The Two Popes

After seeing the Golden Globe Award nominations included The Two Popes, I thought I should give this new Netflix docu-drama a chance.  Although I'm not a religious man (but married in a Catholic church and both my children are baptized), I was curious about the history and the mystique of the papacy.  Of course, I also went into the film with some trepidation due to the many serious sexual misconduct charges and crimes that continue to damage the church's status and teachings.

I loved it.  I was amazed how the filmmakers got access to the real-world locations and the cinematography was simply stunning.  I was also incredibly impressed by Hopkins' and Pryce's acting in as many as 4 different languages (English, Italian, Spanish and Latin - Hopkins' also spoke German in the film).  Their portrayals of the two famous popes was magnificent.  I'm not certain how close to reality it was, but I really like how we got to learn something behind their grand public personas, how different they are and how "normal" they could be.  I kept asking myself, who in the Vatican approved this film, how did they get the access to these very special places.  The inclusion of real-world TV footage and social media bits was a nice balance with the fictional and speculative elements.  And how did they handle the controversy? - quite well I think - some may say too soft, but it was enough to say there are serious issues underfoot, but not enough to distract from the beauty of their world and the touching human story.  Even the soundtrack was lovely, who knew Pope Benedict was a gifted pianist.  And bring in some Argentina versus Germany footy and you get a tasty mix of art, history, geography, humanity, religion, news, drama and personal reflection.  Well done 9/10.

I'm suspicious about coincidence

My Facebook profile says that my religious view is "I'm suspicious about coincidence".

Coincidence continues to be something I notice a lot, maybe more than most people. The way I've said this is deliberate - I believe coincidences are happening all the time and the personal connection is simply a matter of noticing them. Coincidences may not really happen to people, they happen and people observe them.

I'm not a religious person (well not in the traditional, organized religion, sense), but in this week's episode of House, I heard a great requote of Einstein - "Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous". There seems to be a lot of links on this quote.

Don't laugh, but I'm actually trying to develop a more complete theory about coincidence. One element of the theory needs to consider the time element. How far apart in time do two events have to occur for them to be considered coincidental ?

I hope to write more on the subject in the future, but if you find some other interesting views on the topic or have your own comments I'd love to hear them.

Latest coincidence that sparked this entry: listening to a Beth Orton track that a friend reblipped and I in turn reblipped with the comment "The mood of this just kinda sums up this gray wet day". I then notice that the original Blip DJ provided "rainy day ohio" and "here's my perfect rainy day band" as comments to earlier tunes today. Weather may not be the largest of coincidences, but it's a nice feeling when a little coincidence make us feel connected to other people. Are we really strangers ?