Posted on 05/28/2006 11:30:50 PM PDT by dangus
The way I see it, Dan Brown should be very happy for Fandango, which allowed millions of theater-goers to see "The Da Vinci Code" before reading the reviews. Normally, movies don't crash, losing 57% of their audience in the second weekend. Especially not when the 2nd weekend is a holiday weekend and the first weekend was not. But normally people who see movies this stupid have already invested in their Jar-Jar Binks Happy Meal Action Figure. Go figure that the Happy Meal featuring a dead, naked museum curator with a pentagram scratched in his back didn't sell to well. (OK, I recycled that joke concept, but Da Vinci Code readers aren't known for having good memories.)
Come on, folks; the problem isn't Ron Howard or Tom Hanks. The problem is that you could read the entire 450-page book faster than you can watch the movie. I mean, I'm not saying that Brown is a devil-spawned, historically ignorant hack who simply makes stupid people feel smarter. But only because I'm alone at my keyboard and my cat kinda looks at me funny when I talk to her as if I expect her to know English.
I know, calling 60 million people "stupid" is no way to win friends and influence people, but by now I've used enough three-syllable words that I've lost most of them. My big issue is that the raves this story got proves how anti-Christian the nation's book reviewers are. Come on, this is the sort of book movie viewers should *warn* us about: "Caution: Put down this book and go smoke some pot. It will kill fewer brain cells and make you more capable of coherent conversation."
OK, Dan Brown fans. You don't have to respond saying, "it's only fiction." We all have heard that. First of all, Dan Brown has been all over all the talk shows insisting that the backstory is all true. But there's also something really nasty about making such horrific accusations of genocide against people in a backstory.
You see, backstories about historical peoples and characters usually are generally true. If they are preposterous, book critics will point it out, and knowledgeable readers' suspension of disbelief will be shattered, and they'll go tell their friends how stupid the book was. But Dan Brown's readers, apparently, aren't used to historical fiction, unless it's got that guy from the "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" commercials on the front cover. Brown puts horrific slander in people's brain as little details, and the next time they hear those tid-bits, they say, "oh, yeah, I think I heard about that."
Some critics have pointed out how bad Brown's history is as if it were a product of his ignorance. This is not the case. Brown is quite well aware, I'm sure, that "Da Vinci" is not a name, as many critics have pointed out it isn't, but rather an origin. Please understand; he's trying to attract an audience which last read a book about Leonardo that was subtitled, "Heroes on a Halfshell."
As much as I'm picking on his audience for being nitwits, it actually is a simple truth that novels, since they contain far more information than a movie, can spend much more effort convincing people that something preposterous is actually believable. Many books I've read, particularly science fiction, have the more incredible portions of them toned down to maintain credibility. For instance, in the novel, "2010," we learned about plant life on Io by reading about how a Russian spacecraft was virtually devoured by a mobile plant; the novel could explain why Io might have mobile plants. In the movie, the crew thought they might have seen readings indicating a trace of photosythetic material.
There simply is no toning down the ridiculousness of Brown's story, because it's all necessary for the plot line. In the movie, it all seems so insipid that viewers apparently have been warning friends not to see it (as evidenced by its crash at the box office), if they are willing to admit to having shelled out $9 to see it in the first place.
Look for the x men movie to crash big too.
The movie sucked BIG time. Pointless "deaths" unbelievable charater behavior. 1 dimentional characters. It was truly pathetic.
If anyone wants the spoilrs I would be happy to oblige and save the 8 dollars.
Holyweird has learne the art of the con. They blast out the maximum number of screens so when the bad word of mouth floods out, it is already too late people have wasted their money..
It sems hollyweird focuses on Publicity deception rather than just producing a quality product.
Wow....you must be like ...REALLY old!!!
You said -- "P.S. At the age of 50 I began to attend the Baptist Church and one day it hit me - I WAS good enough because Jesus died on the cross and forgave all of my sins. He didn't expect perfection. What a releif it was to invite Jesus into my heart!"
And although it was a "Baptist" church, I'm sure you know it has nothing to do with "Baptist" or "Catholic" or any other denomination -- but *solely* the Word of God and what Christ did on the Cross.
It was simply that it was the Baptist church that "spoke the truth of the Bible" to you -- and you recognized it for what it was -- the "Word of God" and Jesus Christ taking on the penalty of our sins and providing for our individual salvation.
And -- Amen -- we're all good enough to avail ourselves of what Christ did for us and to become "one of His"!
Regards,
Star Traveler
On the particular Sunday that I was saved, our minister preached his sermon on the renting of the curtain in the temple. I heard him say that, by dieing for our sins, Jesus opened a path for us to come to Him directly. People no longer needed to communicate or worship through the actions of the High Priest behind the curtain. That was quite an eye opener for me. For the first time, I saw a minister as a deliverer of God's message, not an intermidiary between God and His people.
Its doing better overseas than here. Its not like the US is the only market.
"Usually movies that crash so quickly underperform as VHS and DVDs."
Then Peter Jackson ought to be thanking his lucky stars cause KK made the most ever on a first day of sale on DVD.
"Wow....you must be like ...REALLY old!!!"
Yeah, us old-timers have to stick together!
I am happy that you found your church home again. I know several "New" Catholics. Myself, I am not ready for that and never will be. I am working throught the guilt complexes. I know I sound like I harbor terrible resentment toward the Church. That is not the case. I have simply found a new way to worship that is extremely satisfying. I, personally, could never have that feeling with the C. Church.
I just came back from seeing it with my family.
Surprisingly, none of us now are devil-worshippers or even suffered a minor shakeup of our faith.
The biggest debate after the movie was regarding the "Teacher." My wife thought it was Peter O'Toole. There was some resemblance, but I don't think it was.
We didn't stick around for the credits. It was a long movie and we were trying not to wet our pants.
I wonder if that Baptist minister would have known about the rent in the curtain had Catholic's not preserved the teachings of Christ in writing. You may feel confident that this would have occurred in any case;I doubt it.
:^)
http://imdb.com/name/nm0000564/
If it was, he was uncredited.
Maybe he'll write a book on how false Islam is? Not if he enjoys life.
The book denies the divinity of Jesus.
The movie itself was entertaining as a popcorn muncher, some good suspense with the weird monk and all, required no more suspension of disbelief than, say, the Indiana Jones movies, of which it is vaguely reminiscent. And as I watched, it never occurred to me that anything in it was to be taken seriously.
I'd say it was an okay way to spend a hot summer evening.
How do you figure? King Kong debuted softly, only making $14 million its first Friday. By its 2nd monday, it was still at $12 million. It's 3rd weekend, it zoomed UP 23%. All of this is a little wierd because of the holiday schedule, but the point remains that the movie, written off as a dud, went on to $218 million. It's total take was was 15 times its first Friday's take, and 22 times its debut's take. In comparison, the DaVinci Code is on track to make only about 7 times its debut Friday's take.
Vatican II was in the '60s, not the '70s (1962 to 1965, to be exact)...started by Pope John XXIII who died a few months before JFK.
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