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Margaret Qualley and a fire-breathing Melissa Leo make vivid impressions in Maggie Betts' intelligent, ambiguous nunnery drama.
Margaret Qualley, Melissa Leo, Julianne Nicholson, Dianna Agron, Rebecca Dayan, Morgan Saylor, Liana Liberato, Maddie Hasson, Ashley Bell, Eline Powell, Denis O'Hare, Chris Zylka.
Her film may have far too many weighty matters on its mind to leave much room for petty resentments, but one wonders if writer-director Maggie Betts isn’t the teeniest bit annoyed that a certain other prestige drama about Catholic self-doubt and self-sacrifice beat hers to the title “Silence.” It would certainly be the ideal moniker for “Novitiate,” a piercing, immersive, and superbly played convent drama in which the suppression of speech is witnessed at both an individual and institutional level. The film marks an impressive first foray into starring vehicles for Margaret Qualley, ideally cast as a teenage nun-in-training whose devotional conflicts coincide with the Vatican’s radical reform of the Catholic Church in the early 1960s. But the most searing material here is reserved for Melissa Leo, who’s entirely startling as a merciless Mother Superior whose very sense of spiritual purpose is rocked by the new schemata.
Boldly embracing the character’s most unhinged aspects with a healthy hint of camp, yet never rendering her inhuman, Leo’s remarkable performance should be the conversation starter that moves this challenging film onto the radar of distributors, arthouse audiences, and, potentially, awards voters. The recent commercial (mis)fortunes of Martin Scorsese’s extraordinary Jesuit epic may make buyers leery of another solemn period piece dedicated to the sometimes punishing formalities of a highly specific faith. Both tonally and stylistically, however, “Novitiate” is a very different string of beads, plunging into unabashed melodrama as tensions, attractions, and flagellations run high at the film’s fictitious Tennessee convent. Only occasionally does a wobbly strain of sensationalism creep into proceedings; Betts’s original screenplay, while not without wit, is conscientious in its theological considerations on what constitutes faith and how overtly it needs to be expressed.
For shy, intelligent 17-year-old Cathleen (Qualley), the rigors of Catholic worship and schooling come as a peaceful respite from a fractured home life. Her loving but hard-shelled mother Nora (a fine, peppery Julianne Nicholson) introduces Cathleen to the Church at an early age, despite being a rigid agnostic herself. Her liberal belief that her daughter should decide on religious matters for herself takes a less open-minded turn when Cathleen announces firmly that she wishes to devote her life to God, enrolling with the Roses as a postulant. “What the hell did I do wrong?” she wails to her daughter, who initially takes to the austerity of convent life like a duck to holy water. The film splits its sympathies evenly between Cathleen and Nora on this front, recognizing the comforts and rewards of the daughter’s religious fervor, while sharing the mother’s concern that withdrawing from the outside world for life might not represent the best use of such spiritual fortitude. Wherever “Novitiate” falls on the Catholic spectrum, its perspective is not a prescriptive one.
Cathleen’s dedication to convent life wavers, however, as other girls are removed from the group for reasons that have little to do with their fundamental faith. By the time one of their instructors, the kindly, forward-thinking Sister Mary Grace (a precise, poignant turn from “Glee” alum Dianna Agron) abruptly leaves the Roses, it’s clear that something is amiss in the administration of the Reverend Mother — who can’t maintain her stubborn denial of directives from the Vatican for much longer. As her resistance attracts the attention of the Archbishop, “Novitiate” expands from a very particular coming-of-age story into a fascinating war of ideals between opposing factions and generations of Catholicism — one that bears (and more than survives) comparison to John Patrick Shanley’s 1964-set “Doubt,” in which the rulings of Vatican II also upended a conservative convent’s power structure.
Frankly, one would pay good money to see an “Alien vs. Predator”-style showdown between those two films’ formidable Mother Superiors, though Leo might just edge it. Seething, wheedling, and weeping by turns, she offers a genuinely frightening study in the potentially dangerous consequences of power assumed by invisible divinity, but she’s no two-dimensional gorgon: The mask slips at points to reveal a rather vulnerable woman, eternally unloved on Earth, for whom the Church once offered the same yearned-for security that Cathleen seeks now. Qualley, the ethereally striking daughter of Andie MacDowell, plays the perfect counterpoint to Leo’s bravura turn, her serene features nonetheless betraying a silent, agitated curiosity — both philosophical and sensual — that only voices itself at the eleventh hour.
The remaining ensemble work is as solid and finely nuanced as the film’s craft contributions, courtesy of a largely distaff crew. Veteran editor Susan E. Morse keeps the film’s many lines of argument compellingly braided over a leisurely but justified two-hour run-time, while cinematographer Kat Westergaard keeps finding unexpected pockets of light in the stark, oaky corridors of the convent, at one point filtering it through a starched, golden-white row of wimples. It’s to the credit of the film’s worldview, being more catholic than Catholic, that such an image could support any manner of symbolic reading, or none at all.
Reviewed at Sundance Film Festival (U.S. Dramatic Competition), Jan. 20, 2017. Running time: 123 MIN.
Production: A Maven Pictures production. (International sales: CAA, Los Angeles.) Producers: Carole J. Peterman, Celine Rattray, Trudie Styler. Executive producers: Jessica Betts, Roland Betts, Maggie Betts.
Crew: Director/writer: Maggie Betts. Camera (color, widescreen): Kat Westergaard. Editor: Susan E. Morse.
With: Margaret Qualley, Melissa Leo, Julianne Nicholson, Dianna Agron, Rebecca Dayan, Morgan Saylor, Liana Liberato, Maddie Hasson, Ashley Bell, Eline Powell, Denis O'Hare, Chris Zylka.
It was not a matter of focus and motivation, but a lack of ability, that led to the Sunwolves' 37-24 defeat by South Africa's Lions on Saturday (March 23) night at the National Stadium.
The encounter was the first since the Japanese side received news on Friday that they would be booted out of the Super Rugby competition after next season, but head coach Tony Brown insisted after the match that the bad news had not distracted his team.
He said: "The news didn't affect team morale. The Lions game was our sole focus and we are not concerned about what's going to happen in the future because all that is out of our hands."
The home side started the tie brightly, gaining 22m from kick-off and almost forcing a try from the get-go, only to be overruled by both the referee and the technical match official.
Still, the Sunwolves went ahead 7-0 after the referee awarded them a penalty try, before 4,389 fans at the Sports Hub.
But the Lions equalised via a converted try, and went into half-time 12-7 up after Lions captain Malcolm Marx - the scorer of his team's first try - scored another in the 35th minute.
The Sunwolves pulled the score back to 12-10 early in the second half with a 41st-minute penalty, but the tiring team were overpowered by the strong Lions side thereafter.
This condemned the Japanese to their fifth loss in six games in the Australian conference this season.
It was their second and final game here this season.
Brown said: "We were getting hammered at the breakdown and scrums. Not much has changed in the second half as compared to previous matches, so we have to look at what we do at the breakdowns and try to improve that."
Captain Dan Pryor added that, despite the loss and their impending Super Rugby exit, the players are still focused on their early-season goal of winning every game.
"The jersey means a lot to the boys. The culture that the Sunwolves have is very rare - the boys love playing for the jersey.
"While the news is devastating, it doesn't mean anything. We've got a goal to win every game and the boys are here to achieve their goal," he said.
Fans The Sunday Times spoke to at the National Stadium yesterday were disappointed that the Sunwolves will no longer be playing in Super Rugby after next season.
The competition will return to 14 teams and a round-robin format from 2021.
Sunwolves supporter Chris Howells said: "I think it's a shame because we're trying to build the game and we supporters want to see the game build, not cut back.
"I think them losing this is not good."
But if Trump would like to generate even closer ties between the two countries and greater prosperity for Americans and Israelis, he should consider a public pledge to move faster toward renewing the U.S. Free Trade Agreement with Israel and helping Israelis qualify for visa-free travel to the United States.
Both are critical yet seemingly unremarkable issues on which President Barack Obama achieved progress, but are not yet across the finish line.
America signed its first Free Trade Agreement, or FTA, with Israel in 1985, yet the 32-year old deal is sorely out of date and out of sync with an economic alliance that is booming in myriad and dynamic ways.
Israeli companies are designing and operating path-breaking water desalination plants in California; virtually every U.S. high-tech company has an R&D presence in the “Start-up Nation”; American companies are helping develop Israel’s offshore gas boom; the bilateral trade in services is soaring, and the success of new nonstop flights to San Francisco and Boston is a sign of new vitality and further growth potential.
But lagging behind is our government-to-government framework for trade and investment. This impacts almost every segment of the economic relationship.
For example, Israeli consumers, who face some of the highest costs of living in the developed world, are denied access to many low-cost American consumer goods, including agricultural and food products.
American infrastructure companies rarely compete for large public-sector contracts in Israel. El Al, Israel’s flagship air carrier, still boasts an all-Boeing (i.e. all-American) fleet, but most other transport and infrastructure arenas are dominated by European and Asian contractors and operators. Services have been a growth arena, but there is still huge untapped potential.
A modernized, more open FTA could unleash a flood of new direct investment in both countries and bring relief to Israeli consumers.
By deepening our economic ties and setting an example for other countries, it is also the strongest weapon we have to fight the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel and efforts to isolate the Jewish state.
Yet all sorts of challenges stand in the way, including traditional Israeli impulses to protect local producers, not to mention the newfound populist sentiment in America against free trade.
But this is not NAFTA and not the Trans-Pacific Partnership. At the end of the day, with adequate political support, a new FTA with Israel is within reach.
A related and equally important piece of unfinished business is granting Israel visa-waiver status. Unlike Americans, who can show up in Israel at a moment’s notice, Israelis need a visa to enter the U.S.
As any American diplomat will tell you, there is no issue Israelis complain about more than our time-consuming and expensive visa process. And it is more than just an inconvenience; there is a deep psychological context.
Israelis live on a razor’s edge, surrounded by enemies. For many Israelis, life is a pressure cooker and foreign travel is a critical outlet and source of reassurance. It helps ameliorate the bunker mentality. And while Israelis can travel visa-free across Europe, Russia, South America and elsewhere, until Israel can meet the criteria for the Visa Waiver Program, or VWP, as defined under U.S. immigration law, the visa requirement will remain.
Younger Israelis, many just out of the military, are among those who find it hardest to prove eligibility for a visa given the need to demonstrate strong ties that will ensure their return home.
In 2014, the U.S. and Israeli governments launched a joint task force and a step-by-step process to help Israel meet the VWP requirements.
One area of progress is the steep decline in the refusal rate, which has been cut in half, a direct result of joint efforts to help Israelis better understand the visa application process. Eligibility for VWP includes a 3 percent ceiling for refusals; Israel is tantalizingly close.
There are other benchmarks Israel still must reach, such as better synchronizing the sharing of traveler data and ensuring reciprocity — that is, equal treatment of all U.S. citizens at Israeli points of entry.
Remaining requirements can be advanced more quickly by senior-level attention, which President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu could announce together next week at the White House.
Granting Israel visa-waiver status will increase Israeli travel to the U.S., including professional exchanges, and strengthen investor and business ties that can be further propelled by a new FTA. It will also facilitate closer people-to-people ties between Israeli Jews and the American Jewish community, enabling an even greater sense of partnership and shared destiny.
President Trump, and many around him, have already demonstrated support for erecting new barriers to foreign visitors and commerce, which is why deepening the U.S.-Israel alliance in terms of expanded travel and trade may prove more challenging than expected.
In this regard, concerted appeals from American Jewish leaders and the Government of Israel could prove decisive.
Policies that make Israelis safer, more self-assured and more prosperous will also benefit the bigger ticket, strategic questions that still lay ahead for the Trump administration, like how to address what has become a grinding and destabilizing stalemate on the Palestinian track.
President Obama concluded a historic $38 billion security assistance agreement with Israel — the largest defense package ever extended to any country — and led the way to numerous other upgrades in our bilateral security partnership, from F-35s to Iron Dome to greater intelligence sharing.
Yet outside the security realm, there remains vital unfinished business and opportunities that, if seized by President Trump, could benefit Americans and Israelis and further strengthen this alliance.
Sharp's boasting that their new 12.1MP sensor module is the world's thinnest, allowing it to squeeze completely unnoticed into newer, svelter smartphones. What users will notice is its built-in optical stabilization, reducing the amount of blur in their photos.
The module measures in at just 5.47mm thick, but Sharp has still managed to include a mechanical lens-shift stabilization system in the 1/3.2-inch CMOS camera module, countering most of the handheld shake that usually leads to blurry photos. The sensor is also capable of recording full 1080P HD video with the stabilization running, resulting in sharper footage, particularly when filmed in low light conditions.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has received the Candidature Files of five Candidate Cities bidding to host the 2018 Youth Olympic Games.
Buenos Aires, Glasgow, Guadalajara, Medellin and Rotterdam all delivered their files by the deadline.
An IOC Working Group, chaired by IOC member Claudia Bokel, will now analyse the Candidature Files and prepare a report that will be submitted to the IOC Executive Board.
On the basis of this report, the IOC Executive Board will decide which Cities shall be short-listed for further evaluation at its meeting in Lausanne on February 12th-13th 2013.
Following further assessment and video conferences with the short-listed Candidate Cities, a report shall be submitted to the IOC members, who will then elect the host city at their meeting in Lausanne on July 4th 2013.
The IOC will not release the Candidature Files, but has informed the Candidate Cities they can make their Files public and post them on their websites if they so wish.
For a few months now there have been rumors about something interesting coming from Philips’ lighting department. This new product was said to be LED-based, affordable — under $10 — and interesting. We didn’t know just how interesting but Philips had practically gone on record stating that the company would have a sub-$10 LED bulb before 2013 was over. Today the curtain was pulled back and the SlimStyle was revealed.
When looked at straight on, the SlimStyle appears to be bulb-shaped, but that’s actually only true in 2D. When turned, it’s clear that the lamp is flat on both sides and has a ring running around its outside which serves as a light guide. The design is unlike anything else found in the LED market today but not only because of its unique aesthetics, it’s also missing a part found on every one of its competitors: a metal heatsink.
Basically, LEDs don’t like to get hot — the heat decreases lifetime and brightness (I’ve spent a lot of time explaining that) so a metal heatsink is used to disperse heat, moving it away from the sensitive LEDs. With the SlimStyle Philips was able to move to an all-plastic body and still keep the LEDs cool enough to promise a 25,000 hour lifetime. And, in doing so, the company was able to move to this cool new design. Best of all: not only does the flat design help conduct heat away from the LEDs, says Philips, it also helps cut down on costs.
Unfortunately we don’t know the price yet. Philips has told us that the SlimStyle will be available through HomeDepot.com as of January 2, 2014. So the company’s sub-$10 LED bulb won’t quite make it into 2013. That is, of course, assuming that it is under $10.
The January 2nd release date isn’t just important because it’s soon, it’s also the start of 2014 which means that EISA (the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007) will have officially phased out 60W and 40W incandescent bulbs. At that point 60W-equivalent LED offerings won’t just be the best option available, they’ll be much closer to being the only game in town.
I’ve been testing the SlimStyle for some time now and I have to say that I’m pretty impressed. The bulb is impressively engineered, extremely light, very compact, and it just plain looks cool. The light quality is fine, well into what I would consider the acceptable range for the home. In fact I’ve been using the SlimStyle in my living room without a shade, just to get a feel for it. Philips’ early spec sheet didn’t note the color temperature, but it looks to be about 3000K to me, but it’s 2700K, and the lighting pattern is omnidirectional enough to suit my purposes.
As you can probably tell, I haven’t been overly analytical with this lamp just yet — I haven’t even taken it apart. I’ve spent my time simply using it, testing how this strange-looking bulb adapts to normal situations. You probably won’t be shocked to learn that it does its job, just like any quality LED bulb should. I haven’t found that it gets terribly hot or that it’s lost any brightness, so it seems like Philips was truly able to pull off the heat sink-free design.
Before SlimStyle goes on sale on January 2nd we should have more details on pricing and how Philips was able to deliver a LED lamp that offers solid performance, a great design, and — very possibly — a highly competitive price.
The Birmingham-Bloomfield Chai Center is a welcoming neighborhood synagogue serving the area of Birmingham-Bloomfield Hills, MI. Our mission is to create a Jewish home for residents that live here to call their own.
Posted on May 21, 2013. Brought to you by patch.
Making the click-through worthwhile: How a small act of vandalism in Alexandria, Va., suggests we’re likely to see more politically motivated violence, not less; America’s gun owners send a message with their wallets; and a horrific act in Toronto that technically wasn’t formal terrorism but is starting to feel indistinguishable from it.
Associated Press, April 21: Protester faces charges for vandalism at NRA lobbyist’s home.
Perhaps politics is another force that gives many Americans meaning. It gives them an enemy, a target and focus for all of their worst impulses and feelings. Very few of us can completely escape the temptation to feel hate, contempt, disdain, and a desire for someone else. Politics gives us a target and an excuse.
See those people over there? They’re not just mistaken or wrong, they’re trying to destroy the country. They’re “a basket of deplorables,” as Hillary put it.
Ted Nugent — not merely an aging rock star, but member of the board of the National Rifle Association — declares “the evidence is irrefutable,” the Parkland survivors who are pushing gun control “have no soul.” No one feels guilt about attacking a vampire or a zombie or a robot; their lack of a soul means there is no moral consequence.
Former sheriff Joe Arpaio — on the ballot as a Senate candidate today in Arizona — insists that he has scientific evidence from Italy proving that Barack Obama’s birth certificate is a “fake document” and that he was never eligible for the office of the presidency. It’s not enough to say, “I disagreed with a lot that Obama did as president” or “Obama was a lousy president”; he had to be an illegitimate one, the centerpiece of a nefarious far-reaching plot to install a Kenyan who would do things no “real” American president would ever do. Apparently, it’s too much to ask Arpaio to drop his focus on this issue, more than a year past Obama’s second term.
Koebel acknowledged that the protests are confrontational, but said the tactic is warranted under the circumstances.
“He’s profiting off murders and suicides,” Koebel said of Cox. She accused the NRA of encouraging its supporters to use armed intimidation as a political tactic.
Let’s tease this statement out a bit. There’s no evidence that the NRA’s Chris Cox actually is profiting off of murders and suicides; if he was, law enforcement would be pressing charges. What the protesters mean is that they are really angry about gun violence and they are angry that Cox disagrees with their desire to see private ownership of firearms banned. There is no real denial that throwing fake blood on the house of Cox and his family doesn’t constitute a crime of vandalism; the defense is “the tactic is warranted under the circumstances” — that Cox deserves to be the victim of a crime because he disagrees with the protesters.
Some people gave my friend Kurt Schlichter some grief about his speculative fiction novels that imagined the United States splitting into two countries, a traditional United States and a breakaway “People’s Republic of North America” that attempts to enact the progressive idealist dream and encounters quite a few problems along the way. Some contend that Kurt is rooting for this scenario or attempting to encourage some sort of secessionist fantasy. I don’t think that’s a fair reading of a man who says his military service in the Balkans shaped his view of this issue, but I suppose some might think that depicting a formally divided America might inadvertently encourage people to think more about a formally divided America.
But to those who feel so horrified at the thought of the United States no longer being so united, it feels fair to ask . . . just what road do you think we’re on? Did we see a lot of soul-searching after the attempted mass shooting on the Republican baseball team, or the attempt to run Representative David Kustoff off the road, or the assault on Congressman Rand Paul? Was there anything like the aftermath of the Gabby Giffords shooting, when President Obama spoke of the need to debate our differences “in a way that heals, not a way that wounds”?
If we no longer even go through the motions of calling for a debate that doesn’t demonize and dehumanize our opponents — “Deplorables!” “Soulless!” — just how wild and unthinkable does more political violence seem? And if more political violence doesn’t seem so unthinkable . . . why would a future formal national division be unthinkable as well?
Then again, maybe the angry Left is a lot more self-marginalizing than the pessimists think.
As the student-led March for Our Lives movement captured the nation’s attention in the weeks after the Parkland shooting, the other side of the gun control debate enjoyed a banner month of its own.
The National Rifle Association’s Political Victory Fund raised $2.4 million from March 1 to March 31, the group’s first full month of political fundraising since the . . . shooting on Valentine’s Day, according to filings submitted to the Federal Elections Commission. The total is $1.5 million more than the organization raised during the same time period in 2017, when it took in $884,000 in donations, and $1.6 million more than it raised in February 2018.
I’m no math major, but that means at least 9,500 Americans gave $200. We keep hearing the NRA described as a bunch of fat-cats. Come on, gun-control advocates. You don’t have to change your views, just acknowledge reality. To tie together two great projects of Charlton Heston, the secret of the NRA is the secret of Soylent Green: They’re both made of people.
Is deliberately running down pedestrians the new school shooting? As in, if you’re a mentally troubled malcontent full of rage at the world, this is how you decide to go out in a blaze of glory instead of dealing with the day-to-day problems of life like the rest of us?
The killing began on a busy lunchtime thoroughfare in Toronto on Monday when a white rental Ryder van ran over a pedestrian crossing the street — then mounted a sidewalk and began plowing into people indiscriminately.
By the end, at least 10 people were dead and 15 were injured, said the authorities.
The driver’s actions, they said, appeared intentional, but did not seem to have been an act of terrorism. “The city is safe,” said the Toronto police chief, Mark Saunders.
The carnage was reminiscent of deadly attacks by Islamic State supporters using vehicles that have shaken up Nice, France, Berlin, Barcelona, London and New York. But late Monday, Canada’s public safety minister, Ralph Goodale, said this time appeared to be different.
That statement is less reassuring than the speaker intended.
Bombs in the mail and on the street in Austin, a shooter in the halls of YouTube, a mass shooter in Las Vegas — remember him? Remember how authorities never determined a motive? — bombs on ferries in Playa Del Carmen in Mexico, speeding vans on the sidewalks in Toronto . . .
Are we sure terrorist groups have no influence on the mentally troubled?
ADDENDA: My friend Lisa de Pasquale informs me that Newt Gingrich is now offering his own version of a MasterClass entitled “Defending America.” The class consists of six on-demand videos of Gingrich laying out how the American vision of a “melting pot” of blended cultures has been poisoned; how faith and traditional values are attacked and demonized; how paths to success and opportunity are blocked to increase dependence upon government; how the concepts of “thought police” and criminalizing unpopular speech and ideas is no longer so farfetched; how Constitutional principle like the right to bear arms is blamed for violence instead of the actions of criminals, and how government workers, lobbyists, and influence organizations work in tandem to ensure government changes only marginally, no matter who wins elections. It is Newt Gingrich in his element, weaving together history and current politics, combining insider knowledge with the historian’s big-picture perspective.
Micro Focus International’s stock cratered more than 50% intraday on Monday.
It isn’t every day that traders cut one of the FTSE 100’s blue chips in half.
That plunge in Micro Focus International’s shares MCRO, +0.26% during the past week made Facebook’s FB, -0.28% selloff look mild. The Micro Focus bulls—they still exist—view the dive as overdone. They snort that the British business-software company boasts several stable revenue streams and a healthy balance sheet.

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