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oh no it's davinci code week

Afew years ago I've seen a priest of Opus Dei on television (I think preaching against abortion) who said it was his desire to do the work of the Devil. I assume it was a Freudian slip, but still...
In Germany Opus Dei has a reputation of being quite fundamentalist. They are especially active against abortion.
 
elliotfc said:
Perhaps. 100 million would be the number I nominate as "blown away" worthy.

My beef with the movie isn't the Jesus/Mary stuff, that's old hat. The Opus Dei bashing is remarkable. I could see if they changed the name of the group...we're talking an organization that is recent...has millions of lay members...really really good people too. All of the Opus Dei members I know believe in living consecrated lives, where they don't just live as Christians for one hour on Sundays. This conspiracy nonsense are figments of the imaginations of others. I'm not doing a good job of articulating my specific problem with the movie. Opus Dei = evil is out of order. Too specific, and too offensive to millions of good people who are members of the order.

-Elliot
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Opus Dei has millions of lay members?

I agree about the name though-in my upcoming bestseller "The Erastus Cyphers" I'll call them something else,maybe Gropus Mei -the main antagonist
is an eeeevil Capuchin monkey named Silage,self-abuse will replace self flagellation,and Silage will never quite get the hang of the cilice-he'll mostly
scream at it when he's not being manipulated by the mysterious Cardinal Numbers-whom you'll think is the villain-but it's really the kindly water polo
victim and Royal Histotechnician Sir Reptitously Teabagging!Fortuneately he'll
be thwarted by Will Smith College Cymbalist Roger Lingam and Sophistre'
Clouseau,the Cyptographer Who Can't Do an Anagram,assisted by the
phlegmatic Rev Elliot Dogkallor :"Wait a minute-Jesus isn't God-but Mary
Magdalene is a godess?"....Right-next you'll be telling me Raphael,Donatello and-that other Ninja Turtle are gay too!...."
 
It is funny how some material of this sort will inflame the religious community, while others fly under the radar completely.

Some years back, the author Tom Robbins did Another Roadside Attraction, in which a fellow, kidnapped by Jesuit commandos, succeeds in infiltrating the Vatican and stealing the mummified body of Jesus. Hilarity ensues.

James Morrow did First Daughter, in which a young woman finds out she is the "second coming". She ends up crucified as well. Drips with satire, typically Morrow. Niether of these were mega-hits, of course, and no movie deal....
 
Frankly, I find it hilariously ironic to see uptight religious people get all upset about "fictionalizing" the Bible.
 
Tricky said:
Frankly, I find it hilariously ironic to see uptight religious people get all upset about "fictionalizing" the Bible.
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Had someone on the morning news protesting and demanding that the film makers preface the screening of the movie with 'This is fiction'. If I was the filmmakers I'd say "Sure - when you add 'This is fiction' it to the start of the Bible"...
 
Rotten Tomatoes gives Da Vinci The Movie mostly plotz reviews.

I’m buying ice cream for everybody who’s surprised.
 
I'm not that picky. I can't wait to go see it, because I'll finally get out of this house for the first time in two months. If my son remembers to take me, that is.
 
Tricky said:
Frankly, I find it hilariously ironic to see uptight religious people get all upset about "fictionalizing" the Bible.
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actually, the arguments i have seen have been based on his opening statements that all the documents and such were factual (sorry, dont have the exact wording, but hopefully anyone slogging thru this thread knows what i am talking about). i think if he wouldve left that intro out and just presented it as fiction based on real theories he wouldnt have gotten as much heat. then again, the book probably would not have done nearly as well because i persoanlly dont find it nearly as intriguing if it is totally bogus- the plausibility makes it more real. i dont know about your experiences, but most people i know who have read the book and didnt have any education on christianity beforehand took brown's descriptions as fact. i dont really care because i have nothing invested in the religion, but a lot of people do, so it is very sensitive to them.

anyway, my OP was just about whether these "history" shows that were supposed to be analyzing the accuracy of the book were doing what they claimed, and in most cases i either saw the opposing viewpoints missing (based on the reading i have done) or downplayed so much as to render them very unconvincing.
 
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gfunkusarelius said:
actually, the arguments i have seen have been based on his opening statements that all the documents and such were factual (sorry, dont have the exact wording, but hopefully anyone slogging thru this thread knows what i am talking about). i think if he wouldve left that intro out and just presented it as fiction based on real theories he wouldnt have gotten as much heat. then again, the book probably would not have done nearly as well because i persoanlly dont find it nearly as intriguing if it is totally bogus- the plausibility makes it more real. i dont know about your experiences, but most people i know who have read the book and didnt have any education on christianity beforehand took brown's descriptions as fact. i dont really care because i have nothing invested in the religion, but a lot of people do, so it is very sensitive to them.

anyway, my OP was just about whether these "history" shows that were supposed to be analyzing the accuracy of the book were doing what they claimed, and in most cases i either saw the opposing viewpoints missing (based on the reading i have done) or downplayed so much as to render them very unconvincing.
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As far as I can tell, the ones I 've seen are doing well at letting people know the tricky little corner Brown's wrought up.

Yes, the documents he used are real, meaning there are physical, literal documents.

Problem is, they're frauds, forgeries, and hoaxes.

Did Brown really lie, or merely spin, and you know spin is the new greed: it's good.

Or else spin is the new green. Or the new 40.
Maybe it's the new Michael Jackson?

Anyway. I want a cookie.
 
sackett said:
Rotten Tomatoes gives Da Vinci The Movie mostly plotz reviews.

I’m buying ice cream for everybody who’s surprised.
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Actually, you owe me an ice cream..........

Rotten Tomatoes gives the movie horrible reviews. I'm shocked. With names like Ron Howard and Tom Hanks, the subject matter, and the Hollywood ideology, I expected it would be all thumbs up.

Shows how much I "know".

I guess I'll stick with "believing" things................

Oh, I like cherry vanilla...................
 
Huntster said:
Actually, you owe me an ice cream..........

Rotten Tomatoes gives the movie horrible reviews. I'm shocked. With names like Ron Howard and Tom Hanks, the subject matter, and the Hollywood ideology, I expected it would be all thumbs up.

Shows how much I "know".

I guess I'll stick with "believing" things................

Oh, I like cherry vanilla...................
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Huntster....

If you haven't seen it for yourself, and judged it through your own eyes, and filtered it through your own perceptions....

You still don't know. You're still believeing someone else....who may not know, either.
If that's what you want, you've got it.
But if you have a chance to know....well....don't you want to know?
 
slingblade said:
Huntster....

If you haven't seen it for yourself, and judged it through your own eyes, and filtered it through your own perceptions....

You still don't know. You're still believeing someone else....who may not know, either.
If that's what you want, you've got it.
But if you have a chance to know....well....don't you want to know?
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I'm going to take an unusual step here and back Hunster. Rotten Tomatoes is a site that compiles movie reviews and sorts them somewhat subjectively into positive and negative. Since "Code" doesn't open until Friday, there are few reviews, but those that are there are overwhelmingly bad (right now, 16 reviews, one positive). It is not a foolproof way of determining the value of a movie, but overwhelmingly bad or overwhelmingly good reviews can usually be trusted.
 
Tricky said:
I'm going to take an unusual step here and back Hunster.
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I was going for the whole allegory thing, but my aim was probably way off.




(They say I need 2 -3 weeks for these things to really kick in, so back off.)
;)
 
slingblade said:
Huntster....

If you haven't seen it for yourself, and judged it through your own eyes, and filtered it through your own perceptions....

You still don't know....
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Correct. I don't "know". And I'll never know, because I don't watch many movies, and I'm sure not much interested in this one.

What's more, reviews are somebody else's "opinion".

But these are several professional movie reviewers. Aren't their reviews more valid than mine or yours?
 
Huntster said:
Correct. I don't "know". And I'll never know, because I don't watch many movies, and I'm sure not much interested in this one.

What's more, reviews are somebody else's "opinion".

But these are several professional movie reviewers. Aren't their reviews more valid than mine or yours?
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Are you asking me seriously how I opine on that? Okay.

No, not necessarily. They don't know what I like, nor do they see things the way I do. We might coincidentally think the same about some things , but that's all it is.

I've read bad reviews and ended up loving the film. I've read good reviews and found I had paid to watch tripe. I don't care how a critic raves over Tom Cruise, for instance; I'll never see another of his works, because I no longer respect him as a person, and barely ever did so as an actor. Meh.
(I thought he was wrong all along for Lestat, and for my tastes, I was right. More meh.)

No, I tend to trust my own judgement when it comes to my own taste. I know what I like better than anyone knows. I don't often get to go to movies, anyway, so really, what do I care? But if I goof and see a real road apple, it's not the end of the world, and doesn't cause me much bother. It's just a movie.

A reviewer may be a good writer, and may know more about film than I do, but what he doesn't know is me. And I'm dubious the average film critic really knows more about film than I do. I have studied it myself, and even extra'd in a couple. I act. I've acted professionally and in stock. Nope. I trust me more than some dude who purports to tell me what's good.
 
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