Posts by darkspilver

10

RC 2018

by darkspilver in

following on from last year's threadhttps://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5695993188188160/rc-2017here we go with the 2018 regional conventions!.....

darkspilver

The locations and months for the seven 2018 Special Conventions (AKA International Conventions) have been announced.

www.jw2018.org

Of course they wouldn't be special without a logo - see bottom of post......

Locations

Georgia - Tbilisi - July 2018

Norway - Oslo - July 2018

Papua New Guinea - Port Moresby - July 2018

Sri Lanka - Colombo - July 2018

Ukraine - Lviv - July 2018

Mozambique - Maputo - September 2018

Peru - Lima - November 2018

Basic Eligibility Requirements

+ You attend a congregation that has been invited by the local branch office. Or, someone in an eligible congregation has invited you to join their travel group. Your congregation secretary can provide further details on these arrangements.
+ You are exemplary in every respect, including dress and grooming.
+ You are able to travel without the physical assistance of others. Standing and walking for long periods of time should not pose a health risk.
+ You can stay in one of the designated hotels for a minimum of seven nights.

All applicants should meet one of the following requirements, as of January 1, 2018

+ 19 years of age or older and serve as elders, as ministerial servants, or in some form of full-time service.
+ Baptized for 20 years or longer. The baptized mates of such ones may apply as well.
+ Baptized and unbaptized minor children between the ages of 12 and 19 years and are still living at home may accompany their baptized parent(s).
+ Baptized adult children still living at home may accompany their baptized parent(s).

Submitting Your Application

+ If more than one member of a family is applying, a separate application is needed for each person in the family.
+ Applications should be submitted to the secretary and you will receive an e-mail message when they have been entered into jw-org asking you to verify the submitted e-mail address.
+ Please submit your application by the due date announced to your congregation.
+ It is not necessary to contact the branch office to determine if you have been selected. If selected to attend you will be notified via e-mail, and more information related to the specific convention for which you have been approved will be provided, including the specific dates. If you have a question about your status, ask your congregation secretary. If he informs you that your “Status Summary” on jw-org indicates “Applied,” you have not yet been selected.

Travel Groups

+ Effort will be made to accommodate the requests of those who wish to attend the same convention with family members or friends. However, the size of the group will be limited to no more than eight persons. One member of the group should be designated to serve as the group contact before applications are submitted. Generally, a brother will serve as the contact. However, if a group is comprised of sisters only, one of them may act as the group contact. To be linked together, each applicant must use the same travel group identification.
+ To obtain a group ID, the group contact should request one from the congregation secretary as soon as possible. He must provide his e-mail address to the secretary in order to receive a group ID. The secretary will obtain a unique number from jw-org and provide it to the group contact. The group contact must provide the group ID to the other members in his group for them to include on their respective applications. Using the same number will be the only way to link applicants wishing to travel together. This includes friends as well as all family members (even a marriage mate and others in the same household). Also, all members in a group must stay in the same hotel and have the same preferences for activities.

Convention Arrangements

+ You will benefit, not only from the spiritual association during the three-day convention, but also by spending three additional days with the local brothers either before or after the convention so that there may be “an interchange of encouragement by one another’s faith.” (Rom 1:12) Therefore, you will spend at least seven nights in the convention city.
+ The host branch office will provide you an Approved Hotel List at the time of your selection. You will be required to make your own reservation directly with one of the hotels listed on the jw2018.org website
+ The host branch office will create an itinerary for your group based on your activity preferences. This will include field service, attending a gathering with local brothers and possibly visiting places of local interest.
+ Travel agencies can be used for auxiliary tours before or after the seven days spent in the convention city.
+ No plans should be made until you have been selected as a delegate.

Reminders

+ Airfare, hotel stays, meals, and other costs can be expensive. Heed Jesus’ advice at Luke 14:28 to “calculate the expense.”
+ Please make sure all in your group have up to date passports and understand any specific travel requirements before you travel.
+ Only individuals who are selected by the branch office as delegates should plan to attend one of the special conventions. Problems arise when individuals who are not delegates attend these events due to the limited amount of space at each convention location.
+ Applications should be submitted by the date specified by the congregation secretary.
+ You may invite someone from within your own branch territory to join your travel group if they attend a congregation that is not invited and they meet the requirements mentioned above.
+ Single persons may apply if they either have prearranged a roommate of the same gender or agree to pay the single-supplement price for a single occupancy hotel room.
+ Individuals who are engaged and will be married before the convention can apply as a group, similar to a married couple.

10

RC 2018

by darkspilver in

following on from last year's threadhttps://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5695993188188160/rc-2017here we go with the 2018 regional conventions!.....

darkspilver

Following on from last year's thread

https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5695993188188160/rc-2017

Here we go with the 2018 Regional Conventions!.....

75

Apostasy: The Movie - Directed by Daniel Kokotajlo

by darkspilver in

jw
friends

daniel kokotajlo's new film apostasy has it's world premiere at the toronto international film festival in september 2017. apostasy.

family and faith come into conflict for two jehovah’s witness sisters in manchester, when one is condemned for fornication and the other pressured to shun her sibling.. this fresh, unadorned first feature from director dan kokotajlo carries an unmistakable note of authenticity from its very first scenes.

set in a jehovah's witness community in england, the film's strength and power lies in its directness.. apostasy depicts the growing rift in a family — a mother and two daughters — who are rigorously devoted to their religion.

darkspilver

Interesting that following today's screening of Apostasy for 'press and industry' (Sunday, September 10, 2017), the UK's Daily Mail's Entertainment Columnist, Baz Bamigboye, tweeted to say: "Dan Kokotajlo's super directorial debut Apostasy film makes us confront pertinent moral questions on religious doctrines."

Baz Bamigboye writes a double-page column for the Daily Mail newspaper each Friday - will have to wait and see if he gives the film a mention in the print newspaper next Friday......

22

The Children Act: The Movie - By Ian McEwan and directed by Richard Eyre

by darkspilver in

richard eyre's film adaptation of ian mcewan's book the childen act has it's world premiere at the toronto international film festival in september 2017. the children act.

emma thompson and stanley tucci star in this adaptation of the novel by ian mcewan, about a high-court judge who finds personal and professional crises colliding when she is asked to rule in the case of a brilliant 18-year-old boy who is refusing the blood transfusion that would save his life.. adapted by booker prize–winning author ian mcewan from his own novel, this riveting drama stars two-time academy award winner emma thompson as a british high court judge tasked with making a decision that will speak to our most fraught questions regarding religious tolerance — and could mean life or death for an innocent young man.. judge fiona maye (emma thompson) is married to her work, which has become a problem for her husband, jack (stanley tucci), who announces that he wants to have an affair.

treating the matter more as an annoyance than a life-altering crisis, fiona kicks jack out and focuses on her current case.

darkspilver

Xanthippe: Interesting that he wanted to explore the life of a judge, I haven't read this one but it sounds fascinating. I suspect he was more interested in the ramifications of a judge coping with a difficult case than in JWs.

FYI

McEwan condemns 'perverse and inhumane' decisions of religious parents

The Daily Telegraph, March 28, 2014
Ian McEwan, the author, has said he believes religion is unhelpful in making rational choices, particularly those involving cases that may be dealt with in the Family Courts.
Non religious people are better at making reasonable, compassionate judgements, Ian McEwan argues, as he condemns the "utterly perverse and inhumane" decision of religious parents allowing their children to die.
McEwan, the author of Atonement, On Chesil Beach and Enduring Love, said he believed religion to be "distinctly unhelpful" in making rational choices.
His new book, The Children's Act, will explore the issues of the family courts, and the heartbreaking decisions faced when parents insist their child must die for religious reasons.
Speaking of his research in the family courts, McEwan told an audience he now believed the selfishness of some modern parents was ruining the interests of the children in their care.
READ MORE: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/10728126/McEwan-condemns-perverse-and-inhumane-decisions-of-religious-parents.html

22

The Children Act: The Movie - By Ian McEwan and directed by Richard Eyre

by darkspilver in

richard eyre's film adaptation of ian mcewan's book the childen act has it's world premiere at the toronto international film festival in september 2017. the children act.

emma thompson and stanley tucci star in this adaptation of the novel by ian mcewan, about a high-court judge who finds personal and professional crises colliding when she is asked to rule in the case of a brilliant 18-year-old boy who is refusing the blood transfusion that would save his life.. adapted by booker prize–winning author ian mcewan from his own novel, this riveting drama stars two-time academy award winner emma thompson as a british high court judge tasked with making a decision that will speak to our most fraught questions regarding religious tolerance — and could mean life or death for an innocent young man.. judge fiona maye (emma thompson) is married to her work, which has become a problem for her husband, jack (stanley tucci), who announces that he wants to have an affair.

treating the matter more as an annoyance than a life-altering crisis, fiona kicks jack out and focuses on her current case.

darkspilver

Another review - this time from the UK's Guardian

Also...

FYI The Hollywood Reporter's daily PRINT newspaper - especially produced for TIFF - reproduced the online review (as posted above) in a slightly cut-down, and reworded/edited version
See page 17: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8yyjX_6VyAxdjVoRm1BQ3pCMUE/view

Emma Thompson rules over hot-button legal drama: 3 out of 5 stars

The Guardian, Sunday, September 10, 2017
Emma Thompson’s performance as a brilliant but tortured judge elevates the second Ian McEwan adaptation of this year’s Toronto film festival, a stately courtroom saga with parallels to the Charlie Gard case
The Children Act is a high-minded, stately and rather Shavian drama, directed by Richard Eyre and adapted by Ian McEwan from his 2014 novel; it stars Emma Thompson as a brilliant and widely admired judge, Fiona Maye, on whose decisions the fate of various barristers and clients depend. Her name could be a playful pun. Fiona’s ruling in a uniquely painful case concerning a desperately sick teenage boy coincides with her own marital crisis, which we are given to understand is crucially bound up with her childlessness.
Fiona is asked to rule on the matter of the married parents (played by Ben Chaplin and Eileen Walsh) of a boy, Adam (Fionn Whitehead) just shy of 18 years old and adulthood, who is suffering from cancer. They are Jehovah’s Witnesses and will not permit him the simple blood transfusion which would save his life. But because Adam is a legal minor, Fiona can make decisions in his interests which would go against the parents’ religious scruples – which Adam appears to share.
It is a highly watchable drama of the highly educated public-servant class – it would make a good stage-play – and the film is put together with an intelligence which saves it from being preposterous, although that’s a bit of a close thing.
The Children Act is concerned with love, intimacy and moral responsibility and it is refreshing to see a movie which sets itself standards of this sort. But there is also something a little too neat in the way all these things are wrapped up. Emma Thompson’s performance, so elegant and vulnerable, carries the picture.
READ FULL REVIEW: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/sep/10/the-children-act-review-emma-thompson-ian-mcewan-toronto-film-festival-tiff

22

The Children Act: The Movie - By Ian McEwan and directed by Richard Eyre

by darkspilver in

richard eyre's film adaptation of ian mcewan's book the childen act has it's world premiere at the toronto international film festival in september 2017. the children act.

emma thompson and stanley tucci star in this adaptation of the novel by ian mcewan, about a high-court judge who finds personal and professional crises colliding when she is asked to rule in the case of a brilliant 18-year-old boy who is refusing the blood transfusion that would save his life.. adapted by booker prize–winning author ian mcewan from his own novel, this riveting drama stars two-time academy award winner emma thompson as a british high court judge tasked with making a decision that will speak to our most fraught questions regarding religious tolerance — and could mean life or death for an innocent young man.. judge fiona maye (emma thompson) is married to her work, which has become a problem for her husband, jack (stanley tucci), who announces that he wants to have an affair.

treating the matter more as an annoyance than a life-altering crisis, fiona kicks jack out and focuses on her current case.

darkspilver

Three more reviews - two from the trade press, Screen Daily and Variety, and one from an entertainment blog, Dork Shelf.

'The Children Act': Toronto Review

Screen Daily, Saturday, September 9, 2017
Emma Thompson stars in Ian McEwan’s adapation of his own novel opposite ’Dunkirk’’s Fionn Whitehead.
Emma Thompson loses herself in The Children Act, subsuming all her natural lightness to embody one of novelist Ian McEwan’s more fascinating characters, a High Court judge charged with implementing the titular Children Act in family court. When the remote, humane, but unheedingly autocratic Justice Maye slips and allows herself to connect on a human level with one of her cases, tiny cracks form at the edge of her carefully controlled existence, and threaten to shatter it.
While, as she clearly indicates, the law is paramount in her family court and the 1989 Children Act holds the welfare of the child to be paramount in all cases, Justice Fiona Maye is very much human, and the unthinkable decisions she has to make on a day-to-day basis are taking their toll. The biggest casualty is her marriage to Jack (Stanley Tucci). The judgement, for example, to separate conjoined twins, condemning one to a certain death, can only be made if she holds her emotions constantly in check, but that means her relationship, which is ironically childless, is dry and crumbling.
Like last year’s Denial, which also premiered in Toronto, this is a courtroom drama, but one which slides the focus off the case and onto the human making the decisions in a situation which is endlessly slippery. The Children Act is a cerebral piece, for sure, and a disturbing one by the end, but Thompson’s performance brings life to the complex moral questions it attempts to examine.
READ FULL REVIEW: https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the-children-act-toronto-review/5121739.article

Toronto Film Review: Emma Thompson in 'The Children Act'

Variety, Saturday, September 9, 2017
A typically marvelous performance from Emma Thompson elevates what might have otherwise played as melodrama in this sophisticated Ian McEwan adaptation.
Told with a depth of empathy so profound — and so British — that a rather sizable segment of the viewing public will either reject or ignore it outright, “The Children Act” is that rarest of things: an adult drama, written and interpreted with a sensitivity to mature human concerns — not just the quite personal complexities of maintaining a 30-year relationship with no children of their own, but the more broad-reaching tension between the law and firmly held religious belief.
More restrained than director Eyre’s earlier work, yet driven by an energy for which he is directly responsible, the wonderfully nuanced film concerns Fiona’s attempts to reconcile these two weighty challenges: There is the fate of the Jehovah’s Witness, Adam Henry (Fionn Whitehead), which rests in her hands, and there is the future of her marriage, which she has successfully shifted to the back burner for so long, but now hangs in the balance.
Adam sits in his hospital bed holding a guitar, and in the first of several unabashedly sentimental such scenes, he and Fiona sing “Down by the Salley Gardens” together, a folk song whose words were written by Yeats.
Their song, “Down by the Salley Gardens,” and music by extension serves as a recurring motif here, as Fiona indulges but one extracurricular pastime: rehearsing piano with her friend Mark (Anthony Calf), a High Court barrister. That hobby sets up the film’s climactic emotional scene — one whose raw, wrenching power depends entirely on how successfully audiences consider every preceding element to have worked. Thompson interprets the moment beautifully, and indeed, the entire film hinges on how deeply felt her performance comes across. The actress is playing someone whose brain is constantly working, which she depicts as a kind of distraction: While her body is there in frame, her mind is often miles away, thinking of the children — those she’s saved, those she’s lost and those of her own which she and Jack will never have.
READ FULL REVIEW: http://variety.com/2017/film/reviews/the-children-act-review-emma-thompson-1202553219/

TIFF 2017: The Children Act

Dork Shelf, Saturday, September 9, 2017
Adapted from a Booker Prize-winning novel, The Children Act is certainly layered with meaning and importance. It’s clear from how the cast are acting really hard at all times and all the pregnant silences that what we are watching is supposed to be taken deeply, deeply seriously. Unfortunately all of the self-importance and stuffy dourness led to a film that feels dramatically inert. It’s about big ideas, yet is never remotely involving. That’s not good.
The Children Act is certainly a fine example of British stuffiness masquerading as drama. Emma Thompson is rather gifted at portraying that sort of thing (even though she seems about as far away from repressed as possible), so she’s always a pleasure to watch. Unfortunately, the film itself doesn’t quite live up to the performances. It touches on big ideas without really engaging in them, eventually succumbing to easy weepy melodrama in a way that robs the film of the naturalism it needs to succeed. Presumably the book allowed for so much more to be said between the lines than what fumbles onto the screen here. Oh well. That book still exists and it’s possible to pretend this movie doesn’t. So that’s a plus.
READ FULL REVIEW: http://dorkshelf.com/2017/09/09/tiff-2017-the-children-act/

22

The Children Act: The Movie - By Ian McEwan and directed by Richard Eyre

by darkspilver in

richard eyre's film adaptation of ian mcewan's book the childen act has it's world premiere at the toronto international film festival in september 2017. the children act.

emma thompson and stanley tucci star in this adaptation of the novel by ian mcewan, about a high-court judge who finds personal and professional crises colliding when she is asked to rule in the case of a brilliant 18-year-old boy who is refusing the blood transfusion that would save his life.. adapted by booker prize–winning author ian mcewan from his own novel, this riveting drama stars two-time academy award winner emma thompson as a british high court judge tasked with making a decision that will speak to our most fraught questions regarding religious tolerance — and could mean life or death for an innocent young man.. judge fiona maye (emma thompson) is married to her work, which has become a problem for her husband, jack (stanley tucci), who announces that he wants to have an affair.

treating the matter more as an annoyance than a life-altering crisis, fiona kicks jack out and focuses on her current case.

darkspilver

The first reviews....

'The Children Act': Film Review | TIFF 2017

The Hollywood Reporter, Saturday, September 9, 2017
The bottom line: A drama illuminated by two electric performances
In the London-set drama adapted from an acclaimed Ian McEwan novel, Emma Thompson plays a High Court judge who specializes in family law cases. And she delivers what has to be one of the most nuanced and moving performances of her entire career. The film is also notable for showcasing another superb performance, by up-and-coming actor Fionn Whitehead (also featured prominently in Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk). But his is essentially a strong supporting role, whereas Thompson appears in virtually every scene. With two performances of this caliber, the film is guaranteed to generate attention and acclaim, even though its downbeat subject matter represents a major commercial challenge. The film is seeking an American distributor, and it deserves to find one who will give it the marketing push that it needs.
The film has been intelligently adapted by McEwan himself, and Richard Eyre (Iris, Notes on a Scandal, and the underrated Stage Beauty) has done a good job of direction in certain scenes. A musical performance that ends in a breakdown by Fiona is especially well handled, and Eyre adds a telling visual touch in the final scene that was not in the novel. But the director also makes a few miscalculations that hurt the film. Although veteran composer Stephen Warbeck is credited for his score, much of the music actually consists of passages from Bach that add an unfortunate touch of ponderousness and pretension to the film. The story is lugubrious enough without including this dirgelike music to punish the audience.
READ FULL REVIEW: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/children-act-review-1036269

Emma Thompson Grapples with Conscience in Sluggish Legal Drama

The Wrap, Saurday, Sepember 9, 2017
TIFF 2017: Ian McEwan adapts his own novel about a conflicted judge, but for all the beating gavels, there’s no pulse here
If Emma Thompson can’t make "The Children Act," a drama about a family-court judge conflicted over her own decisions and the precarious state of her own family, into something interesting and meaningful, then no one can. And she can’t.
Screenwriter Ian McEwan, adapting his own novel, and director Richard Eyre ("Notes on a Scandal") have assembled a fine cast to tackle controversial subjects brimming over with dramatic possibility, but the results are stultifyingly subdued. It’s all so polite, so sober, so convinced of its own importance, that it never has a pulse. This is love and life and death discussed as though they were paint swatches for the guest room.
There are big ideas swirling around "The Children Act" about love and fidelity and spirituality and guilt and responsibility, but McEwan and Eyre have each of them either land with a thud or dissipate into the mist. We’re left with Thompson looking glum and unsatisfied, while Stanley Tucci tut-tuts and Whitehead has explosions of exuberance that get creepier as the film progresses.
A film this steeped in respectability really wants you to take it seriously (and to consider it during awards season), but its many fine pieces never add up the way they should.
READ FULL REVIEW: http://www.thewrap.com/children-act-review-emma-thompson-fionn-whitehead/

The Children Act

NOW Toronto, Saturday, September 9, 2017
This very faithful adaptation of Ian McEwan’s novel – he wrote the screenplay – isn’t a barnburner but, anchored by Emma Thompson’s excellent performance, definitely keeps your interest.
She plays an emotionally atrophied high court judge who gets more than she bargained for after she pays an official visit to the subject of her current case – a boy three months short of adulthood who’s refusing life-saving medical treatment for religious reasons.
Set against her crumbling marriage – Stanley Tucci plays her husband – the story centres on her emerging panic as she rediscovers the ability to feel something. The film may be pedestrian in the ways it’s shot – a BBC production and all – but Thompson expertly embodies a woman deeply conflicted.
Worth a look just for her.
https://nowtoronto.com/movies/tiff2017/the-children-act-review/

22

The Children Act: The Movie - By Ian McEwan and directed by Richard Eyre

by darkspilver in

richard eyre's film adaptation of ian mcewan's book the childen act has it's world premiere at the toronto international film festival in september 2017. the children act.

emma thompson and stanley tucci star in this adaptation of the novel by ian mcewan, about a high-court judge who finds personal and professional crises colliding when she is asked to rule in the case of a brilliant 18-year-old boy who is refusing the blood transfusion that would save his life.. adapted by booker prize–winning author ian mcewan from his own novel, this riveting drama stars two-time academy award winner emma thompson as a british high court judge tasked with making a decision that will speak to our most fraught questions regarding religious tolerance — and could mean life or death for an innocent young man.. judge fiona maye (emma thompson) is married to her work, which has become a problem for her husband, jack (stanley tucci), who announces that he wants to have an affair.

treating the matter more as an annoyance than a life-altering crisis, fiona kicks jack out and focuses on her current case.

darkspilver

stan livedeath: there was a film in the UK when i was in my teens--called Life for Ruth ( i think ) anyone remember it ?

haha, sorry, way way too young.... but there is this....

https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/179764/life-ruth-mcgoohan-film-about-blood-transfusion-1962

6

"Life For Ruth" McGoohan Film About Blood Transfusion 1962

by cabasilas in

i saw this film many long years ago under a different title.

in america it was released about 1965 as "walk in the shadows.

" it's one of patrick mcgoohan's (the prisoner) early films.

darkspilver

The full movie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBMNdcdFMTA

6

"Life For Ruth" McGoohan Film About Blood Transfusion 1962

by cabasilas in

i saw this film many long years ago under a different title.

in america it was released about 1965 as "walk in the shadows.

" it's one of patrick mcgoohan's (the prisoner) early films.

darkspilver

FWIW

Life for Ruth

A 1962 British drama film produced by Michael Relph directed by Basil Dearden and starring Michael Craig, Patrick McGoohan and Janet Munro.
John Harris finds himself ostracized and placed on trial for allowing his daughter Ruth to die. His religious beliefs forbade him to give consent for a blood transfusion that would have saved her life. Doctor Brown is determined to seek justice for what he sees as the needless death of a young girl.
READ MORE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_for_Ruth

Trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lafu0dIqjg