‘Benedetta’ Film Review: Paul Verhoeven Delivers Beauty, Belief and Nun-on-Nun Sex

A man has been charged after a four-car smash on a Scots road that left a motorcyclist seriously injured in hospital.

A fundraising drive has been launched to install a life-saving defibrillator at an East Kilbride community centre.

James Penrice’s most vivid Scottish Cup memory was sitting in the stands at Hampden as a Hibs youngster watching Hearts smash five past the Easter Road side and stroll their way to a memorable cup final triumph.

Adele has opened up about her decision to cancel her Las Vegas residency performances at the last minute.The Make You Feel My Love star, 33, admitted she has regrets over pulling the plug on the performances, which were due to take place at Caesars Palace, at the eleventh hour. Brit Award winning star Adele, who recently surprised fans as she pole danced at a nightclub, said she "wasn't ready" as she opened up on the Graham Norton Show.

Olivia Bowen has revealed that she is already planning a second pregnancy as she and husband Alex would like to have two children close together in age. On New Year’s Day, Olivia, 28, and Alex, 30, shared the exciting news that they’re expecting the first child and have since been documenting their pregnancy journey on social media. The Love Island duo met on the hit ITV2 show and went on to say their ‘I dos’ in September 2018.

Manchester City will be looking to extend their winning run in all competitions to three matches when they face relegation-threatened Norwich City at Carrow Road on Saturday teatime.

A boy aged 16 has been charged with sexual assault after a woman was attacked in Fallowfield, police said today (February 12).

Manchester United are back in Premier League action on Saturday when they host Southampton in the Premier League.

Manchester United players arrived at The Lowry Hotel before their Premier League game vs Southampton on Friday night.

Mary J. Blige has shared her thoughts on not being paid to perform at this year’s Super Bowl Halftime Show.The Queen of hip-hop soul is set to perform alongside Dr. Dre, Eminem, Snoop Dogg and Kendrick Lamar during this Sunday’s (February 13) NFL showdown between the Cincinnati Bengals and L.A.

drill videos from social media, likening the music to Donald Trump tweets.In a press conference yesterday (February 11), Adams said he was sent a number of drill videos by his son, which he called “alarming,” adding: “We pulled Trump off Twitter because of what he was spewing. Yet we are allowing music, displaying of guns, violence, we’re allowing it to stay on these sites.”Adams said: “We are going to pull together the social media companies, and state that you have a civic and corporate responsibility.”The Mayor then specifically attached blame to drill music for a rise in violent crime in New York, saying: “We are alarmed by the use of social media to really overproliferate the use of violence in our communities… this is contributing to the violence we are seeing all over this country.

Elton John has congratulated an Olympic figure skater whose gold-winning routine was backed by a medley of the legendary singer’s greatest hits.During the men’s singles figure skating competition in Beijing on Thursday (February 10), US skater Nathan Chen danced across the ice to the songs ‘Rocket Man’ and ‘Bennie And The Jets’.After impressing judges with five jet-fueled quadruple jumps and a series of gyroscope-like spins, the 22-year-old, three-time world champion wound up taking home the gold that eluded him at the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics, validating his status as the world’s best male figure skater.“I never thought I would actually be able to make this happen,” Chen said of his win (via The New York Times). “It’s hard.

Alexander 23 has shared a brand new single, ‘Hate Me If It Helps’, co-written by Olivia Rodrigo.The sprawling indie-pop cut marks the return of the Grammy-nominated singer, songwriter and producer (real name Alexander Glantz) following the release of his 2021 EP, ‘Oh No, Not Again!’.Happy to be labelled a “bad guy” post-breakup in order for an ex to get closure, the song’s chorus hears Alexander sing: “You can hate me if it helps/ Make me out to be the villain/ Say you’re better by yourself/ So it feels like your decision/ You can tell ’em I’m the bad guy if it helps you sleep okay/ Because all you want is closure, but there’s nothing left to say/ So you can hate me if it helps/ You can hate me if it helps.”Co-written with Rodrigo – who Alexander worked with on her chart-topping hit ‘Good 4 U’ – it arrives with a beautifully shot, self-directed video. You can watch it below.This year looks set to be a big one for Alexander, whose yet-to-be-titled debut album is scheduled to arrive sometime in 2022, produced by Dan Nigro.He’s also about to head out on tour with John Mayer as support on the singer-songwriter’s ‘Sob Rock’ tour, which kicks off on February 17 in Albany, New York, and ends in Chicago, Illinois, on April 29. Yebba will also offer support.Meanwhile, John Mayer‘s first solo gig in two years was briefly interrupted this week when he was alerted to an audience member in need of medical attention.On Wednesday night (February 9), the ‘New Light’ hitmaker took to the stage at the Hollywood Palladium as part of SiriusXM and Pandora’s ‘Small Stages’ series.

Of the many films playing at Cannes which have gained in resonance since the coming of the pandemic, “Zero F*cks Given” from French duo Julie Lecoustre, and Emmanuel Marre does not represent the creepiest, most alarming kind of coincidence — that description would better fit “Benedetta” from Dutch master Paul Verhoeven, which features an actual plague, face coverings and quarantine measures.

his latest film Benedetta.Speaking after critics questioned some of the scenes, including one where an effigy of the Virgin Mary is used as a sex toy, Verhoeven said (per Variety): “I don’t really understand how you can really blaspheme about something that happened, even in 1625.“You cannot change history, you cannot change things that happened, and I based it on the things that happened. So I think the word blasphemy in this case is stupid.”In response to another question about a new “hysteria” regarding nudity, the director responded: “Don’t forget, in general, people, when they have sex, they take their clothes off,” he said.

Naman Ramachandran Producer Jeremy Thomas, best picture Oscar winner for Bernardo Bertolucci’s “The Last Emperor” is a Cannes veteran and was the talk of the Croisette for David Cronenberg’s “Crash” (1996)Thomas is back in 2021 as the subject of Mark Cousins’ documentary “The Storms of Jeremy Thomas” that details his annual road trip from London to Cannes, while he reflects on a storied career. The film very early on discusses the abundant sex on display in several of Thomas’ films.“I identified with what Paul Verhoeven said the other day about the neo-puritanism of the new world that we live in because it’s true,” Thomas tells Variety.

At the Cannes Film Festival press conference for Paul Verhoeven’s competition title Benedetta this morning, director and cast fielded a series of questions about the film’s use of nudity and sex while Verhoeven bristled at the suggestion Benedetta is in any way blasphemous. “I do not understand really how you can be blasphemous about something that happened… You cannot basically change history after the fact. You can talk about that was wrong or not, but you cannot change history. I think the word blasphemy for me in this case is stupid,” he said.

K.J. Yossman “Basic Instinct” director Paul Verhoeven slammed the new “puritanism” he perceives has taken over cinema during a charged Cannes press conference for his latest film “Benedetta,” saying critics “don’t want to look at the reality of life.”The Belgian auteur has received a generally positive response to his risqué new film, which stars Virginie Efira and Daphne Patakia as two nuns embarking on an illicit lesbian affair in their convent.

Video: Behind the scenes at a fashion shoot with Laurent Dombrowicz, master of eccentricity (France 24)Tensions on the rise at Armenia-Azerbaijan borderNora AlMatrooshi, UAE's first female astronaut: 'This is a huge responsibility'An unwelcome neighbour? Residents angered over sprawling SpaceX launch siteChina's worldwide harvest of genomesGoogle faces new US legal action over competition in app storeEuro 2021: England beat Denmark to reach first major tournament final since 1966MSF halts work in parts of Ethiopia's Tigray after aid workers killed.

For just a moment, as a particularly sepulchral stretch of Anne Dudley‘s liturgical score plays over a solemn black screen emblazoned with the words “inspired by real events,” you might think Paul Verhoeven‘s gone and gotten serious on us, and that “Benedetta,” his hotly lusted-after Cannes title is going to be, whisper it, tasteful. About 73 seconds later, little Benedetta, the pious, doted-upon daughter of a wealthy lord who’s on her way to become a nun, performs her first “miracle” and gets a bird to shit magnificently into a guy’s eye — phew.

Maggie Gyllenhaal looks stunning while walking the red carpet at the premiere of Benedetta during the 2021 Cannes Film Festival on Friday (July 9) in Cannes, France.

Ever the bad boy even into his 80s, director Paul Verhoeven stirs the pot and turns the heat up to the boiling point in Benedetta, a medieval brew of religious fervor, illicit lesbian sex in a convent, Catholic church politics and — to incidentally add a contemporaneous touch — a plague sweeping the land. Shot three summers ago in Tuscany and delayed in its Cannes Film Festival premiere by a year due to the 2020 edition’s cancellation, the film, like all the director’s work, is wild, intelligent, pulsating, provocative and vibrantly alive. Cecil B. DeMille would be outraged, while Ken Russell would be wildly jealous.

Ramin Setoodeh Executive EditorRacy sex in a convent? Explicit dreams about Jesus Christ? A coming-of-age lesbian love story? Paul Verhoeven’s “Benedetta” featured all that and more, leaving its premiere audience at the Cannes Film Festival searching for words to describe the movie they’d just seen.But in the end, the French approved. The period drama screened on Friday night at the 74th annual Cannes, where it was showered with a robust five-minute standing ovation.The foreign-language movie — loosely adapted from the book “Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy” — stars Belgian actress Virginie Efira as Benedetta Carlini, a 1800s French nun who believes she is possessed by Jesus Christ.

Peter Debruge Chief Film CriticLest anyone think Paul Verhoeven’s latest shocker was intended to be a serious look at sexuality in religious service, the promotional poster for the film plastered around the Cannes Film Festival — where “Benedetta” bowed in competition — depicts actor Virginie Efira dressed as a 17th-century Italian nun, her white habit pulled open to reveal an airbrushed nipple.

#Cannes premiere. ‘Lesbian nuns’ is only the half of it.”“Benedetta” is an erotic drama directed by Verhoeven about a young nun in 17th century Italy who carries on an affair with another nun, and it’s inspired by a nonfiction book by historian Judith C.

Sharon Stone recently shocked everyone with her comments related to the filming of one of Basic Instinct's explicit scenes. The actress in her recently released memoir opened up about the infamous interrogation scene and suggested that she was tricked into it.

"Basic Instinct" director Paul Verhoeven refuted Sharon Stone's claim that she was "tricked" into showing frontal nudity in the film. "My memory is radically different from Sharon’s memory," Verhoeven told Variety in an interview published Wednesday.

Basic Instinct‘s famous leg-crossing scene.In her recent memoir The Beauty Of Living Twice, Stone stated Verhoeven tricked her into shooting the scene without underwear – among various other anecdotes about sexism and intimidation in the industry – by suggesting that Stone’s underwear was reflecting the light poorly, and asking her to remove them with the caveat that no frontal nudity would appear in the final film.“My memory is radically different from Sharon’s memory,” the director told Variety in a new interview published on Wednesday (July 7). “That does not stand in the way and has nothing to do with the wonderful way that she portrayed Catherine Tramell.

Dutch director Paul Verhoeven (“RoboCop,” “Total Recall,” “Elle“) will finally debut his erotic lesbian nun drama “Benedetta” at the Cannes Film Festival this week, following a year of waiting around for the COVID-19 pandemic to subside. READ MORE: Watch 3 Clips From Paul Verhoeven’s Erotic Lesbian Nun Thriller ‘Benedetta’ Premiering At Cannes During the pandemic, the director seemingly had a lot of time to consider his next couple of movies.

He shocked the Netherlands in the ’70s and ’80s and scandalized Hollywood in the ’90s. Now Paul Verhoeven is bringing his lesbian nun saga to Cannes. What could go wrong?

Even if you’ve never seen Paul Verhoeven’s “Basic Instinct,” you’re likely familiar with the scene that shocked the world where the film’s star, Sharon Stone, seductively opens her legs while wearing a dress and allowing everyone to see that she wasn’t wearing underwear. It’s a scene that overshadowed the entire film and became a pop culture touchstone that was referenced for years to come.

“Basic Instinct” director Paul Verhoeven has responded to Sharon Stone’s claims about that famous leg-crossing scene.

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and MediaPaul Verhoeven has made a career out of pushing cinematic boundaries, particularly when it comes to depicting sex or violence on screen.In films like “Basic Instinct” and “Showgirls,” he battled the ratings boards, while blockbusters like “Total Recall” and “Robocop” popularized R-rated action. All that changed in the aughts, as Hollywood abandoned those projects, sanded down the edges of commercial movies, and replaced ice-pick wielding serial killers with caped superheroes that appeal to a-all-four quadrants.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentIFC Films will be out in force at the Cannes Film Festival with three highly-anticipated films set for the competition: Jacques Audiard’s black-and-white drama “Paris, 13th District,” Mia Hansen-Løve’s English-language melodrama “Bergman Island” and Paul Verhoeven’s subversive period drama “Benedetta.” This comeback Cannes edition will also mark Arianna Bocco’s first year on the ground as IFC president.

After gaining prominence with American studio films such as “RoboCop,” “Total Recall,” “Basic Instinct,” “Starship Troopers,” and “Hollow Man,” it’s clear Dutch director Paul Verhoeven has gone in a different direction with his later works. He made a big transition with the WWII Dutch resistance film “Black Book” led by future “Game of Thrones” and “Valkryie” actress Carice van Houten.

It’s that time of year again, though a little delayed. Following the cancellation of the 2020 Cannes Film Festival last year, thanks to the global pandemic, Cannes is triumphantly back this year with a whopper of a line-up, And it’s one that’s perhaps overflowing with things that were due to appear at the festival last year (Wes Anderson‘s “The French Dispatch,” Paul Verhoeven’s “Benedetta”) and instead were held for an entire year by the filmmakers and producers.