh's final cut of the film entered into the Cannes Film Festival, where it would be accepted to compete in the main competition. Which you kind of already know what happened, because that's what I lead with. The film would win the Palme D'Or, and Spader would be awarded the festival's award for Best Actor. It was very rare at the time, and really still is, for any film to be awarded more than one prize, so winning two was really a coup for the film and for Miramax, especially when many critics attending the festival felt Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing was the better film.   In March, Miramax expected the film to make around $5-10m, which would net the company a small profit on the film. After Cannes, they were hopeful for a $15m gross.   They never expected what would happen next.   On August 4th, sex, lies, and videotape would open on four screens, at the Cinema Studio in New York City, and at the AMC Century 14, the Cineplex Beverly Center 13 and the Mann Westwood 4 in Los Angeles. Three prime theatres and the best they could do in one of the then most competitive zones in all America. Remember, it's still the Summer 1989 movie season, filled with hits like Batman, Dead Poets Society, Ghostbusters 2, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, Lethal Weapon 2, Parenthood, Turner & Hooch, and When Harry Met Sally. An independent distributor even getting one screen at the least attractive theatre in Westwood was a major get. And despite the fact that this movie wasn't really a summertime movie per se, the film would gross an incredible $156k in its first weekend from just these four theatres. Its nearly $40k per screen average would be 5x higher than the next closest film, Parenthood.   In its second weekend, the film would expand to 28 theatres, and would bring in over $600k in ticket sales, its per screen average of $21,527 nearly triple its closest competitor, Parenthood again. The company would keep spending small, as it slowly expanded the film each successive week. Forty theatres in its third week, and 101 in its fourth. The numbers held strong, and in its fifth week, Labor Day weekend, the film would have its first big expansion, playing in 347 theatres. The film would enter the top ten for the first time, despite playing in 500 to 1500 fewer theatres than the other films in the top ten. In its ninth weekend, the film would expand to its biggest screen count, 534, before slowly drawing down as the other major Oscar contenders started their theatrical runs. The film would continue to play through the Oscar season of 1989, and when it finally left theatres in May 1989, its final gross would be an astounding $24.7m.   Now, remember a few moments ago when I said that Miramax needed to provide financial statements every month for the profit participation contracts of Soderbergh, the producers, the cinematographer and the four lead actors? The film was so profitable for everyone so quickly that RCA/Columbia made its first profit participation payouts on October 17th, barely ten weeks after the film's opening.   That same week, Soderbergh also made what was at the time the largest deal with a book publisher for the writer/director's annotated version of the screenplay, which would also include his notes created during the creation of the film. That $75,000 deal would be more than he got paid to make the movie as the writer and the director and the editor, not counting the profit participation checks.   During the awards season, sex, lies, and videotape was considered to be one of the Oscars front runners for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay and at least two acting nominations. The film would be nominated for Best Picture, Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress by the Golden Globes, and it would win the Spirit Awards for Best Picture, Soderbergh for Best Director, McDowell for Best Actress, and San Giacomo for Best Supporting Actress. But when the Academy Award nominations were announced, the film would only receive one nomination, for Best Original Screenplay. The same total and category as Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing, which many people also felt had a chance for a Best Picture and Best Director nomination. Both films would lose out to Tom Shulman's screenplay for Dead Poet's Society.   The success of sex, lies, and videotape would launch Steven Soderbergh into one of the quirkiest Hollywood careers ever seen, including becoming the first and only director ever to be nominated twice for Best Director in the same year by the Motion Picture Academy, the Golden Globes and the Directors Guild of America, in 2001 for directing Erin Brockovich and Traffic. He would win the Oscar for directing Traffic.   Lost in the excitement of sex, lies, and videotape was The Little Thief, a French movie that had an unfortunate start as the screenplay François Truffaut was working on when he passed away in 1984 at the age of just 52.   Directed by Claude Miller, whose principal mentor was Truffaut, The Little Thief starred seventeen year old Charlotte Gainsbourg as Janine, a young woman in post-World War II France who commits a series of larcenies to support her dreams of becoming wealthy.   The film was a modest success in France when it opened in December 1988, but its American release date of August 25th, 1989, was set months in advance. So when it was obvious sex, lies, and videotape was going to be a bigger hit than they originally anticipated, it was too late for Miramax to pause the release of The Little Thief.   Opening at the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas in New York City, and buoyed by favorable reviews from every major critic in town, The Little Thief would see $39,931 worth of ticket sales in its first seven days, setting a new house record at the theatre for the year. In its second week, the gross would only drop $47. For the entire week. And when it opened at the Royal Theatre in West Los Angeles, its opening week gross of $30,654 would also set a new house record for the year.   The film would expand slowly but surely over the next several weeks, often in single screen playdates in major markets, but it would never play on more than twenty-four screens in any given week. And after four months in theatres, The Little Thief, the last movie created one of the greatest film writers the world had ever seen, would only gross $1.056m in the United States.   The next three releases from Miramax were all sent out under the Millimeter Films banner.   The first, a supernatural erotic drama called The Girl in a Swing, was about an English antiques dealer who travels to Copenhagen where he meets and falls in love with a mysterious German-born secretary, whom he marries, only to discover a darker side to his new bride. Rupert Frazer, who played Christian Bale's dad in Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun, plays the antique dealer, while Meg Tilly the mysterious new bride.   Filmed over a five week schedule in London and Copenhagen during May and June 1988, some online sources say the film first opened somewhere in California in December 1988, but I cannot find a single theatre not only in California but anywhere in the United States that played the film before its September 29th, 1989 opening date.   Roger Ebert didn't like the film, and wished Meg Tilly's “genuinely original performance” was in a better movie. Opening in 26 theatres, including six theatres each in New York City and Los Angeles, and spurred on by an intriguing key art for the film that featured a presumed naked Tilly on a swing looking seductively at the camera while a notice underneath her warns that No One Under 18 Will Be Admitted To The Theatre, The Girl in a Swing would gross $102k, good enough for 35th place nationally that week. And that's about the best it would do. The film would limp along, moving from market to market over the course of the next three months, and when its theatrical run was complete, it could only manage about $747k in ticket sales.   We'll quickly burn through the next two Millimeter Films releases, which came out a week apart from each other and didn't amount to much.   Animal Behavior was a rather unfunny comedy featuring some very good actors who probably signed on for a very different movie than the one that came to be. Karen Allen, Miss Marion Ravenwood herself, stars as Alex, a biologist who, like Dr. Jane Goodall, develops a “new” way to communicate with chimpanzees via sign language. Armand Assante plays a cellist who pursues the good doctor, and Holly Hunter plays the cellist's neighbor, who Alex mistakes for his wife.   Animal Behavior was filmed in 1984, and 1985, and 1987, and 1988. The initial production was directed by Jenny Bowen with the assistance of Robert Redford and The Sundance Institute, thanks to her debut film, 1981's Street Music featuring Elizabeth Daily. It's unknown why Bowen and her cinematographer husband Richard Bowen left the project, but when filming resumed again and again and again, those scenes were directed by the film's producer, Kjehl Rasmussen.   Because Bowen was not a member of the DGA at the time, she was not able to petition the guild for the use of the Alan Smithee pseudonym, a process that is automatically triggered whenever a director is let go of a project and filming continues with its producer taking the reigns as director. But she was able to get the production to use a pseudonym anyway for the director's credit, H. Anne Riley, while also giving Richard Bowen a pseudonym of his own for his work on the film, David Spellvin.   Opening on 24 screens on October 27th, Animal Behavior would come in 50th place in its opening weekend, grossing just $20,361. The New York film critics ripped the film apart, and there wouldn't be a second weekend for the film.   The following Friday, November 3rd, saw the release of The Stepfather II, a rushed together sequel to 1987's The Stepfather, which itself wasn't a big hit in theatres but found a very quick and receptive audience on cable.   Despite dying at the end of the first film, Terry O'Quinn's Jerry is somehow still alive, and institutionalized in Northern Washington state. He escapes and heads down to Los Angeles, where he assumes the identity of a recently deceased publisher, Gene Clifford, but instead passes himself off as a psychiatrist. Jerry, now Gene, begins to court his neighbor Carol, and the whole crazy story plays out again. Meg Foster plays the neighbor Carol, and Jonathan Brandis is her son.    Director Jeff Burr had made a name for himself with his 1987 horror anthology film From a Whisper to a Scream, featuring Vincent Price, Clu Gulager and Terry Kiser, and from all accounts, had a very smooth shooting process with this film. The trouble began when he turned in his cut to the producers. The producers were happy with the film, but when they sent it to Miramax, the American distributors, they were rather unhappy with the almost bloodless slasher film. They demanded reshoots, which Burr and O'Quinn refused to participate in. They brought in a new director, Doug Campbell, to handle the reshoots, which are easy to spot in the final film because they look and feel completely different from the scenes they're spliced into.   When it opened, The Stepfather II actually grossed slightly more than the first film did, earning $279k from 100 screens, compared to $260k for The Stepfather from 105 screens. But unlike the first film, which had some decent reviews when it opened, the sequel was a complete mess. To this day, it's still one of the few films to have a 0% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and The Stepfather II would limp its way through theatres during the Christmas holiday season, ending its run with a $1.5m gross.   But it would be their final film of the decade that would dictate their course for at least the first part of the 1990s.   Remember when I said earlier in the episode that Harvey Weinstein meant with the producers of another British film while in London for Scandal? We're at that film now, a film you probably know.   My Left Foot.   By November 1988, actor Daniel Day-Lewis had starred in several movies including James Ivory's A Room With a View and Philip Kaufman's The Unbearable Lightness of Being. He had even been the lead in a major Hollywood studio film, Pat O'Connor's Stars and Bars, a very good film that unfortunately got caught up in the brouhaha over the exit of the studio head who greenlit the film, David Puttnam.   The film's director, Jim Sheridan, had never directed a movie before. He had become involved in stage production during his time at the University College in Dublin in the late 1960s, where he worked with future filmmaker Neil Jordan, and had spent nearly a decade after graduation doing stage work in Ireland and Canada, before settling in New York City in the early 1980s. Sheridan would go to New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where one of his classmates was Spike Lee, and return to Ireland after graduating. He was nearly forty, married with two pre-teen daughters, and he needed to make a statement with his first film.   He would find that story in the autobiography of Irish writer and painter Christy Brown, whose spirit and creativity could not be contained by his severe cerebral palsy. Along with Irish actor and writer Shane Connaughton, Sheridan wrote a screenplay that could be a powerhouse film made on a very tight budget of less than a million dollars.   Daniel Day-Lewis was sent a copy of the script, in the hopes he would be intrigued enough to take almost no money to play a physically demanding role. He read the opening pages, which had the adult Christy Brown putting a record on a record player and dropping the needle on to the record with his left foot, and thought to himself it would be impossible to film. That intrigued him, and he signed on. But during filming in January and February of 1989, most of the scenes were shot using mirrors, as Day-Lewis couldn't do the scenes with his left foot. He could do them with his right foot, hence the mirrors.   As a method actor, Day-Lewis remained in character as Christy Brown for the entire two month shoot. From costume fittings and makeup in the morning, to getting the actor on set, to moving him around between shots, there were crew members assigned to assist the actor as if they were Christy Brown's caretakers themselves, including feeding him during breaks in shooting. A rumor debunked by the actor years later said Day-Lewis had broken two ribs during production because of how hunched down he needed to be in his crude prop wheelchair to properly play the character.   The actor had done a lot of prep work to play the role, including spending time at the Sandymount School Clinic where the young Christy Brown got his education, and much of his performance was molded on those young people.   While Miramax had acquired the American distribution rights to the film before it went into production, and those funds went into the production of the film, the film was not produced by Miramax, nor were the Weinsteins given any kind of executive producer credit, as they were able to get themselves on Scandal.   My Left Foot would make its world premiere at the Montreal World Film Festival on September 4th, 1989, followed soon thereafter by screening at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 13th and the New York Film Festival on September 23rd. Across the board, critics and audiences were in love with the movie, and with Daniel Day-Lewis's performance. Jim Sheridan would receive a special prize at the Montreal World Film Festival for his direction, and Day-Lewis would win the festival's award for Best Actor. However, as the film played the festival circuit, another name would start to pop up. Brenda Fricker, a little known Irish actress who played Christy Brown's supportive but long-suffering mother Bridget, would pile up as many positive notices and awards as Day-Lewis. Although there was no Best Supporting Actress Award at the Montreal Film Festival, the judges felt her performance was deserving of some kind of attention, so they would create a Special Mention of the Jury Award to honor her.   Now, some sources online will tell you the film made its world premiere in Dublin on February 24th, 1989, based on a passage in a biography about Daniel Day-Lewis, but that would be impossible as the film would still be in production for two more days, and wasn't fully edited or scored by then.   I'm not sure when it first opened in the United Kingdom other than sometime in early 1990, but My Left Foot would have its commercial theatre debut in America on November 10th, when opened at the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas in New York City and the Century City 14 in Los Angeles. Sheila Benson of the Los Angeles Times would, in the very opening paragraph of her review, note that one shouldn't see My Left Foot for some kind of moral uplift or spiritual merit badge, but because of your pure love of great moviemaking. Vincent Canby's review in the New York Times spends most of his words praising Day-Lewis and Sheridan for making a film that is polite and non-judgmental.    Interestingly, Miramax went with an ad campaign that completely excluded any explanation of who Christy Brown was or why the film is titled the way it is. 70% of the ad space is taken from pull quotes from many of the top critics of the day, 20% with the title of the film, and 10% with a picture of Daniel Day-Lewis, clean shaven and full tooth smile, which I don't recall happening once in the movie, next to an obviously added-in picture of one of his co-stars that is more camera-friendly than Brenda Fricker or Fiona Shaw.   Whatever reasons people went to see the film, they flocked to the two theatres playing the film that weekend. It's $20,582 per screen average would be second only to Kenneth Branagh's Henry V, which had opened two days earlier, earning slightly more than $1,000 per screen than My Left Foot.   In week two, My Left Foot would gross another $35,133 from those two theatres, and it would overtake Henry V for the highest per screen average. In week three, Thanksgiving weekend, both Henry V and My Left Foot saw a a double digit increase in grosses despite not adding any theatres, and the latter film would hold on to the highest per screen average again, although the difference would only be $302. And this would continue for weeks. In the film's sixth week of release, it would get a boost in attention by being awarded Best Film of the Year by the New York Film Critics Circle. Daniel Day-Lewis would be named Best Actor that week by both the New York critics and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, while Fricker would win the Best Supporting Actress award from the latter group.   But even then, Miramax refused to budge on expanding the film until its seventh week of release, Christmas weekend, when My Left Foot finally moved into cities like Chicago and San Francisco. Its $135k gross that weekend was good, but it was starting to lose ground to other Oscar hopefuls like Born on the Fourth of July, Driving Miss Daisy, Enemies: A Love Story, and Glory.   And even though the film continued to rack up award win after award win, nomination after nomination, from the Golden Globes and the Writers Guild and the National Society of Film Critics and the National Board of Review, Miramax still held firm on not expanding the film into more than 100 theatres nationwide until its 16th week in theatres, February 16th, 1990, two days after the announcement of the nominees for the 62nd Annual Academy Awards. While Daniel Day-Lewis's nomination for Best Actor was virtually assured and Brenda Fricker was practically a given, the film would pick up three other nominations, including surprise nominations for Best Picture and Best Director. Jim Sheridan and co-writer Shane Connaughton would also get picked for Best Adapted Screenplay.   Miramax also picked up a nomination for Best Original Screenplay for sex, lies, and videotape, and a Best Foreign Language Film nod for the Italian movie Cinema Paradiso, which, thanks to the specific rules for that category, a film could get a nomination before actually opening in theatres in America, which Miramax would rush to do with Paradiso the week after its nomination was announced.   The 62nd Academy Awards ceremony would be best remembered today as being the first Oscar show to be hosted by Billy Crystal, and for being considerably better than the previous year's ceremony, a mess of a show best remembered as being the one with a 12 minute opening musical segment that included Rob Lowe singing Proud Mary to an actress playing Snow White and another nine minute musical segment featuring a slew of expected future Oscar winners that, to date, feature exact zero Oscar nominees, both which rank as amongst the worst things to ever happen to the Oscars awards show.   The ceremony, held on March 26th, would see My Left Foot win two awards, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress, as well as Cinema Paradiso for Best Foreign Film. The following weekend, March 30th, would see Miramax expand My Left Foot to 510 theatres, its widest point of release, and see the film made the national top ten and earn more than a million dollars for its one and only time during its eight month run.   The film would lose steam pretty quickly after its post-win bump, but it would eek out a modest run that ended with $14.75m in ticket sales just in the United States. Not bad for a little Irish movie with no major stars that cost less than a million dollars to make.   Of course, the early 90s would see Miramax fly to unimagined heights. In all of the 80s, Miramax would release 39 movies. They would release 30 films alone in 1991. They would release the first movies from Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith. They'd release some of the best films from some of the best filmmakers in the world, including Woody Allen, Pedro Almadovar, Robert Altman, Bernardo Bertolucci, Atom Egoyan, Steven Frears, Peter Greenaway, Peter Jackson, Neil Jordan, Chen Kaige, Krzysztof Kieślowski, Lars von Trier, and Zhang Yimou. In 1993, the Mexican dramedy Like Water for Chocolate would become the highest grossing foreign language film ever released in America, and it would play in some theatres, including my theatre, the NuWilshire in Santa Monica, continuously for more than a year.   If you've listened to the whole series on the 1980s movies of Miramax Films, there are two things I hope you take away. First, I hope you discovered at least one film you hadn't heard of before and you might be interested in searching out. The second is the reminder that neither Bob nor Harvey Weinstein will profit in any way if you give any of the movies talked about in this series a chance. They sold Miramax to Disney in June 1993. They left Miramax in September 2005. Many of the contracts for the movies the company released in the 80s and 90s expired decades ago, with the rights reverting back to their original producers, none of whom made any deals with the Weinsteins once they got their rights back.   Harvey Weinstein is currently serving a 23 year prison sentence in upstate New York after being found guilty in 2020 of two sexual assaults. Once he completes that sentence, he'll be spending another 16 years in prison in California, after he was convicted of three sexual assaults that happened in Los Angeles between 2004 and 2013. And if the 71 year old makes it to 107 years old, he may have to serve time in England for two sexual assaults that happened in August 1996. That case is still working its way through the British legal system.   Bob Weinstein has kept a low profile since his brother's proclivities first became public knowledge in October 2017, although he would also be accused of sexual harassment by a show runner for the brothers' Spike TV-aired adaptation of the Stephen King novel The Mist, several days after the bombshell articles came out about his brother. However, Bob's lawyer, the powerful attorney to the stars Bert Fields, deny the allegations, and it appears nothing has occurred legally since the accusations were made.   A few weeks after the start of the MeToo movement that sparked up in the aftermath of the accusations of his brother's actions, Bob Weinstein denied having any knowledge of the nearly thirty years of documented sexual abuse at the hands of his brother, but did allow to an interviewer for The Hollywood Reporter that he had barely spoken to Harvey over the previous five years, saying he could no longer take Harvey's cheating, lying and general attitude towards everyone.   And with that, we conclude our journey with Miramax Films. While I am sure Bob and Harvey will likely pop up again in future episodes, they'll be minor characters at best, and we'll never have to focus on anything they did ever again.   Thank you for joining us. We'll talk again soon, when Episode 119 is released.   Remember to visit this episode's page on our website, The80sMoviePodcast.com, for extra materials about the movies we covered this episode.   The 80s Movies Podcast has been researched, written, narrated and edited by Edward Havens for Idiosyncratic Entertainment.   Thank you again.   Good night.

We finally complete our mini-series on the 1980s movies released by Miramax Films in 1989, a year that included sex, lies, and videotape, and My Left Foot. ----more---- TRANSCRIPT   From Los Angeles, California, the Entertainment Capital of the World, it's The 80s Movies Podcast. I am your host, Edward Havens. Thank you for listening today.   On this episode, we complete our look back at the 1980s theatrical releases for Miramax Films. And, for the final time, a reminder that we are not celebrating Bob and Harvey Weinstein, but reminiscing about the movies they had no involvement in making. We cannot talk about cinema in the 1980s without talking about Miramax, and I really wanted to get it out of the way, once and for all.   As we left Part 4, Miramax was on its way to winning its first Academy Award, Billie August's Pelle the Conquerer, the Scandinavian film that would be second film in a row from Denmark that would win for Best Foreign Language Film.   In fact, the first two films Miramax would release in 1989, the Australian film Warm Night on a Slow Moving Train and the Anthony Perkins slasher film Edge of Sanity, would not arrive in theatres until the Friday after the Academy Awards ceremony that year, which was being held on the last Wednesday in March.   Warm Nights on a Slow Moving Train stars Wendy Hughes, the talented Australian actress who, sadly, is best remembered today as Lt. Commander Nella Daren, one of Captain Jean-Luc Picard's few love interests, on a 1993 episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, as Jenny, a prostitute working a weekend train to Sydney, who is seduced by a man on the train, unaware that he plans on tricking her to kill someone for him. Colin Friels, another great Aussie actor who unfortunately is best known for playing the corrupt head of Strack Industries in Sam Raimi's Darkman, plays the unnamed man who will do anything to get what he wants.   Director Bob Ellis and his co-screenwriter Denny Lawrence came up with the idea for the film while they themselves were traveling on a weekend train to Sydney, with the idea that each client the call girl met on the train would represent some part of the Australian male.   Funding the $2.5m film was really simple… provided they cast Hughes in the lead role. Ellis and Lawrence weren't against Hughes as an actress. Any film would be lucky to have her in the lead. They just felt she she didn't have the right kind of sex appeal for this specific character.   Miramax would open the film in six theatres, including the Cineplex Beverly Center in Los Angeles and the Fashion Village 8 in Orlando, on March 31st. There were two versions of the movie prepared, one that ran 130 minutes and the other just 91. Miramax would go with the 91 minute version of the film for the American release, and most of the critics would note how clunky and confusing the film felt, although one critic for the Village Voice would have some kind words for Ms. Hughes' performance.   Whether it was because moviegoers were too busy seeing the winners of the just announced Academy Awards, including Best Picture winner Rain Man, or because this weekend was also the opening weekend of the new Major League Baseball season, or just turned off by the reviews, attendance at the theatres playing Warm Nights on a Slow Moving Train was as empty as a train dining car at three in the morning. The Beverly Center alone would account for a third of the movie's opening weekend gross of $19,268. After a second weekend at the same six theatres pocketing just $14,382, this train stalled out, never to arrive at another station.   Their other March 31st release, Edge of Sanity, is notable for two things and only two things: it would be the first film Miramax would release under their genre specialty label, Millimeter Films, which would eventually evolve into Dimension Films in the next decade, and it would be the final feature film to star Anthony Perkins before his passing in 1992.   The film is yet another retelling of the classic 1886 Robert Louis Stevenson story The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde, with the bonus story twist that Hyde was actually Jack the Ripper. As Jekyll, Perkins looks exactly as you'd expect a mid-fifties Norman Bates to look. As Hyde, Perkins is made to look like he's a backup keyboardist for the first Nine Inch Nails tour. Head Like a Hole would have been an appropriate song for the end credits, had the song or Pretty Hate Machine been released by that time, with its lyrics about bowing down before the one you serve and getting what you deserve.   Edge of Sanity would open in Atlanta and Indianapolis on March 31st. And like so many other Miramax releases in the 1980s, they did not initially announce any grosses for the film. That is, until its fourth weekend of release, when the film's theatre count had fallen to just six, down from the previous week's previously unannounced 35, grossing just $9,832. Miramax would not release grosses for the film again, with a final total of just $102,219.   Now when I started this series, I said that none of the films Miramax released in the 1980s were made by Miramax, but this next film would become the closest they would get during the decade.   In July 1961, John Profumo was the Secretary of State for War in the conservative government of British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, when the married Profumo began a sexual relationship with a nineteen-year-old model named Christine Keeler. The affair was very short-lived, either ending, depending on the source, in August 1961 or December 1961. Unbeknownst to Profumo, Keeler was also having an affair with Yevgeny Ivanov, a senior naval attache at the Soviet Embassy at the same time.   No one was the wiser on any of this until December 1962, when a shooting incident involving two other men Keeler had been involved with led the press to start looking into Keeler's life. While it was never proven that his affair with Keeler was responsible for any breaches of national security, John Profumo was forced to resign from his position in June 1963, and the scandal would take down most of the Torie government with him. Prime Minister Macmillan would resign due to “health reasons” in October 1963, and the Labour Party would take control of the British government when the next elections were held in October 1964.   Scandal was originally planned in the mid-1980s as a three-part, five-hour miniseries by Australian screenwriter Michael Thomas and American music producer turned movie producer Joe Boyd. The BBC would commit to finance a two-part, three-hour miniseries,  until someone at the network found an old memo from the time of the Profumo scandal that forbade them from making any productions about it. Channel 4, which had been producing quality shows and movies for several years since their start in 1982, was approached, but rejected the series on the grounds of taste.   Palace Pictures, a British production company who had already produced three films for Neil Jordan including Mona Lisa, was willing to finance the script, provided it could be whittled down to a two hour movie. Originally budgeted at 3.2m British pounds, the costs would rise as they started the casting process.  John Hurt, twice Oscar-nominated for his roles in Midnight Express and The Elephant Man, would sign on to play Stephen Ward, a British osteopath who acted as Christine Keeler's… well… pimp, for lack of a better word. Ian McKellen, a respected actor on British stages and screens but still years away from finding mainstream global success in the X-Men movies, would sign on to play John Profumo. Joanne Whaley, who had filmed the yet to be released at that time Willow with her soon to be husband Val Kilmer, would get her first starring role as Keeler, and Bridget Fonda, who was quickly making a name for herself in the film world after being featured in Aria, would play Mandy Rice-Davies, the best friend and co-worker of Keeler's.   To save money, Palace Pictures would sign thirty-year-old Scottish filmmaker Michael Caton-Jones to direct, after seeing a short film he had made called The Riveter. But even with the neophyte feature filmmaker, Palace still needed about $2.35m to be able to fully finance the film. And they knew exactly who to go to.   Stephen Woolley, the co-founder of Palace Pictures and the main producer on the film, would fly from London to New York City to personally pitch Harvey and Bob Weinstein. Woolley felt that of all the independent distributors in America, they would be the ones most attracted to the sexual and controversial nature of the story. A day later, Woolley was back on a plane to London. The Weinsteins had agreed to purchase the American distribution rights to Scandal for $2.35m.   The film would spend two months shooting in the London area through the summer of 1988. Christine Keeler had no interest in the film, and refused to meet the now Joanne Whaley-Kilmer to talk about the affair, but Mandy Rice-Davies was more than happy to Bridget Fonda about her life, although the meetings between the two women were so secret, they would not come out until Woolley eulogized Rice-Davies after her 2014 death.   Although Harvey and Bob would be given co-executive producers on the film, Miramax was not a production company on the film. This, however, did not stop Harvey from flying to London multiple times, usually when he was made aware of some sexy scene that was going to shoot the following day, and try to insinuate himself into the film's making. At one point, Woolley decided to take a weekend off from the production, and actually did put Harvey in charge. That weekend's shoot would include a skinny-dipping scene featuring the Christine Keeler character, but when Whaley-Kilmer learned Harvey was going to be there, she told the director that she could not do the nudity in the scene. Her new husband was objecting to it, she told them. Harvey, not skipping a beat, found a lookalike for the actress who would be willing to bare all as a body double, and the scene would begin shooting a few hours later. Whaley-Kilmer watched the shoot from just behind the camera, and stopped the shoot a few minutes later. She was not happy that the body double's posterior was notably larger than her own, and didn't want audiences to think she had that much junk in her trunk. The body double was paid for her day, and Whaley-Kilmer finished the rest of the scene herself.   Caton-Jones and his editing team worked on shaping the film through the fall, and would screen his first edit of the film for Palace Pictures and the Weinsteins in November 1988. And while Harvey was very happy with the cut, he still asked the production team for a different edit for American audiences, noting that most Americans had no idea who Profumo or Keeler or Rice-Davies were, and that Americans would need to understand the story more right out of the first frame. Caton-Jones didn't want to cut a single frame, but he would work with Harvey to build an American-friendly cut.   While he was in London in November 1988, he would meet with the producers of another British film that was in pre-production at the time that would become another important film to the growth of the company, but we're not quite at that part of the story yet. We'll circle around to that film soon.   One of the things Harvey was most looking forward to going in to 1989 was the expected battle with the MPAA ratings board over Scandal. Ever since he had seen the brouhaha over Angel Heart's X rating two years earlier, he had been looking for a similar battle. He thought he had it with Aria in 1988, but he knew he definitely had it now.   And he'd be right.   In early March, just a few weeks before the film's planned April 21st opening day, the MPAA slapped an X rating on Scandal. The MPAA usually does not tell filmmakers or distributors what needs to be cut, in order to avoid accusations of actual censorship, but according to Harvey, they told him exactly what needed to be cut to get an R: a two second shot during an orgy scene, where it appears two background characters are having unsimulated sex.   So what did Harvey do?   He spent weeks complaining to the press about MPAA censorship, generating millions in free publicity for the film, all the while already having a close-up shot of Joanne Whaley-Kilmer's Christine Keeler watching the orgy but not participating in it, ready to replace the objectionable shot.   A few weeks later, Miramax screened the “edited” film to the MPAA and secured the R rating, and the film would open on 94 screens, including 28 each in the New York City and Los Angeles metro regions, on April 28th.   And while the reviews for the film were mostly great, audiences were drawn to the film for the Miramax-manufactured controversy as well as the key art for the film, a picture of a potentially naked Joanne Whaley-Kilmer sitting backwards in a chair, a mimic of a very famous photo Christine Keeler herself took to promote a movie about the Profumo affair she appeared in a few years after the events. I'll have a picture of both the Scandal poster and the Christine Keeler photo on this episode's page at The80sMoviePodcast.com   Five other movies would open that weekend, including the James Belushi comedy K-9 and the Kevin Bacon drama Criminal Law, and Scandal, with $658k worth of ticket sales, would have the second best per screen average of the five new openers, just a few hundred dollars below the new Holly Hunter movie Miss Firecracker, which only opened on six screens.   In its second weekend, Scandal would expand its run to 214 playdates, and make its debut in the national top ten, coming in tenth place with $981k. That would be more than the second week of the Patrick Dempsey rom-com Loverboy, even though Loverboy was playing on 5x as many screens.   In weekend number three, Scandal would have its best overall gross and top ten placement, coming in seventh with $1.22m from 346 screens. Scandal would start to slowly fade after that, falling back out of the top ten in its sixth week, but Miramax would wisely keep the screen count under 375, because Scandal wasn't going to play well in all areas of the country. After nearly five months in theatres, Miramax would have its biggest film to date. Scandal would gross $8.8m.   The second release from Millimeter Films was The Return of the Swamp Thing. And if you needed a reason why the 1980s was not a good time for comic book movies, here you are. The Return of the Swamp Thing took most of what made the character interesting in his comic series, and most of what was good from the 1982 Wes Craven adaptation, and decided “Hey, you know what would bring the kids in? Camp! Camp unseen in a comic book adaptation since the 1960s Batman series. They loved it then, they'll love it now!”   They did not love it now.   Heather Locklear, between her stints on T.J. Hooker and Melrose Place, plays the step-daughter of Louis Jourdan's evil Dr. Arcane from the first film, who heads down to the Florida swaps to confront dear old once presumed dead stepdad. He in turns kidnaps his stepdaughter and decides to do some of his genetic experiments on her, until she is rescued by Swamp Thing, one of Dr. Arcane's former co-workers who got turned into the gooey anti-hero in the first movie.   The film co-stars Sarah Douglas from Superman 1 and 2 as Dr. Arcane's assistant, Dick Durock reprising his role as Swamp Thing from the first film, and 1980s B-movie goddess Monique Gabrielle as Miss Poinsettia.   For director Jim Wynorski, this was his sixth movie as a director, and at $3m, one of the highest budgeted movies he would ever make. He's directed 107 movies since 1984, most of them low budget direct to video movies with titles like The Bare Wench Project and Alabama Jones and the Busty Crusade, although he does have one genuine horror classic under his belt, the 1986 sci-fi tinged Chopping Maul with Kelli Maroney and Barbara Crampton.   Wynorski suggested in a late 1990s DVD commentary for the film that he didn't particularly enjoy making the film, and had a difficult time directing Louis Jourdan, to the point that outside of calling “action” and “cut,” the two didn't speak to each other by the end of the shoot.   The Return of Swamp Thing would open in 123 theatres in the United States on May 12th, including 28 in the New York City metro region, 26 in the Los Angeles area, 15 in Detroit, and a handful of theatres in Phoenix, San Francisco. And, strangely, the newspaper ads would include an actual positive quote from none other than Roger Ebert, who said on Siskel & Ebert that he enjoyed himself, and that it was good to have Swamp Thing back. Siskel would not reciprocate his balcony partner's thumb up. But Siskel was about the only person who was positive on the return of Swamp Thing, and that box office would suffer. In its first three days, the film would gross just $119,200. After a couple more dismal weeks in theatres, The Return of Swamp Thing would be pulled from distribution, with a final gross of just $275k.   Fun fact: The Return of Swamp Thing was produced by Michael E. Uslan, whose next production, another adaptation of a DC Comics character, would arrive in theatres not six weeks later and become the biggest film of the summer. In fact, Uslan has been a producer or executive producer on every Batman-related movie and television show since 1989, from Tim Burton to Christopher Nolan to Zack Snyder to Matt Reeves, and from LEGO movies to Joker. He also, because of his ownership of the movie rights to Swamp Thing, got the movie screen rights, but not the television screen rights, to John Constantine.   Miramax didn't have too much time to worry about The Return of Swamp Thing's release, as it was happening while the Brothers Weinstein were at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival. They had two primary goals at Cannes that year:   To buy American distribution rights to any movie that would increase their standing in the cinematic worldview, which they would achieve by picking up an Italian dramedy called, at the time, New Paradise Cinema, which was competing for the Palme D'Or with a Miramax pickup from Sundance back in January. Promote that very film, which did end up winning the Palme D'Or.   Ever since he was a kid, Steven Soderbergh wanted to be a filmmaker. Growing up in Baton Rouge, LA in the late 1970s, he would enroll in the LSU film animation class, even though he was only 15 and not yet a high school graduate. After graduating high school, he decided to move to Hollywood to break into the film industry, renting an above-garage room from Stephen Gyllenhaal, the filmmaker best known as the father of Jake and Maggie, but after a few freelance editing jobs, Soderbergh packed up his things and headed home to Baton Rouge.   Someone at Atco Records saw one of Soderbergh's short films, and hired him to direct a concert movie for one of their biggest bands at the time, Yes, who was enjoying a major comeback thanks to their 1983 triple platinum selling album, 90125. The concert film, called 9012Live, would premiere on MTV in late 1985, and it would be nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Long Form Music Video.   Soderbergh would use the money he earned from that project, $7,500, to make Winston, a 12 minute black and white short about sexual deception that he would, over the course of an eight day driving trip from Baton Rouge to Los Angeles, expand to a full length screen that he would call sex, lies and videotape. In later years, Soderbergh would admit that part of the story is autobiographical, but not the part you might think. Instead of the lead, Graham, an impotent but still sexually perverse late twentysomething who likes to tape women talking about their sexual fantasies for his own pleasure later, Soderbergh based the husband John, the unsophisticated lawyer who cheats on his wife with her sister, on himself, although there would be a bit of Graham that borrows from the filmmaker. Like his lead character, Soderbergh did sell off most of his possessions and hit the road to live a different life.   When he finished the script, he sent it out into the wilds of Hollywood. Morgan Mason, the son of actor James Mason and husband of Go-Go's lead singer Belinda Carlisle, would read it and sign on as an executive producer. Soderbergh had wanted to shoot the film in black and white, like he had with the Winston short that lead to the creation of this screenplay, but he and Mason had trouble getting anyone to commit to the project, even with only a projected budget of $200,000. For a hot moment, it looked like Universal might sign on to make the film, but they would eventually pass.   Robert Newmyer, who had left his job as a vice president of production and acquisitions at Columbia Pictures to start his own production company, signed on as a producer, and helped to convince Soderbergh to shoot the film in color, and cast some name actors in the leading roles. Once he acquiesced, Richard Branson's Virgin Vision agreed to put up $540k of the newly budgeted $1.2m film, while RCA/Columbia Home Video would put up the remaining $660k.   Soderbergh and his casting director, Deborah Aquila, would begin their casting search in New York, where they would meet with, amongst others, Andie MacDowell, who had already starred in two major Hollywood pictures, 1984's Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, and 1985's St. Elmo's Fire, but was still considered more of a top model than an actress, and Laura San Giacomo, who had recently graduated from the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama in Pittsburgh and would be making her feature debut. Moving on to Los Angeles, Soderbergh and Aquila would cast James Spader, who had made a name for himself as a mostly bad guy in 80s teen movies like Pretty in Pink and Less Than Zero, but had never been the lead in a drama like this. At Spader's suggestion, the pair met with Peter Gallagher, who was supposed to become a star nearly a decade earlier from his starring role in Taylor Hackford's The Idolmaker, but had mostly been playing supporting roles in television shows and movies for most of the decade.   In order to keep the budget down, Soderbergh, the producers, cinematographer Walt Lloyd and the four main cast members agreed to get paid their guild minimums in exchange for a 50/50 profit participation split with RCA/Columbia once the film recouped its costs.   The production would spend a week in rehearsals in Baton Rouge, before the thirty day shoot began on August 1st, 1988. On most days, the shoot was unbearable for many, as temperatures would reach as high as 110 degrees outside, but there were a couple days lost to what cinematographer Lloyd said was “biblical rains.” But the shoot completed as scheduled, and Soderbergh got to the task of editing right away. He knew he only had about eight weeks to get a cut ready if the film was going to be submitted to the 1989 U.S. Film Festival, now better known as Sundance. He did get a temporary cut of the film ready for submission, with a not quite final sound mix, and the film was accepted to the festival. It would make its world premiere on January 25th, 1989, in Park City UT, and as soon as the first screening was completed, the bids from distributors came rolling in. Larry Estes, the head of RCA/Columbia Home Video, would field more than a dozen submissions before the end of the night, but only one distributor was ready to make a deal right then and there.   Bob Weinstein wasn't totally sold on the film, but he loved the ending, and he loved that the word “sex” not only was in the title but lead the title. He knew that title alone would sell the movie. Harvey, who was still in New York the next morning, called Estes to make an appointment to meet in 24 hours. When he and Estes met, he brought with him three poster mockups the marketing department had prepared, and told Estes he wasn't going to go back to New York until he had a contract signed, and vowed to beat any other deal offered by $100,000. Island Pictures, who had made their name releasing movies like Stop Making Sense, Kiss of the Spider-Woman, The Trip to Bountiful and She's Gotta Have It, offered $1m for the distribution rights, plus a 30% distribution fee and a guaranteed $1m prints and advertising budget. Estes called Harvey up and told him what it would take to make the deal. $1.1m for the distribution rights, which needed to paid up front, a $1m P&A budget, to be put in escrow upon the signing of the contract until the film was released, a 30% distribution fee, no cutting of the film whatsoever once Soderbergh turns in his final cut, they would need to provide financial information for the films costs and returns once a month because of the profit participation contracts, and the Weinsteins would have to hire Ira Deutchman, who had spent nearly 15 years in the independent film world, doing marketing for Cinema 5, co-founding United Artists Classics, and co-founding Cinecom Pictures before opening his own company to act as a producers rep and marketer. And the Weinsteins would not only have to do exactly what Deutchman wanted, they'd have to pay for his services too.   The contract was signed a few weeks later.   The first move Miramax would make was to get Soderbergh's final cut of the film entered into the Cannes Film Festival, where it would be accepted to compete in the main competition. Which you kind of already know what happened, because that's what I lead with. The film would win the Palme D'Or, and Spader would be awarded the festival's award for Best Actor. It was very rare at the time, and really still is, for any film to be awarded more than one prize, so winning two was really a coup for the film and for Miramax, especially when many critics attending the festival felt Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing was the better film.   In March, Miramax expected the film to make around $5-10m, which would net the company a small profit on the film. After Cannes, they were hopeful for a $15m gross.   They never expected what would happen next.   On August 4th, sex, lies, and videotape would open on four screens, at the Cinema Studio in New York City, and at the AMC Century 14, the Cineplex Beverly Center 13 and the Mann Westwood 4 in Los Angeles. Three prime theatres and the best they could do in one of the then most competitive zones in all America. Remember, it's still the Summer 1989 movie season, filled with hits like Batman, Dead Poets Society, Ghostbusters 2, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, Lethal Weapon 2, Parenthood, Turner & Hooch, and When Harry Met Sally. An independent distributor even getting one screen at the least attractive theatre in Westwood was a major get. And despite the fact that this movie wasn't really a summertime movie per se, the film would gross an incredible $156k in its first weekend from just these four theatres. Its nearly $40k per screen average would be 5x higher than the next closest film, Parenthood.   In its second weekend, the film would expand to 28 theatres, and would bring in over $600k in ticket sales, its per screen average of $21,527 nearly triple its closest competitor, Parenthood again. The company would keep spending small, as it slowly expanded the film each successive week. Forty theatres in its third week, and 101 in its fourth. The numbers held strong, and in its fifth week, Labor Day weekend, the film would have its first big expansion, playing in 347 theatres. The film would enter the top ten for the first time, despite playing in 500 to 1500 fewer theatres than the other films in the top ten. In its ninth weekend, the film would expand to its biggest screen count, 534, before slowly drawing down as the other major Oscar contenders started their theatrical runs. The film would continue to play through the Oscar season of 1989, and when it finally left theatres in May 1989, its final gross would be an astounding $24.7m.   Now, remember a few moments ago when I said that Miramax needed to provide financial statements every month for the profit participation contracts of Soderbergh, the producers, the cinematographer and the four lead actors? The film was so profitable for everyone so quickly that RCA/Columbia made its first profit participation payouts on October 17th, barely ten weeks after the film's opening.   That same week, Soderbergh also made what was at the time the largest deal with a book publisher for the writer/director's annotated version of the screenplay, which would also include his notes created during the creation of the film. That $75,000 deal would be more than he got paid to make the movie as the writer and the director and the editor, not counting the profit participation checks.   During the awards season, sex, lies, and videotape was considered to be one of the Oscars front runners for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay and at least two acting nominations. The film would be nominated for Best Picture, Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress by the Golden Globes, and it would win the Spirit Awards for Best Picture, Soderbergh for Best Director, McDowell for Best Actress, and San Giacomo for Best Supporting Actress. But when the Academy Award nominations were announced, the film would only receive one nomination, for Best Original Screenplay. The same total and category as Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing, which many people also felt had a chance for a Best Picture and Best Director nomination. Both films would lose out to Tom Shulman's screenplay for Dead Poet's Society.   The success of sex, lies, and videotape would launch Steven Soderbergh into one of the quirkiest Hollywood careers ever seen, including becoming the first and only director ever to be nominated twice for Best Director in the same year by the Motion Picture Academy, the Golden Globes and the Directors Guild of America, in 2001 for directing Erin Brockovich and Traffic. He would win the Oscar for directing Traffic.   Lost in the excitement of sex, lies, and videotape was The Little Thief, a French movie that had an unfortunate start as the screenplay François Truffaut was working on when he passed away in 1984 at the age of just 52.   Directed by Claude Miller, whose principal mentor was Truffaut, The Little Thief starred seventeen year old Charlotte Gainsbourg as Janine, a young woman in post-World War II France who commits a series of larcenies to support her dreams of becoming wealthy.   The film was a modest success in France when it opened in December 1988, but its American release date of August 25th, 1989, was set months in advance. So when it was obvious sex, lies, and videotape was going to be a bigger hit than they originally anticipated, it was too late for Miramax to pause the release of The Little Thief.   Opening at the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas in New York City, and buoyed by favorable reviews from every major critic in town, The Little Thief would see $39,931 worth of ticket sales in its first seven days, setting a new house record at the theatre for the year. In its second week, the gross would only drop $47. For the entire week. And when it opened at the Royal Theatre in West Los Angeles, its opening week gross of $30,654 would also set a new house record for the year.   The film would expand slowly but surely over the next several weeks, often in single screen playdates in major markets, but it would never play on more than twenty-four screens in any given week. And after four months in theatres, The Little Thief, the last movie created one of the greatest film writers the world had ever seen, would only gross $1.056m in the United States.   The next three releases from Miramax were all sent out under the Millimeter Films banner.   The first, a supernatural erotic drama called The Girl in a Swing, was about an English antiques dealer who travels to Copenhagen where he meets and falls in love with a mysterious German-born secretary, whom he marries, only to discover a darker side to his new bride. Rupert Frazer, who played Christian Bale's dad in Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun, plays the antique dealer, while Meg Tilly the mysterious new bride.   Filmed over a five week schedule in London and Copenhagen during May and June 1988, some online sources say the film first opened somewhere in California in December 1988, but I cannot find a single theatre not only in California but anywhere in the United States that played the film before its September 29th, 1989 opening date.   Roger Ebert didn't like the film, and wished Meg Tilly's “genuinely original performance” was in a better movie. Opening in 26 theatres, including six theatres each in New York City and Los Angeles, and spurred on by an intriguing key art for the film that featured a presumed naked Tilly on a swing looking seductively at the camera while a notice underneath her warns that No One Under 18 Will Be Admitted To The Theatre, The Girl in a Swing would gross $102k, good enough for 35th place nationally that week. And that's about the best it would do. The film would limp along, moving from market to market over the course of the next three months, and when its theatrical run was complete, it could only manage about $747k in ticket sales.   We'll quickly burn through the next two Millimeter Films releases, which came out a week apart from each other and didn't amount to much.   Animal Behavior was a rather unfunny comedy featuring some very good actors who probably signed on for a very different movie than the one that came to be. Karen Allen, Miss Marion Ravenwood herself, stars as Alex, a biologist who, like Dr. Jane Goodall, develops a “new” way to communicate with chimpanzees via sign language. Armand Assante plays a cellist who pursues the good doctor, and Holly Hunter plays the cellist's neighbor, who Alex mistakes for his wife.   Animal Behavior was filmed in 1984, and 1985, and 1987, and 1988. The initial production was directed by Jenny Bowen with the assistance of Robert Redford and The Sundance Institute, thanks to her debut film, 1981's Street Music featuring Elizabeth Daily. It's unknown why Bowen and her cinematographer husband Richard Bowen left the project, but when filming resumed again and again and again, those scenes were directed by the film's producer, Kjehl Rasmussen.   Because Bowen was not a member of the DGA at the time, she was not able to petition the guild for the use of the Alan Smithee pseudonym, a process that is automatically triggered whenever a director is let go of a project and filming continues with its producer taking the reigns as director. But she was able to get the production to use a pseudonym anyway for the director's credit, H. Anne Riley, while also giving Richard Bowen a pseudonym of his own for his work on the film, David Spellvin.   Opening on 24 screens on October 27th, Animal Behavior would come in 50th place in its opening weekend, grossing just $20,361. The New York film critics ripped the film apart, and there wouldn't be a second weekend for the film.   The following Friday, November 3rd, saw the release of The Stepfather II, a rushed together sequel to 1987's The Stepfather, which itself wasn't a big hit in theatres but found a very quick and receptive audience on cable.   Despite dying at the end of the first film, Terry O'Quinn's Jerry is somehow still alive, and institutionalized in Northern Washington state. He escapes and heads down to Los Angeles, where he assumes the identity of a recently deceased publisher, Gene Clifford, but instead passes himself off as a psychiatrist. Jerry, now Gene, begins to court his neighbor Carol, and the whole crazy story plays out again. Meg Foster plays the neighbor Carol, and Jonathan Brandis is her son.    Director Jeff Burr had made a name for himself with his 1987 horror anthology film From a Whisper to a Scream, featuring Vincent Price, Clu Gulager and Terry Kiser, and from all accounts, had a very smooth shooting process with this film. The trouble began when he turned in his cut to the producers. The producers were happy with the film, but when they sent it to Miramax, the American distributors, they were rather unhappy with the almost bloodless slasher film. They demanded reshoots, which Burr and O'Quinn refused to participate in. They brought in a new director, Doug Campbell, to handle the reshoots, which are easy to spot in the final film because they look and feel completely different from the scenes they're spliced into.   When it opened, The Stepfather II actually grossed slightly more than the first film did, earning $279k from 100 screens, compared to $260k for The Stepfather from 105 screens. But unlike the first film, which had some decent reviews when it opened, the sequel was a complete mess. To this day, it's still one of the few films to have a 0% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and The Stepfather II would limp its way through theatres during the Christmas holiday season, ending its run with a $1.5m gross.   But it would be their final film of the decade that would dictate their course for at least the first part of the 1990s.   Remember when I said earlier in the episode that Harvey Weinstein meant with the producers of another British film while in London for Scandal? We're at that film now, a film you probably know.   My Left Foot.   By November 1988, actor Daniel Day-Lewis had starred in several movies including James Ivory's A Room With a View and Philip Kaufman's The Unbearable Lightness of Being. He had even been the lead in a major Hollywood studio film, Pat O'Connor's Stars and Bars, a very good film that unfortunately got caught up in the brouhaha over the exit of the studio head who greenlit the film, David Puttnam.   The film's director, Jim Sheridan, had never directed a movie before. He had become involved in stage production during his time at the University College in Dublin in the late 1960s, where he worked with future filmmaker Neil Jordan, and had spent nearly a decade after graduation doing stage work in Ireland and Canada, before settling in New York City in the early 1980s. Sheridan would go to New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where one of his classmates was Spike Lee, and return to Ireland after graduating. He was nearly forty, married with two pre-teen daughters, and he needed to make a statement with his first film.   He would find that story in the autobiography of Irish writer and painter Christy Brown, whose spirit and creativity could not be contained by his severe cerebral palsy. Along with Irish actor and writer Shane Connaughton, Sheridan wrote a screenplay that could be a powerhouse film made on a very tight budget of less than a million dollars.   Daniel Day-Lewis was sent a copy of the script, in the hopes he would be intrigued enough to take almost no money to play a physically demanding role. He read the opening pages, which had the adult Christy Brown putting a record on a record player and dropping the needle on to the record with his left foot, and thought to himself it would be impossible to film. That intrigued him, and he signed on. But during filming in January and February of 1989, most of the scenes were shot using mirrors, as Day-Lewis couldn't do the scenes with his left foot. He could do them with his right foot, hence the mirrors.   As a method actor, Day-Lewis remained in character as Christy Brown for the entire two month shoot. From costume fittings and makeup in the morning, to getting the actor on set, to moving him around between shots, there were crew members assigned to assist the actor as if they were Christy Brown's caretakers themselves, including feeding him during breaks in shooting. A rumor debunked by the actor years later said Day-Lewis had broken two ribs during production because of how hunched down he needed to be in his crude prop wheelchair to properly play the character.   The actor had done a lot of prep work to play the role, including spending time at the Sandymount School Clinic where the young Christy Brown got his education, and much of his performance was molded on those young people.   While Miramax had acquired the American distribution rights to the film before it went into production, and those funds went into the production of the film, the film was not produced by Miramax, nor were the Weinsteins given any kind of executive producer credit, as they were able to get themselves on Scandal.   My Left Foot would make its world premiere at the Montreal World Film Festival on September 4th, 1989, followed soon thereafter by screening at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 13th and the New York Film Festival on September 23rd. Across the board, critics and audiences were in love with the movie, and with Daniel Day-Lewis's performance. Jim Sheridan would receive a special prize at the Montreal World Film Festival for his direction, and Day-Lewis would win the festival's award for Best Actor. However, as the film played the festival circuit, another name would start to pop up. Brenda Fricker, a little known Irish actress who played Christy Brown's supportive but long-suffering mother Bridget, would pile up as many positive notices and awards as Day-Lewis. Although there was no Best Supporting Actress Award at the Montreal Film Festival, the judges felt her performance was deserving of some kind of attention, so they would create a Special Mention of the Jury Award to honor her.   Now, some sources online will tell you the film made its world premiere in Dublin on February 24th, 1989, based on a passage in a biography about Daniel Day-Lewis, but that would be impossible as the film would still be in production for two more days, and wasn't fully edited or scored by then.   I'm not sure when it first opened in the United Kingdom other than sometime in early 1990, but My Left Foot would have its commercial theatre debut in America on November 10th, when opened at the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas in New York City and the Century City 14 in Los Angeles. Sheila Benson of the Los Angeles Times would, in the very opening paragraph of her review, note that one shouldn't see My Left Foot for some kind of moral uplift or spiritual merit badge, but because of your pure love of great moviemaking. Vincent Canby's review in the New York Times spends most of his words praising Day-Lewis and Sheridan for making a film that is polite and non-judgmental.    Interestingly, Miramax went with an ad campaign that completely excluded any explanation of who Christy Brown was or why the film is titled the way it is. 70% of the ad space is taken from pull quotes from many of the top critics of the day, 20% with the title of the film, and 10% with a picture of Daniel Day-Lewis, clean shaven and full tooth smile, which I don't recall happening once in the movie, next to an obviously added-in picture of one of his co-stars that is more camera-friendly than Brenda Fricker or Fiona Shaw.   Whatever reasons people went to see the film, they flocked to the two theatres playing the film that weekend. It's $20,582 per screen average would be second only to Kenneth Branagh's Henry V, which had opened two days earlier, earning slightly more than $1,000 per screen than My Left Foot.   In week two, My Left Foot would gross another $35,133 from those two theatres, and it would overtake Henry V for the highest per screen average. In week three, Thanksgiving weekend, both Henry V and My Left Foot saw a a double digit increase in grosses despite not adding any theatres, and the latter film would hold on to the highest per screen average again, although the difference would only be $302. And this would continue for weeks. In the film's sixth week of release, it would get a boost in attention by being awarded Best Film of the Year by the New York Film Critics Circle. Daniel Day-Lewis would be named Best Actor that week by both the New York critics and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, while Fricker would win the Best Supporting Actress award from the latter group.   But even then, Miramax refused to budge on expanding the film until its seventh week of release, Christmas weekend, when My Left Foot finally moved into cities like Chicago and San Francisco. Its $135k gross that weekend was good, but it was starting to lose ground to other Oscar hopefuls like Born on the Fourth of July, Driving Miss Daisy, Enemies: A Love Story, and Glory.   And even though the film continued to rack up award win after award win, nomination after nomination, from the Golden Globes and the Writers Guild and the National Society of Film Critics and the National Board of Review, Miramax still held firm on not expanding the film into more than 100 theatres nationwide until its 16th week in theatres, February 16th, 1990, two days after the announcement of the nominees for the 62nd Annual Academy Awards. While Daniel Day-Lewis's nomination for Best Actor was virtually assured and Brenda Fricker was practically a given, the film would pick up three other nominations, including surprise nominations for Best Picture and Best Director. Jim Sheridan and co-writer Shane Connaughton would also get picked for Best Adapted Screenplay.   Miramax also picked up a nomination for Best Original Screenplay for sex, lies, and videotape, and a Best Foreign Language Film nod for the Italian movie Cinema Paradiso, which, thanks to the specific rules for that category, a film could get a nomination before actually opening in theatres in America, which Miramax would rush to do with Paradiso the week after its nomination was announced.   The 62nd Academy Awards ceremony would be best remembered today as being the first Oscar show to be hosted by Billy Crystal, and for being considerably better than the previous year's ceremony, a mess of a show best remembered as being the one with a 12 minute opening musical segment that included Rob Lowe singing Proud Mary to an actress playing Snow White and another nine minute musical segment featuring a slew of expected future Oscar winners that, to date, feature exact zero Oscar nominees, both which rank as amongst the worst things to ever happen to the Oscars awards show.   The ceremony, held on March 26th, would see My Left Foot win two awards, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress, as well as Cinema Paradiso for Best Foreign Film. The following weekend, March 30th, would see Miramax expand My Left Foot to 510 theatres, its widest point of release, and see the film made the national top ten and earn more than a million dollars for its one and only time during its eight month run.   The film would lose steam pretty quickly after its post-win bump, but it would eek out a modest run that ended with $14.75m in ticket sales just in the United States. Not bad for a little Irish movie with no major stars that cost less than a million dollars to make.   Of course, the early 90s would see Miramax fly to unimagined heights. In all of the 80s, Miramax would release 39 movies. They would release 30 films alone in 1991. They would release the first movies from Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith. They'd release some of the best films from some of the best filmmakers in the world, including Woody Allen, Pedro Almadovar, Robert Altman, Bernardo Bertolucci, Atom Egoyan, Steven Frears, Peter Greenaway, Peter Jackson, Neil Jordan, Chen Kaige, Krzysztof Kieślowski, Lars von Trier, and Zhang Yimou. In 1993, the Mexican dramedy Like Water for Chocolate would become the highest grossing foreign language film ever released in America, and it would play in some theatres, including my theatre, the NuWilshire in Santa Monica, continuously for more than a year.   If you've listened to the whole series on the 1980s movies of Miramax Films, there are two things I hope you take away. First, I hope you discovered at least one film you hadn't heard of before and you might be interested in searching out. The second is the reminder that neither Bob nor Harvey Weinstein will profit in any way if you give any of the movies talked about in this series a chance. They sold Miramax to Disney in June 1993. They left Miramax in September 2005. Many of the contracts for the movies the company released in the 80s and 90s expired decades ago, with the rights reverting back to their original producers, none of whom made any deals with the Weinsteins once they got their rights back.   Harvey Weinstein is currently serving a 23 year prison sentence in upstate New York after being found guilty in 2020 of two sexual assaults. Once he completes that sentence, he'll be spending another 16 years in prison in California, after he was convicted of three sexual assaults that happened in Los Angeles between 2004 and 2013. And if the 71 year old makes it to 107 years old, he may have to serve time in England for two sexual assaults that happened in August 1996. That case is still working its way through the British legal system.   Bob Weinstein has kept a low profile since his brother's proclivities first became public knowledge in October 2017, although he would also be accused of sexual harassment by a show runner for the brothers' Spike TV-aired adaptation of the Stephen King novel The Mist, several days after the bombshell articles came out about his brother. However, Bob's lawyer, the powerful attorney to the stars Bert Fields, deny the allegations, and it appears nothing has occurred legally since the accusations were made.   A few weeks after the start of the MeToo movement that sparked up in the aftermath of the accusations of his brother's actions, Bob Weinstein denied having any knowledge of the nearly thirty years of documented sexual abuse at the hands of his brother, but did allow to an interviewer for The Hollywood Reporter that he had barely spoken to Harvey over the previous five years, saying he could no longer take Harvey's cheating, lying and general attitude towards everyone.   And with that, we conclude our journey with Miramax Films. While I am sure Bob and Harvey will likely pop up again in future episodes, they'll be minor characters at best, and we'll never have to focus on anything they did ever again.   Thank you for joining us. We'll talk again soon, when Episode 119 is released.   Remember to visit this episode's page on our website, The80sMoviePodcast.com, for extra materials about the movies we covered this episode.   The 80s Movies Podcast has been researched, written, narrated and edited by Edward Havens for Idiosyncratic Entertainment.   Thank you again.   Good night.

Dal Vangelo di Matteo 20,20-28   In quel tempo, si avvicinò a Gesù la madre dei figli di Zebedèo con i suoi figli e si prostrò per chiedergli qualcosa. Egli le disse: «Che cosa vuoi?». Gli rispose: «Di' che questi miei due figli siedano uno alla tua destra e uno alla tua sinistra nel tuo regno». Rispose Gesù: «Voi non sapete quello che chiedete. Potete bere il calice che io sto per bere?». Gli dicono: «Lo possiamo». Ed egli disse loro: «Il mio calice, lo berrete; però sedere alla mia destra e alla mia sinistra non sta a me concederlo: è per coloro per i quali il Padre mio lo ha preparato». Gli altri dieci, avendo sentito, si sdegnarono con i due fratelli. Ma Gesù li chiamò a sé e disse: «Voi sapete che i governanti delle nazioni dominano su di esse e i capi le opprimono. Tra voi non sarà così; ma chi vuole diventare grande tra voi, sarà vostro servitore e chi vuole essere il primo tra voi, sarà vostro schiavo. Come il Figlio dell'uomo, che non è venuto per farsi servire, ma per servire e dare la propria vita in riscatto per molti». --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/vangelo/message

Full Text of ReadingsTuesday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time Lectionary: 390The Saint of the day is Saint Camillus de LellisSaint Camillus de Lellis’ Story Humanly speaking, Camillus was not a likely candidate for sainthood. His mother died when he was a child, his father neglected him, and he grew up with an excessive love for gambling. At 17, he was afflicted with a disease of his leg that remained with him for life. In Rome he entered the San Giacomo Hospital for Incurables as both patient and servant, but was dismissed for quarrelsomeness after nine months. He served in the Venetian army for three years. Then in the winter of 1574, when he was 24, Camillus gambled away everything he had—savings, weapons, literally down to his shirt. He accepted work at the Capuchin friary at Manfredonia, and was one day so moved by a sermon of the superior that he began a conversion that changed his life. He entered the Capuchin novitiate, but was dismissed because of the apparently incurable sore on his leg. After another stint of service at San Giacomo, he came back to the Capuchins, only to be dismissed again, for the same reason. Again, back at San Giacomo, his dedication was rewarded by his being made superintendent. Camillus devoted the rest of his life to the care of the sick. Along with Saint John of God he has been named patron of hospitals, nurses, and the sick. With the advice of his friend Saint Philip Neri, he studied for the priesthood and was ordained at the age of 34. Contrary to the advice of his friend, Camillus left San Giacomo and founded a congregation of his own. As superior, he devoted much of his own time to the care of the sick. Charity was his first concern, but the physical aspects of the hospital also received his diligent attention. Camillus insisted on cleanliness and the technical competence of those who served the sick. The members of his community bound themselves to serve prisoners and persons infected by the plague as well as those dying in private homes. Some of his men were with troops fighting in Hungary and Croatia in 1595, forming the first recorded military field ambulance. In Naples, he and his men went onto the galleys that had plague and were not allowed to land. He discovered that there were people being buried alive, and ordered his brothers to continue the prayers for the dying 15 minutes after apparent death. Camillus himself suffered the disease of his leg through his life. In his last illness, he left his own bed to see if other patients in the hospital needed help. Reflection Saints are created by God. Parents must indeed nurture the faith in their children; husbands and wives must cooperate to deepen their baptismal grace; friends must support each other. But all human effort is only the dispensing of divine power. We must all try as if everything depended on us. But only the power of God can fulfill the plan of God—to make us like himself. Saint Camillus de Lellis is the Patron Saint of: HospitalsNursesHealthcare workersSick Click here to meet seven lesser-known Catholic saints! Saint of the Day, Copyright Franciscan Media

Dal taglio dei consultori familiari alla riconversione dell'ex Pavan, sono diverse le manifestazioni che stanno animando il rione popolare di San Giacomo: ne parliamo con Sara (Non una di meno Trieste), Matteo (Comitato Insieme per San Giacomo) e Gianluca (Campo Libero). This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit elkanal.substack.com

TESTO DELL'ARTICOLO ➜ www.bastabugie.it/it/articoli.php?id=7313LA TAVOLA ROTONDA SULL'OMOSESSUALITA' CHE ASSOMIGLIA A UN FRULLATO MISTO CHE CONFONDE LE IDEE di Mauro FaverzaniSi è svolta lo scorso 13 gennaio presso sala Voltini del Centro Culturale Cappuccini di Argenta una tavola rotonda sul tema «Dialogo: un ponte che unisce - È possibile un dialogo fra religioni e omosessualità?», patrocinato dal Comune. Tra i relatori, erano presenti il presidente Arcigay di Ferrara, Manuela Macario, il coordinatore del centro culturale islamico, Hassan Samid, e don Alessio Grossi, psicanalista e referente del Consultorio diocesano, parroco della chiesa di San Giacomo apostolo a Ferrara, inviato all'evento dall'arcivescovo, mons. Giancarlo Perego, a nome del quale ha ripetutamente dichiarato di parlare.Il che complica un po' le cose, specialmente in alcuni passaggi particolarmente critici dell'intervento di don Grossi. Ad esempio, laddove affronta quella che lui definisce, all'interno della Chiesa, «la posizione forse più conosciuta, quella più conservatrice, tradizionalista», come se, all'interno del Corpo Mistico di Cristo, vi fosse spazio in merito per l'opinione e non vi fosse invece già una dottrina unica ben codificata e consolidata, valida per tutti. Ebbene, il relatore ha specificato come, a suo avviso, tale «posizione» veda «non tanto nell'omosessualità quanto negli atti omosessuali un qualcosa contro natura», ma sbaglia nel bollarla come «ideologico-religiosa», fonte di «discriminazione» e tale da provocare «sofferenza in tante persone, in tante comunità, in tante famiglie». È vero proprio il contrario. Innanzi tutto, come precisa il Catechismo della Chiesa Cattolica al n. 2357 è una posizione fondata «sulla Sacra Scrittura» e non è il frutto di un'ideologia, di alcun tipo. Inoltre, a differenza di quanto da lui dichiarato, anche le «tendenze omosessuali» vengono definite, in sé considerate, come un'«inclinazione oggettivamente disordinata» (Catechismo, n. 2358), benché certamente più gravi siano «gli atti di omosessualità» in quanto «intrinsecamente disordinati», «contrari alla legge naturale» ed, in quanto tali, certamente non da assecondare, né da "coccolare". In questo senso, parlare - come fa don Grossi - di «carisma omosessuale» è veramente fuorviante, oggettivamente infondato e tendenzialmente scorretto, dando per scontato che don Grossi il Catechismo lo conosca.LA CHIESA CATTOLICA PRESENTA POSIZIONI MOLTO DIVERSE? NON È VERO!Massimo rispetto e massima comprensione per la persona in quanto tale, come è sempre stato e come la Chiesa ha sempre fatto, persona da accogliersi «con rispetto, compassione, delicatezza», evitando «ogni marchio di ingiusta discriminazione», ma anche indicando con chiarezza la strada da percorrere, perché si possa essere e ci si possa dire davvero cattolici: «Tali persone sono chiamate a realizzare la volontà di Dio nella loro vita e, se sono cristiane, ad unire al sacrificio della Croce del Signore le difficoltà, che possono incontrare in conseguenza della loro condizione». Già da qui appare allora infondata l'entusiastica uscita ad effetto di don Grossi all'inizio del proprio intervento: «La Chiesa Cattolica presenta posizioni molto diverse, a volte anche contrastanti». Non è vero: in quanto Chiesa, di posizione ce n'è una molto chiara, molto definitoria ed è quella contenuta nei due articoli del Catechismo citati, validi e vincolanti per tutti. Che poi i singoli fedeli possano avere le proprie idee, giuste o sbagliate che siano, è fatto che in sé non tocca la dottrina cattolica, che viceversa è unica.Don Grossi definisce poi sbrigativamente «follie» le «terapie riparative», ma anche qui è bene capire di che cosa si stia parlando. Il percorso di cambiamento in genere proposto, in realtà, non consiste nell'estirpare, sopprimere o negare l'orientamento sessuale indesiderato, bensì in un processo di maturazione globale della personalità, in una migliore conoscenza ed accettazione dei propri limiti e delle proprie possibilità, in una vita di relazione più piena e non più dominata dalla paura e dalla vergogna. L'approccio clinico, quindi, può aiutare persone con - come si dice - un'«identità di genere» ferita, indipendentemente dal fatto che questo problema si manifesti con un'attrazione omosessuale o con un altro tipo di sintomo, come evidenziano vari tipi di approcci sviluppatisi soprattutto negli ultimi decenni.UNA MANO TESA, NON UN OSTACOLOIn ciò non vi è nulla di "folle", nulla di strano, nulla di scandaloso, anzi rappresenta un valido aiuto proprio per elaborare quella capacità di relazione matura e quel riconoscimento di un'alterità, che lo stesso don Grossi auspica per le persone omosessuali. Una mano tesa, dunque, non un ostacolo. Così, quando il Catechismo spiega come la loro «inclinazione» costituisca «per la maggior parte di loro una prova» (n. 2358) non si tratta di gettare la croce addosso a nessuno, bensì di sollecitare una presa di coscienza ed un'assunzione di responsabilità verso sé stessi e verso gli altri, che fa crescere, che fa maturare, che migliora, non qualcosa di cui la Chiesa debba quindi «chiedere perdono», come don Grossi ha azzardato, specificando di accompagnare «in un cammino di fede anche alcune coppie, sia di uomini che di donne». Ora, se con ciò si riferisce a coppie omosessuali, di fatto don Grossi sta ripensando una morale slegata dalla dottrina. Il che, evidentemente, specie parlando da sacerdote e da inviato del suo Arcivescovo, non va bene. A maggior ragione quando giunga ad affermazioni, che suonano più come uno slogan che come una riflessione oggettiva, quale: «Anche le persone omosessuali sono capaci di generatività». Ecco, qui proprio non ci siamo, qui si va oltre, anzi contro il dato di fatto, il dato esperienziale. Di quale "generatività" si sta parlando? Lo stesso Catechismo chiarisce come le relazioni omosessuali precludano «all'atto sessuale il dono della vita. Non sono il frutto di una vera complementarietà affettiva e sessuale. In nessun caso possono essere approvati» (n. 2357). Ma - osserva don Grossi - «quante coppie anche eterosessuali non hanno figli ma possono vivere una dimensione generativa?». La realtà però è molto diversa. Ogni bambino ha bisogno di due figure sessualmente complementari ossia di un papà e di una mamma o comunque di due persone di riferimento di sesso diverso. A chi sostenga il contrario ha già risposto l'American College of Pediatricians, che, in una lettera inviata alla rivista Pediatrics, ha contestato le affermazioni a favore dell'omogenitorialità: «Troviamo questa posizione insostenibile - ha dichiarato - e, se attuata, gravemente dannosa per i bambini e la famiglia. Siamo contrari a questa posizione a causa dell'assenza di prove scientifiche a suo sostegno e delle potenziali conseguenze negative sui bambini. Concedere lo status di matrimonio legale alle unioni omosessuali sarebbe un tragico errore di calcolo, che porterebbe danni irreparabili alla società, alla famiglia e ai bambini». In realtà, salvo rare eccezioni, la ricerca finora condotta sull'omogenitorialità è di pessima qualità, segnata da un pressapochismo che pare spesso intenzionale e funzionale, nonché viziata da letture ideologiche dagli esiti scontati, preconfezionati e non obiettivi. In merito esiste tutta un'antologia di esempi, che sarebbe interessante citare, ma che rischierebbero di condurre troppo lontano rispetto agli spazi consentiti ad un articolo.CHE COSA È L'UOMO?Infine, don Grossi ha fatto riferimento, durante il suo intervento, a due punti di un documento dal titolo Che cosa è l'uomo? Un itinerario di antropologia biblica, elaborato dalla Pontificia Commissione Biblica. Il primo punto si trova al n. 185, laddove si legge: «La Bibbia non parla dell'inclinazione erotica verso una persona dello stesso sesso, ma solo degli atti omosessuali»; ed ancora al n. 188 è scritto: «Non troviamo nelle tradizioni narrative della Bibbia indicazioni concernenti pratiche omosessuali né come comportamenti da biasimare, né come atteggiamenti tollerati o accolti con favore».Ma è proprio così? Vediamo un po'...Levitico 18, 22: «Non giacerai con un maschio come si fa con una donna, è una cosa abominevole».Lettera ai Romani 1, 26-27: «Dio li ha abbandonati a passioni infami; le loro donne hanno cambiato i rapporti naturali in rapporti contro natura. Egualmente anche gli uomini, lasciando il rapporto naturale con la donna, si sono accesi di passione gli uni per gli altri, commettendo atti ignominiosi uomini con uomini, ricevendo così in sé stessi la punizione, che s'addiceva al loro traviamento».1° lettera ai corinzi 6, 9-10: «Non illudetevi: né immorali, né idolatri, né adulteri, né effeminati, né sodomiti, né ladri, né avari, né ubriaconi, né maldicenti, né rapaci erediteranno il regno di Dio&ra

Si è svolta lo scorso 13 gennaio presso sala Voltini del Centro Culturale Cappuccini di Argenta una tavola rotonda sul tema «Dialogo: un ponte che unisce – È possibile un dialogo fra religioni e omosessualità?», patrocinato dal Comune. Tra i relatori, erano presenti il presidente Arcigay di Ferrara, Manuela Macario, il coordinatore del centro culturale islamico, Hassan Samid, e don Alessio Grossi, psicanalista e referente del Consultorio diocesano, parroco della chiesa di San Giacomo apostolo a Ferrara, inviato all'evento dall'arcivescovo, mons. Giancarlo Perego, a nome del quale ha ripetutamente dichiarato di parlare.

In questo episodio speciale vi proponiamo la registrazione del live show tenuto da Leo e Sacco il 7 ottobre sul palco di Sedicicorto Film Festival di Forlì.

https://www.uffizi.it/opere/garofalo-san-giacomo-maggiore

Irene Schiavetta"Cuneo rosso sangue"Armando Dalmasso e i veleni del ConservatorioFratelli Frilli Editorihttps://shop.frillieditori.com/index.php?id_lang=6Armando Dalmasso è un giornalista free-lance che collabora con “La Stampa” di Cuneo. Inviato al Conservatorio “Ghedini” per assistere a un evento musicale, conosce la simpatica “vichinga” Fiona McQueen, un'esperta d'arte di origine italo-irlandese. Durante il concerto, la pianista all'improvviso cade a terra, colta da un malore. I due la soccorrono, ma alcuni segnali indicano chiaramente che è stata avvelenata. Difficile capire chi possa essere il responsabile, perché sono molti, dentro l'Istituto Musicale, ad avere motivi di risentimento nei confronti di quella “vecchia strega”... Irene Schiavetta, musicista, vive a Savona e insegna presso il Conservatorio di Cuneo. Ha scritto commedie brillanti, racconti e libretti e ha collaborato con una importante casa editrice per opere di letteratura italiana. Ha scritto libri di didattica pianistica per le edizioni Carisch e per le edizioni Dantone. Ha pubblicato i romanzi Le tre signore (Coedit), L'occhio di Bubuz e La tabacchiera di Otto Schmitt (Il Ciliegio). Per Fratelli Frilli Editori, insieme a Fiorenza Giorgi, ha pubblicato: Delitto alla Cappella Sistina, Morte al Chiabrera, La sala nera, Omicidio in Darsena e Il mistero di San Giacomo. IL POSTO DELLE PAROLEascoltare fa pensarehttps://ilpostodelleparole.it/

La Giornata dell'Emigrante festeggia quest'anno il 54esimo anniversario, una festa dedicata ai concittadini emigrati all'estero. La manifestazione si terrà domenica 31 luglio ed è organizzata dall'Associazione Vicentini nel Mondo, dal comune dell'altopiano e dalla parrocchia di San Giacomo in collaborazione con il Gruppo Giovani Velo, il corpo bandistico “A. Ronzani” di Lusiana e il coro “L'eco delle valli”. Sarà presente anche la Provincia di Vicenza con il consigliere Giovanni Antonio Gasparini su delega del presidente Francesco Rucco.

San Giacomo Oggi Don Francisco Fernández Carvajal, prendendo spunto dalla figura di San Giacomo, ci spiega cosa significa «bere il calice del Signore» e come non dobbiamo scoraggiarci per le nostre debolezze, ma ricorrere al Signore e alla Vergine Maria.

Omelia della s. Messa del 25 luglio 2022, Festa di s. Giacomo Il Maggiore, apostolo, tenuta da p. Donato Maria Donadello, FI.

Dal Vangelo di Matteo 20,20-28 In quel tempo, si avvicinò a Gesù la madre dei figli di Zebedèo con i suoi figli e si prostrò per chiedergli qualcosa. Egli le disse: «Che cosa vuoi?». Gli rispose: «Di' che questi miei due figli siedano uno alla tua destra e uno alla tua sinistra nel tuo regno». Rispose Gesù: «Voi non sapete quello che chiedete. Potete bere il calice che io sto per bere?». Gli dicono: «Lo possiamo». Ed egli disse loro: «Il mio calice, lo berrete; però sedere alla mia destra e alla mia sinistra non sta a me concederlo: è per coloro per i quali il Padre mio lo ha preparato». Gli altri dieci, avendo sentito, si sdegnarono con i due fratelli. Ma Gesù li chiamò a sé e disse: «Voi sapete che i governanti delle nazioni dòminano su di esse e i capi le opprimono. Tra voi non sarà così; ma chi vuole diventare grande tra voi, sarà vostro servitore e chi vuole essere il primo tra voi, sarà vostro schiavo. Come il Figlio dell'uomo, che non è venuto per farsi servire, ma per servire e dare la propria vita in riscatto per molti». --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/vangelo/message

Full Text of ReadingsMonday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time Lectionary: 395All podcast readings are produced by the USCCB and are from the Catholic Lectionary, based on the New American Bible and approved for use in the United States _______________________________________The Saint of the day is Saint Camillus de LellisHumanly speaking, Camillus was not a likely candidate for sainthood. His mother died when he was a child, his father neglected him, and he grew up with an excessive love for gambling. At 17, he was afflicted with a disease of his leg that remained with him for life. In Rome he entered the San Giacomo Hospital for Incurables as both patient and servant, but was dismissed for quarrelsomeness after nine months. He served in the Venetian army for three years. Then in the winter of 1574, when he was 24, Camillus gambled away everything he had—savings, weapons, literally down to his shirt. He accepted work at the Capuchin friary at Manfredonia, and was one day so moved by a sermon of the superior that he began a conversion that changed his life. He entered the Capuchin novitiate, but was dismissed because of the apparently incurable sore on his leg. After another stint of service at San Giacomo, he came back to the Capuchins, only to be dismissed again, for the same reason. Again, back at San Giacomo, his dedication was rewarded by his being made superintendent. Camillus devoted the rest of his life to the care of the sick. Along with Saint John of God he has been named patron of hospitals, nurses, and the sick. With the advice of his friend Saint Philip Neri, he studied for the priesthood and was ordained at the age of 34. Contrary to the advice of his friend, Camillus left San Giacomo and founded a congregation of his own. As superior, he devoted much of his own time to the care of the sick. Charity was his first concern, but the physical aspects of the hospital also received his diligent attention. Camillus insisted on cleanliness and the technical competence of those who served the sick. The members of his community bound themselves to serve prisoners and persons infected by the plague as well as those dying in private homes. Some of his men were with troops fighting in Hungary and Croatia in 1595, forming the first recorded military field ambulance. In Naples, he and his men went onto the galleys that had plague and were not allowed to land. He discovered that there were people being buried alive, and ordered his brothers to continue the prayers for the dying 15 minutes after apparent death. Camillus himself suffered the disease of his leg through his life. In his last illness, he left his own bed to see if other patients in the hospital needed help. Reflection Saints are created by God. Parents must indeed nurture the faith in their children; husbands and wives must cooperate to deepen their baptismal grace; friends must support each other. But all human effort is only the dispensing of divine power. We must all try as if everything depended on us. But only the power of God can fulfill the plan of God—to make us like himself. Saint Camillus de Lellis is the Patron Saint of: Hospitals Nurses Healthcare workers Sick Click here to meet seven lesser-known Catholic saints! Saint of the Day, Copyright Franciscan Media

Roberto Tiraboschi"Il rospo e la badessa"Venetia 1172edizioni e/ohttps://edizionieo.it/Venezia, maggio 1172. Sicara Caroso, badessa del monastero di San Lorenzo, quando scoppia la rivolta in città sta recandosi a San Giacomo in Paludo, un convento sperduto nella laguna. Una giovane monaca indemoniata, Persede Gradenigo, figlia di uno dei nobili più in vista, è stata trovata affogata in fondo a un pozzo. Le consorelle sostengono che si è tolta la vita, spinta dal demonio che la possedeva. La badessa è piena di dubbi. Ha inizio così un lungo e tortuoso percorso alla ricerca della verità.Nel Rospo e la badessa il romanzo storico si mescola al romanzo noir in un intreccio di estrema attualità.Venezia, maggio 1172. La città è in fiamme, devastata da una sommossa scoppiata dopo la sconfitta della flotta veneta nei pressi di Costantinopoli. Il doge Vitale II Michiel viene assassinato dai rivoltosi sul sagrato della chiesa di San Zaccaria. Di cento galee inviate in Oriente ne sono tornate solo diciassette. E con i superstiti è sbarcata anche un'epidemia di peste. La prima di cui si ha notizia nella storia di Venezia. Il compito più urgente è scegliere un nuovo Doge. Intorno a questa nomina si scatenano gli appetiti di tutta la nobiltà veneziana. Sicara Caroso, badessa del monastero di San Lorenzo, donna dalla bellezza inquietante, quando scoppia la rivolta sta recandosi a San Giacomo in Paludo, un convento sperduto nella laguna. Una giovane monaca indemoniata, Persede Gradenigo, figlia di uno dei nobili più in vista della città, è stata trovata affogata in fondo a un pozzo. Le consorelle sostengono che si è tolta la vita, spinta dal demonio che la possedeva. La badessa è piena di dubbi. Ha inizio così un lungo e tortuoso percorso alla ricerca della verità. Negli stessi giorni Venezia si trova davanti a una svolta politica, uno scontro tra “populismo” e “democrazia” ancora oggi attuale. Molti membri del Consiglio spingono per un cambiamento radicale del metodo elettivo del Doge: non più affidato alla proclamazione diretta del popolo, ma scelto da pochi prescelti, selezionati tra i rappresentanti dei cittadini. Un cambiamento epocale che può determinare il futuro della città.Roberto Tiraboschi è nato a Bergamo e vive tra Roma e Venezia. Drammaturgo e sceneggiatore, ha scritto per diversi registi italiani, tra cui Liliana Cavani, Marco Pontecorvo, Silvio Soldini. Le Edizioni E/O hanno pubblicato i romanzi Sguardo 11 e Sonno, vincitore del Premio nazionale di narrativa Bergamo e del Premio Stresa di narrativa, nonché la saga in tre volumi sulla nascita di Venezia: La pietra per gli occhi, La bottega dello speziale e L'angelo del mare fangoso.IL POSTO DELLE PAROLEascoltare fa pensarehttps://ilpostodelleparole.it/

- Premi il tasto PLAY per ascoltare la catechesi del giorno e condividi con altri se vuoi -+ Dalla lettera di san Giacomo apostolo +Fratelli miei, da dove vengono le guerre e le liti che sono in mezzo a voi? Non vengono forse dalle vostre passioni che fanno guerra nelle vostre membra? Siete pieni di desideri e non riuscite a possedere; uccidete, siete invidiosi e non riuscite a ottenere; combattete e fate guerra! Non avete perché non chiedete; chiedete e non ottenete perché chiedete male, per soddisfare cioè le vostre passioni. Gente infedele! Non sapete che l'amore per il mondo è nemico di Dio? Chi dunque vuole essere amico del mondo si rende nemico di Dio. O forse pensate che invano la Scrittura dichiari: «Fino alla gelosia ci ama lo Spirito, che egli ha fatto abitare in noi»? Anzi, ci concede la grazia più grande; per questo dice: «Dio resiste ai superbi, agli umili invece dà la sua grazia». Sottomettetevi dunque a Dio; resistete al diavolo, ed egli fuggirà lontano da voi. Avvicinatevi a Dio ed egli si avvicinerà a voi. Peccatori, purificate le vostre mani; uomini dall'animo indeciso, santificate i vostri cuori. Riconoscete la vostra miseria, fate lutto e piangete; le vostre risa si cambino in lutto e la vostra allegria in tristezza. Umiliatevi davanti al Signore ed egli vi esalterà.Parola di Dio.Parola del Signore.

- Premi il tasto PLAY per ascoltare la catechesi del giorno e condividi con altri se vuoi -+ Dalla lettera di san Giacomo apostolo +Fratelli miei, chi tra voi è saggio e intelligente? Con la buona condotta mostri che le sue opere sono ispirate a mitezza e sapienza. Ma se avete nel vostro cuore gelosia amara e spirito di contesa, non vantatevi e non dite menzogne contro la verità.Non è questa la sapienza che viene dall'alto: è terrestre, materiale, diabolica; perché dove c'è gelosia e spirito di contesa, c'è disordine e ogni sorta di cattive azioni. Invece la sapienza che viene dall'alto anzitutto è pura, poi pacifica, mite, arrendevole, piena di misericordia e di buoni frutti, imparziale e sincera.Per coloro che fanno opera di pace viene seminato nella pace un frutto di giustizia.Parola di Dio.Parola del Signore.

- Premi il tasto PLAY per ascoltare la catechesi del giorno e condividi con altri se vuoi -+ Dalla lettera di san Giacomo apostolo +A che serve, fratelli miei, se uno dice di avere fede, ma non ha le opere? Quella fede può forse salvarlo? Se un fratello o una sorella sono senza vestiti e sprovvisti del cibo quotidiano e uno di voi dice loro: «Andatevene in pace, riscaldatevi e saziatevi», ma non date loro il necessario per il corpo, a che cosa serve? Così anche la fede: se non è seguita dalle opere, in se stessa è morta.Al contrario uno potrebbe dire: «Tu hai la fede e io ho le opere; mostrami la tua fede senza le opere, e io con le mie opere ti mostrerò la mia fede». Tu credi che c'è un Dio solo? Fai bene; anche i demòni lo credono e tremano! Insensato, vuoi capire che la fede senza le opere non ha valore?Abramo, nostro padre, non fu forse giustificato per le sue opere, quando offrì Isacco, suo figlio, sull'altare? Vedi: la fede agiva insieme alle opere di lui, e per le opere la fede divenne perfetta. E si compì la Scrittura che dice: «Abramo credette a Dio e gli fu accreditato come giustizia», ed egli fu chiamato amico di Dio.Vedete: l'uomo è giustificato per le opere e non soltanto per la fede. Infatti come il corpo senza lo spirito è morto, così anche la fede senza le opere è morta.Parola di Dio.Parola del Signore.

- Premi il tasto PLAY per ascoltare la catechesi del giorno e condividi con altri se vuoi -+ Dalla lettera di san Giacomo apostolo +Fratelli miei, la vostra fede nel Signore nostro Gesù Cristo, Signore della gloria, sia immune da favoritismi personali. Supponiamo che, in una delle vostre riunioni, entri qualcuno con un anello d'oro al dito, vestito lussuosamente, ed entri anche un povero con un vestito logoro. Se guardate colui che è vestito lussuosamente e gli dite: «Tu siediti qui, comodamente», e al povero dite: «Tu mettiti là, in piedi», oppure: «Siediti qui ai piedi del mio sgabello», non fate forse discriminazioni e non siete giudici dai giudizi perversi?Ascoltate, fratelli miei carissimi: Dio non ha forse scelto i poveri agli occhi del mondo, che sono ricchi nella fede ed eredi del Regno, promesso a quelli che lo amano? Voi invece avete disonorato il povero! Non sono forse i ricchi che vi opprimono e vi trascinano davanti ai tribunali? Non sono loro che bestemmiano il bel nome che è stato invocato sopra di voi?Certo, se adempite quella che, secondo la Scrittura, è la legge regale: «Amerai il prossimo tuo come te stesso», fate bene. Ma se fate favoritismi personali, commettete un peccato e siete accusati dalla Legge come trasgressori.Parola di Dio.Parola del Signore.

- Premi il tasto PLAY per ascoltare la catechesi del giorno e condividi con altri se vuoi -+ Dalla lettera di san Giacomo apostolo +Lo sapete, fratelli miei carissimi: ognuno sia pronto ad ascoltare, lento a parlare e lento all'ira. Infatti l'ira dell'uomo non compie ciò che è giusto davanti a Dio. Perciò liberatevi da ogni impurità e da ogni eccesso di malizia, accogliete con docilità la Parola che è stata piantata in voi e può portarvi alla salvezza.Siate di quelli che mettono in pratica la Parola, e non ascoltatori soltanto, illudendo voi stessi; perché, se uno ascolta la Parola e non la mette in pratica, costui somiglia a un uomo che guarda il proprio volto allo specchio: appena si è guardato, se ne va, e subito dimentica come era. Chi invece fissa lo sguardo sulla legge perfetta, la legge della libertà, e le resta fedele, non come un ascoltatore smemorato ma come uno che la mette in pratica, questi troverà la sua felicità nel praticarla.Se qualcuno ritiene di essere religioso, ma non frena la lingua e inganna così il suo cuore, la sua religione è vana. Religione pura e senza macchia davanti a Dio Padre è questa: visitare gli orfani e le vedove nelle sofferenze e non lasciarsi contaminare da questo mondo.Parola di Dio.Parola del Signore.

- Premi il tasto PLAY per ascoltare la catechesi del giorno e condividi con altri se vuoi -+ Dalla lettera di san Giacomo apostolo +Beato l'uomo che resiste alla tentazione perché, dopo averla superata, riceverà la corona della vita, che il Signore ha promesso a quelli che lo amano.Nessuno, quando è tentato, dica: «Sono tentato da Dio»; perché Dio non può essere tentato al male ed egli non tenta nessuno. Ciascuno piuttosto è tentato dalle proprie passioni, che lo attraggono e lo seducono; poi le passioni concepiscono e generano il peccato, e il peccato, una volta commesso, produce la morte.Non ingannatevi, fratelli miei carissimi; ogni buon regalo e ogni dono perfetto vengono dall'alto e discendono dal Padre, creatore della luce: presso di lui non c'è variazione né ombra di cambiamento. Per sua volontà egli ci ha generati per mezzo della parola di verità, per essere una primizia delle sue creature.Parola di Dio.Parola del Signore.

- Premi il tasto PLAY per ascoltare la catechesi del giorno e condividi con altri se vuoi -+ Dalla lettera di san Giacomo apostolo +Giacomo, servo di Dio e del Signore Gesù Cristo, alle dodici tribù che sono nella diaspora, salute.Considerate perfetta letizia, miei fratelli, quando subite ogni sorta di prove, sapendo che la vostra fede, messa alla prova, produce pazienza. E la pazienza completi l'opera sua in voi, perché siate perfetti e integri, senza mancare di nulla.Se qualcuno di voi è privo di sapienza, la domandi a Dio, che dona a tutti con semplicità e senza condizioni, e gli sarà data. La domandi però con fede, senza esitare, perché chi esita somiglia all'onda del mare, mossa e agitata dal vento. Un uomo così non pensi di ricevere qualcosa dal Signore: è un indeciso, instabile in tutte le sue azioni.Il fratello di umile condizione sia fiero di essere innalzato, il ricco, invece, di essere abbassato, perché come fiore d'erba passerà. Si leva il sole col suo ardore e fa seccare l'erba e il suo fiore cade, e la bellezza del suo aspetto svanisce. Così anche il ricco nelle sue imprese appassirà.Parola di Dio.Parola del Signore.