Go for it!
And of course, as we are not surprised to see….heh.
Of course, who’s surprised? Ron Howard is not exactly known as a director who trucks in mystery and ambiguity. Who didn’t think this would end up being heavy-handed and leaden.
And here, perhaps, we’ll see the risk of the "Go see this film and dialgoue about it" advocated by a few evangelical groups (not all, I hasten to say), particulary Campus Crusade for Christ.
You’re encouraging people to go see a lousy movie with hack theorizing at its core…why?
Barbara Nicolosi has some review snippets up.
As I reported here, NBC reporter Melissa Stark yesterday dipped a timid toe in the sea of controversy when she interviewed Code director Ron Howard, asking how he reacted to the controversy the movie has created . . . for the Church! Sounding more like a sensitivity trainer than a Hollywood director, Howard offered up some ambiguous prose about it being healthy thing for people to engage their beliefs.
Lauer took the bull of controversy more directly by the horns when he interviewed the cast and director Howard today. Said Lauer:
"There have been calls from some religious groups, they wanted a disclaimer at the beginning of this movie saying it is fiction because one of the themes in the book really knocks Christianity right on its ear, if Christ survived the crucifixion, he did not die for our sins and therefore was not resurrected. What I’m saying is, people wanted this to say ‘fiction, fiction, fiction’. How would you all have felt if there was a disclaimer at the beginning of the movie? Would it have been okay with you?"
There was a pause, and then famed British actor Ian McKellen [Gandalf of Lord of the Rings], piped up:
"Well, I’ve often thought the Bible should have a disclaimer in the front saying this is fiction. I mean, walking on water, it takes an act of faith. And I have faith in this movie. Not that it’s true, not that it’s factual, but that it’s a jolly good story. And I think audiences are clever enough and bright enough to separate out fact and fiction, and discuss the thing after they’ve seen it."
Here’s the weird thing. I just went to the website for one of our local theaters – part of the Rave theater chain – to check out showtimes. (I have a free pass to the theater, thanks to Katie winning some competition at school, and hey, I’m her mom, and the ads don’t say "No passes accepted" which they often do for big releases), and noticed that on 5/19, the cineplex, which has, I think 10 or 12 theaters, has only 2 films listed: DVC and Over the Hedge. Have they just not scheduled the other films yet? Or has the distributor made some kind of deal – I’m thinking it’s the latter, since I notice that DVC doesn’t open in other theaters in FW until Monday. Interesting.
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