The Broken Compass

www.takimag.com ^ | December 14, 2007 | Tom Piatak

[ClancyJ]

So, as I said, you don’t care one way or the other - so it is of no concern to you.

Some of us do care and we have stated our reasons.

So you enjoy your movies and those of us that care will voice our views about which ones our money and families will attend.

Freedom of choice, freedom of religion, free will.

[ClancyJ]

Those were the wonderful days when the movies reflected the views of the heartland. Another one of the pleasures that our next generation will not experience and another one that they will not even realize they have lost.

Their world will be a different world than we enjoyed and a different America because there are fewer to defend it and more within that seek to corrupt it.

[sitetest]

Dear wideawake,

The movie will do well to achieve even half of what it got the first weekend.

It’s performing like a movie that will do about $80 million in domestic box office.

Pretty ugly.

Yes, that’s a smile on my face.

;-)

sitetest

[ClancyJ]

So you misunderstood completely.

Of course there is parental responsibility - that is a given which is exactly why we care what our children see.

It is a lame reply to insinuate that everything mentioned as working “against” religion, morals, American ideals can be handled by “parental responsibility”.

Yeah right. We are to stand quietly while the world around us is corrupted, more and more of the values destroyed and handle it all with mufflers for our children’s ears or moving to a cave somewhere.

No where is there presented any acknowledgement of the fact that environment, schools, media, movies have influences which can be positive or negative. Only parents should hide their children from all influences.

And your resentment of my comments bothers me as much as a fly on the wall.

[netmilsmom]

>>(if Enchanted can hang in there some more). <<

Yes, yes, yes!!!! Everyone should go see Enchanted again! We are this weekend. Go see it, so support it. It’s an amazing movie and let me just add that the Golden Globe people just suck for not nominating James Marsden for Enchanted in the Supporting Actor catagory.

As a friend of mine explains,
Marsden, good looking, charming with a great voice
Corny Collins, good looking, charming with a great voice.

Not much acting in Hairspray but Enchanted!!!
He deserved it there.

Rant off.

[stuartcr]

I said I didn’t care if a movie has a message, I did not say the thread is of no concern.

I care also, and I have reported what I saw.

Thank you, we will continue watching movies of interest, without caring what the producers/Hollywood may have or may not have meant. Everyone has an opinion and beliefs and we all like to present these at times. You and I present our ideas here on FR, while the producers/Hollywood, make movies and say what they want, in that manner...and we all get to choose whether to listen or not.

[diamond6]

Can you please explain what the “Emerging Church” is? I’ve never heard of it.

[Mrs. Don-o]

When I finished reading the first book, I doubted whether it was worth my time to go on, because the characters' attitudes seemed strangely --"malformed," might be the word.

Characters don't react as if they have normal human motivations.

• Lyra was "placed" at Oxford by her father, Asriel, to be raised by the dons. One would think that Asriel and the Master of Jordan would be closely allied: after all, Asriel entrusts Jordan with raising his child. But...
• Lyra is supposedly being raised and educated by Oxford tutors in the midst of an all-controlling repressive Church, and yet she runs about at liberty as she pleases, chatters ungrammatically as a street-urchin, seems quite un-supervised: who's raising her? Oxford tutors and totalitarian systems are unconcerned that she's poorly-educated and half-feral?
• Lyra sees her guardian attempt to murder Asriel, and yet she never tries to get to the bottom of this: never tries to contact the police, never tries to fathom his motivations
• the Master of Jordan gives Lyra the Golden Compass, and she is under the impression she's supposed to come to the aid of Asriel by delivering it to him. Now, why would a man who just tried to murder Asriel want to give him one of the most powerful objects in the world? Or why would a bright girl like Lyra assume that?
• Asriel speaks to her brutally ("I'll break your arm" "You'll wish you were dead" "If they catch you, I won't lift a finger to help you: you're on your own") and yet she seems nevertheless keen on following him and joining him on his project
• Mrs. Coulter, a beautiful, glamorous, openly ambitious and openly scandalous female (a woman who has an out-of-wedlock child from an adulterous affair which culminated in her husband being shot down by her lover) has a place of honor and power in the Church which supposedly abhors women, female ambition, sex, sensuality, etc. Wha...?
• skipping over many other things, the biggie for me was this: after Lyra's best friend Roger is killed in the most atrocious way possible (soul-murder) by Asriel, is Lyra, who is already weakened by hunger, fatigue, cold, etc., now prostrated by grief, anger, and exhaustion? Hardly. After about 5 minutes she's keen to scramble over the Bridge in the Sky and continue her quest, an ordeal which would have floored an Odysseus or undone a Hercules.

In short, the human motivations don't add up. They're supernormal or subnormal, but people just don't act like humans.

In my humble opinion.

How this is overwhelmingly attractive to British middle-schhool children leaves me utterly perplexed. Unless this is bring pushed down their throats in Britain by librarians and teachers.

[sitetest]

Dear wideawake,

Initial returns for Friday show a box office of about $2.6 million:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1939944/posts

That suggests a weekend in around $7 or $8 million, or about a 70% drop from the first weekend.

Stick a fork in this one, it’s done.

sitetest

[Gene Eric]

>> When wicked men condemn your Faith, you’re in a pretty good place, I think.

I think you’re right.

[diamond6]

Thats awesome!!!