Gritty Comfort TV

From The Living Church-

When screenwriter Heidi Thomas unveiled her TV series Call the Midwife, common wisdom at the BBC said no one would watch it. After all, an almost all-female cast of nurses and of nuns who pray for patients and sing the Daily Office seemed hardly the stuff of a TV blockbuster.

Call the Midwife proved the doubters wrong, attracting the biggest audience for a BBC series in more than a decade. Despite carping reviews claiming the series over-sentimentalises the tough lives of poor people in London’s East End, British audiences love it. So too audiences in the United States and Australia. The pain and deprivation in the immediate post-war years in London’s Docklands has gradually emerged. Few happy-ever-after plots here.

U.S. audiences will shortly be treated to the second season of Call the Midwife, which has become a surprising but deserving rival for the sumptuous but lame-brained storylines of Downton Abbey.

More here-

http://www.livingchurch.org/gritty-comfort-tv

Father Albert Cutie to Jennifer Lopez & Marc Anthony: Don't Rush into a New Situation

From Fox-

Father Albert Cutié knows all about marriage. The Catholic-turned-Episcopal priest, who married his long term clandestine girlfriend, Ruhama Buni Canellis, after paparazzi snapped photos of them sun bathing on South Beach, says he thinks Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony should take “time to process the pain” of their failed seven year marriage.

“The fact is divorce is like a loss,” Cutié told Fox News Latino exclusively. “You experience the same thing as if you lose a loved one. There’s a grieving process that requires time and healing.”

Father Oprah, as he is called due to his newly released talk show, recalls how distraught he felt upon learning that Lopez and Marc Anthony were calling it quits.

“I was sad for them,” Cutié told Fox news Latino exclusively. “Their family and relationship stability is always at play… in more vulnerable situations than your typical couple because of their lifestyle.”

Cutié adds that he believes J.Lo and Marc “are seeking to have a normal life like any other couple and a normal marriage,” he stresses what has helped him and his wife get through the hard times.


Read more:

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/entertainment/2011/07/21/father-albert-cutie-to-jennifer-lopez-marc-anthony-dont-run-into-new-situation/#ixzz1SpZkjup5

Craig Ferguson and Jimmy Fallon, the Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Cameron Diaz: not just another late night

Meanwhile, Craig Ferguson's guest last night was Archbishop Desmond Tutu, not exactly a mainstay of late-night entertainment. Ferguson's conversation with the clergyman was by turns serious, funny, and sometimes both simultaneously ("When you don't forgive, frequently you feel it in your tum-tum," said the Archbishop, patting his own tummy) as they talked about race, God, good and evil. And nagging wives. All without reading from cue cards or notes. "I think you're crazy!" Tutu chuckled at one point. Craig also told an excellent chess joke involving bishops.

Now, I am not for a second suggesting that late-night hosts should start booking more serious guests to boost their cred -- even Ferguson said this hour contained "all the stuff that you don't come to the show for." Nor am I saying Fallon was the lesser host for yukking it up with Diaz while Ferguson chatted up a Nobel Peace Prize winner. These guys both make their living being, as Craig described himself last night, "a vulgar lounge entertainer."

What I am saying is that Ferguson did a damn fine job interviewing Bishop Tutu without being intimidated or fawning, and in so doing, demonstrated the range of tones and subject matter that can be addressed on late-night TV to which Fallon can only aspire. No, I'm not sitting here hoping Fallon books the Archbishop of Canterbury on his show to demonstrate his chops and competitiveness (although, Jimmy, there's a goldmine of comedy in all that some-churches-seceding-from-the-church thing going on in the Episcopal church).

http://watching-tv.ew.com/2009/03/jimmy-fallon-cr.html

STORY OF KING DAVID BASIS FOR NEW NBC SERIES

A contemporary retelling of the biblical story of King David will premiere on NBC this month as “Kings.”

Created by Michael Green (“Heroes,” “Everwood”), it centers on the drama surrounding David Shepherd, a young soldier in the war-torn country of Gilboa, who will rise to fame after inspiring the nation through his fearless rescue of the king’s son.

Amid Shepherd's thrust toward destiny and peace for the kingdom, however, the country's power players will go to great lengths to see him fall, blurring the line between his allies and enemies.

The series is expected to draw the religious and the non-religious – the latter because of epic style and dramatic feel, and the former because it is expected to stick closely to the Old Testament, which Green says provides enough material to shape at least several seasons.

The story of King David itself, as Green points out, is one that has transcended religion and has become a part of several different cultures.

http://eurweb.com/story/eur51308.cfm