{"id":22892,"date":"2007-02-01T19:34:00","date_gmt":"2007-02-01T19:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lookingcloser.wordpress.com\/2007\/02\/01\/amazing-grace-dont-judge-a-film-by-its-preview\/"},"modified":"2013-02-04T13:32:07","modified_gmt":"2013-02-04T20:32:07","slug":"amazing-grace-dont-judge-a-film-by-its-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lookingcloser\/2007\/02\/amazing-grace-dont-judge-a-film-by-its-preview\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Amazing Grace&#8221;: Don&#8217;t Judge a Film By Its Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>I can\u2019t publish my review of <em><strong>Amazing Grace<\/strong><\/em> yet. But I will say this. The preview led me to believe it would be cheesy, overly sentimental, and old-fashioned in the worst kind of way.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m pleasantly surprised to tell you that you should plan to see it on opening night. There are plenty of highlights that make it worth your time and attention \u2026 not the least of which is its unapologetic celebration of Christian faith, and strong (if unfortunately brief) performances by Albert Finney, Michael Gambon, and Rufus Sewell (playing a sympathetic character for the first time in a while, thank goodness!) Oh, and Romola Garai once again demonstrates that she\u2019s leading lady material and one of the most radiant beauties of the big screen.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Anyway\u2026 the review is forthcoming, but I just want you to know that you shouldn\u2019t judge this one by its preview. It\u2019s better than that.<\/p>\n<p>It also contains one rather memorable blooper, but you have to watch carefully to catch it\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Oh, and if you WANT a review, there are a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slantmagazine.com\/film\/film_review.asp?ID=2765\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">few<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.variety.com\/review\/VE1117931601.html?categoryid=31&amp;cs=1\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">sites<\/a> who have published them early\u2026<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I can\u2019t publish my review of Amazing Grace yet. But I will say this. The preview led me to believe it would be cheesy, overly sentimental, and old-fashioned in the worst kind of way. I\u2019m pleasantly surprised to tell you that you should plan to see it on opening night. There are plenty of highlights [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1051,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1262,2068,1739],"class_list":["post-22892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-amazing-grace","tag-michael-apted","tag-william-wilberforce"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>&quot;Amazing Grace&quot;: Don&#039;t Judge a Film By Its Preview<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I can&#039;t publish my review of Amazing Grace yet. But I will say this. The preview led me to believe it would be cheesy, overly sentimental, and\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lookingcloser\/2007\/02\/amazing-grace-dont-judge-a-film-by-its-preview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"&quot;Amazing Grace&quot;: Don&#039;t Judge a Film By Its Preview\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I can&#039;t publish my review of Amazing Grace yet. But I will say this. The preview led me to believe it would be cheesy, overly sentimental, and\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lookingcloser\/2007\/02\/amazing-grace-dont-judge-a-film-by-its-preview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Looking Closer\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-02-01T19:34:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-02-04T20:32:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jeffrey Overstreet\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jeffrey Overstreet\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lookingcloser\/2007\/02\/amazing-grace-dont-judge-a-film-by-its-preview\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lookingcloser\/2007\/02\/amazing-grace-dont-judge-a-film-by-its-preview\/\",\"name\":\"\\\"Amazing Grace\\\": Don't Judge a Film By Its Preview\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lookingcloser\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2007-02-01T19:34:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-02-04T20:32:07+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lookingcloser\/#\/schema\/person\/2675c6d9f6401acd7568e32160e5374e\"},\"description\":\"I can't publish my review of Amazing Grace yet. 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