I mean, what if it’s a real turd?
I mean, Opie has made some really good movies. I thought Cinderella Man was totally underrated and got schnookered at the box office. Apollo 13 remains one of the single most repeatedly watchable movies ever made. I cry every time those damn parachutes open.
Forrest makes some pretty good ones too, while I’m thinking about it. He’s one of the few guys who is just about watchable in anything. I think he’s the Jimmy Stewart of our generation. I hear he’s a decent fellow, too. Married, kids, the whole nine. Our friend Zack has an odd connection with him, and reports that he’s down to earth and easy to get along with.
So, these guys are pretty bankable, and you’ve got Sir Ian, who could act the white pages, the cute french chick who gave us all a French fetish in Amelie, and even Leon, for pity’s sake. You’ve got academy award winners and industry moguls behind the best selling fictional book… ever.
What if it sucks?
Will the church… again… have made a big fuss about a movie that implodes in on it’s own silliness? Often, when Hollywood tackles the issues that are near and dear to their hearts, they implode. Take abortion, for example. The Cider House Rules was perhaps the single most painfully simple and obvious author’s message movie in the past ten years. There is a serious film to be made about the abortion debate, one that shows the torment that women really go through as they make a choice like abortion; one that depicts the impact this issue in people’s lives. Cider house wasn’t it. I was openly guffawing during Delroy Lindo’s big speech about the people who didn’t make the rules never living in the cider house or some horseshit. It was just painfully bad. It was like watching a crap Billy Graham film from the 70s, except that instead of accepting Jesus at the end, you got to have a dangerous back-alley abortion. There are tracts available for both.
All this to say…
I have been resisting DaVinci for awhile. Our interim pastor really wanted to do a series on it. I fought him, protesting that we were just going to be like every other church in Southern California, clamoring to be significant. I suggested a series covering the early church, the selection of the canon, and the rise of Catholicism after Nicea. I suggested not mentioning the movie at all. “People will get it…” I said.
Well.
We are doing the series. I have been a good boy. I read the book, finally. I am in the dialog. I am checking my facts, and making my arguments. He’s been doing well, and there have been several conversations started that are beneficial and healthy.
But I have to confess… if all this comes down and it turns out this movie is just a piece of crap that bombs, and we all have not a lot to talk about come monday morning, I will be amused to no end.
Dear Christians: Jesus Christ said the gates of hell couldn’t and wouldn’t prevail against His church. Don’t you think we could just chill out about the movie that Opie and Forrest made?
Okay, so I realize this post isn’t about The Cider House Rules, but you wrote a few words about it so I feel almost justified…I was CRUSHED by the infantile film adaptation of a truly complex and wonderful book by John Irving. Don’t judge the book by the movie.
Now back to our regularly scheduled church marketing fad…
I’m over The Da Vinci Code. No, I’m over THE CHURCH and The Da Vinci Code. I planned to see the movie until all the bad reviews started coming out (because who doesn’t like anagrams and Parisian car chases together in one thrilling movie event?), but if I see one more book called Cracking Breaking Unraveling Revealing Solving Uncovering What’s Left Behind The Da Vinci Code, I’m going to turn pagan.
Look, movies matter. I know this. They have the power to change culture, to change US. (Just the fact that Oliver! won best picture in 1968 and Easy Rider won in 1969 ought to tell us something about the power of film to inform culture.) But NO movie is going to single-framedly bring on the apocalypse that many American Christians seem so in a hurry to welcome. Chill out, people. Make friends. Start conversations. Have another drink. (You know, like Jesus.)
And yes, Dan Brown is a two-bit novelist who can’t get his facts straight and ought to be exposed as an agenda-driven opportunist. But maybe — and I’m going out on a limb here — it’s better to be crucified so everyone knows your enemies are evil dorks (and then forgive them) than it is to crucify your enemies so you undermine your whole mission. But that’s just me. (Oh, I mean…you know, like Jesus.)
Aly,
Bummer to hear that about the book to movie adaptation… never read Irving, although several people with cool taste like his work. I’ll have to check it out.
I certainly hope my little rant wasn’t seen as a gleeful rip on any on all things Dan Brown, Hollywood, or culturally popular. I turned the pages as fast as the next guy. I might see Jesus as bemused by the whole thing… if I were a guessing man. As always, the solution to the problem is good conversation over warm smiles and cold (or hot) beverages.
You mentioned something on Sunday that got me wishing (not for the first time in my DaVinci experience) more people were talkng about why the book was so popular in the first place, rather then simply disproving the facts. Disproving the facts is painfully easy to do. Brown has his agenda, and that’s increasingly easy to see. It’s in the why that the really interesting conversation is yet to be had.
Chad — some are having the why conversation. Check this and this over at Scot McKnight’s Jesus Creed blog. (As usual, Scot began to ask the right questions before everyone else!)
BTW, I didn’t read your rant as anti-anything or -anyone…it’s great! I guess I just needed to vent a little. (Sorry!)
Vent away. That’s why we’re here. Mcknight rulez.
If you’re gonna go down the Irving road, I’d also suggest A Prayer For Owen Meany. It might be my favorite book of all time.
ummm….not that this really has anything to do with anything but Easy Rider didn’t win for best picture….Midnight Cowboy did…which perhaps makes your point even better.
In fact, I don’t even think it was nominated for anything othere than Jack….
I’m a total film dork.
btw, you should all really go to Jeremy’s site and check out the visual effects reel. He’s … what’s the word I’m looking for … good.
Yep, you’re totally right, Jeremy. Nothing like mucking up my tirade right in the middle, like.
Thanks for the correction.
“Cider House” was the first book I read after suffering a miscarriage. I found it more validating than any other book. It simply calls it what it is, and didn’t try to know more than humans do (such as “why”). One of the many things I love about the story is that the pro-choice doctor finds a “son” in one of the babies that (under his philosophy) he would have aborted. Although John Irving is pro-Planned Parenthood… what storyline could be more pro-life than that? He did win an Oscar for best adaptation, and Michael Caine got one, too. It SURELY beats the “Owen Meany” to “Simon Birch” book-to-film translation, which couldn’t be more terrible. Corey, Owen Meany is also one of my favorites.
This is supposed to be about the Da Vinci Code, though, which I have read but not seen, and for some reason “jesuscreed.org” will not open, so I’ll try again later.
Nah, I’m not going to say much about “Cider House”… except that cider is essentially made from rotten apples.
Can’t disagree that some people are emotionally worked-up over Da Vinci nonsense. The problem: lots of people think it isn’t nonsense, and they are the most ideologically vulnerable among us, because they don’t know any better.
For all those who can’t figure out why the church is so excited about debunking “Da Vinci”: change the terms, and you’ll get it.
Imagine a book that (not very subtly) supported racism by pretending to be scientific, like “Da Vinci” supports paganism by pretending to be historical. Imagine that it’s engagingly written and narratively compelling, and sold like “Da Vinci Code”. Now imagine that it’s made into a movie, even a boring one.
Now imagine the reactions….
The church has, in that light, been pretty restrained.
Sharolyn,
I totally forgot about Simon Birch. That movie was total diarrhea.
So, for those of you scoring along at home… A Prayer For Owen Meany : good. Movie adapation as Simon Birch : cinematic feces.
Geez but I love driving over to Addison Road once in a while! You all refresh me deeply.
I haven’t completely thought this through, but I suppose one aspect of The Da Vinci Code that could offend is the idea that Jesus looked at women and acted upon feelings in “that” way. As a woman, I confess my highest hope would be that Jesus looked at my gender with simply no sexuality at all. (-That he was somehow “above” it, or victorious over any temptations.) Thoughts?
Again, a very rough idea. Please don’t throw tomatoes.
It seems like it would be hard to believe that he was human, and also totally asexual. Seems like that’s an important part of having a human nature, the wiring for sexual intimacy.
So…did anyone here actually see the movie yet? or what? We tried, but all sold out on Friday night–and I am NOT paying a babysitter twice as much so I can sit around for 3 hours waiting for the next not-sold-out showing….
anyways-what did you all think of the movie?
Mike - I totally agree - that’s why I had to make it a “confession”. I guess i had never really thought of Jesus looking at a woman.
What is everyone’s take on the “holy grail” issue?
Well… I saw it… but I want to post a full review / opinion (are you suprised? I have some…), but I don’t have time at this moment… :)