Culture – Page 91 – Jimmy Akin

Rotten Tomatoes For The Da Vinci Code

There’s a movie review site/portal called RottenTomatoes.Com that (among other things) gathers up snippets from and links to reviews of different movies.

One of the unique features of this site is its ratings system, which judges films "fresh" or "rotten" based on how many reviews of them are positive or negative. If a review of the film is generally positive, it will have a fresh tomato next to it, and if the review is generally negative, it will have a rotten tomato next to it.

These results are then aggregated together into something known as "the Tomatometer" (pictured above) that shows you what percentage of reviews are positive vs. negative. If a movie gets a minimum of 60% positive reviews then it’s judged a "fresh" film; otherwise it’s a "rotten" film.

Why 60% instead of 50%? (Everyone asks that.) In the words of the guys who run the site, "We feel that 60% is a comfortable minimum for a movie to be recommended."

Those critics who get their reviews counted toward the Tomatometer are
known, appropriately enough, as "Tomatometer critics." (And our own SDG
is one of them.)

The above is an image capture of where the Tomatometer was for The Da Vinci Code last night when I was writting this post: Only 6% positive, making the film rotten. There were sixteen Tomatometer reviews posted, only one of which (from the New York Post) was positive.

But the Tomatometer won’t stay that way.

Yesterday, when the first Tomatometer reviews were posted, the film was 100% rotten. Now it’s only 94% rotten. As more critics post their reviews, the percentage will further change.

HERE’S THE LINK SO YOU CAN CHECK WHERE THE TOMATOMETER IS NOW.

I’ll be interested over the next few days to see what the Tomatometer does regarding this film. I’m sure that the percentage of freshness will increase, but I’m dubious that it will get over the magic 60% to turn The Da Vinci Code into a fresh film.

My money would be that it’ll stay rotten, though by how much I can’t say.

I saw that in the message board on RottenTomatoes they were having a discussion of what the final freshness figure for the movie would be, with people betting (not for money) where they thought the meter would end up.

Anyone care to take a guess?

Ron Howard Endorses Boycott Of Da Vinci Code!

He also encouraged outraged Christians to pre-judge his movie without seeing it first!

Yes! It’s true!

According to the Associated Press:

"There’s no question that the film is likely to be upsetting to some people," Howard told reporters. "My advice, since virtually no one has really seen the movie yet, is to not go see the movie if you think you’re going to be upset. Wait. Talk to somebody who has seen it. Discuss it. And then arrive at an opinion about the movie itself" [SOURCE].

So there you have it!

Ron Howard encourages people who might be upset to "not go see the movie" and, instead, wait and rely on the opinions of others to "arrive at an opinion about the movie itself" without seeing it first!

You really have to hand it to him for throwing in his lot with the boycotters and those who want to pre-judge his movie like that.

I mean, it would have been so easy for Howard to do what most directors would do and say something like, "These people calling for boycotts are absurd. They haven’t even seen the movie. How can they know whether it’s offensive or not? I’d encourage everyone to go out and see the movie and then decide for themselves what they think about it. I think they’ll like what they see!"

Yessirree, Bob! No typical Hollywood spin from Mr. Ron Howard on this one! He’s encouraging people to boycott his film and to form opinions about it without seeing it!

Maybe there’s a little Mayberry left in him after all.

May 19: Go To The Movies!

NOTE: I decided to republish this post just to remind y’all of a very effective means of protesting the opening of The DaVinci Code this weekend. Read on! –MA

Got plans for May 19, the day that the movie The DaVinci Code is slated to open? If not, go to the movies. If so, then go to the movies sometime that weekend before May 21. Just don’t go to The DaVinci Code.

That’s the advice being given to Christians by Christians who know how Hollywood works and know the best way to get the bean-counters in Hollywood to listen:

"May 19th is the date the Da Vinci Code movie opens. A movie based on a book that wears its heresy and blasphemy as a badge of honor.

"What can we as Christians do in response to the release of this movie? I’m going to offer you the usual choices — and a new one.

"Here are the usual suspects:

"A) We can ignore the movie.

"The problem with this option: The box office is a ballot box. The only people whose votes are counted are those who buy tickets. And the ballot box closes on the Sunday of opening weekend. If you stay home, you have lost your chance to make your vote heard. You have thrown your vote away, and from Hollywood’s point of view, you don’t count. By staying home, you do nothing to shape the decision-making process regarding what movies will make it to the big screen.

"B) We can protest.

"The problem with this option: It doesn’t work. Any publicity is good publicity. Protests not only fuel the box office, they make all Christians look like idiots. And again, protests and boycotts do nothing to help shape the decisions being made right now about what movies Hollywood will make in the next few years. (Or they convince Hollywood to make *more* movies that will provoke Christians to protest, which will drive the box office up.)

"C) We can discuss the movie. We can be rational and be ready with study guides and workshops and point-by-point refutations of the lies promulgated by the movie.

"The problem with this option: No one’s listening. They think they know what we’re going to say already. We’ll lose most of these discussions anyway, no matter how prepared we are, because the power of story always trumps the power of facts (why do you think Jesus taught in parables?!). And once again: rational discussion of history does nothing to affect Hollywood’s choices regarding what movies to make.

"But there’s a fourth choice.

"On May 19th, you should go to the movies.

"Just go to another movie.

"Save the date now. May 19th, or May 20th. No later than Sunday, May 21st — that’s the day the ballot box closes. You’ll get a vote, the only vote Hollywood recognizes: The power of cold hard cash laid down on a box office window on opening weekend.

"Use your vote. Don’t throw it away. Vote for a movie other than DVC. If enough people do it, the powers that be will notice. They won’t have a choice.

"The major studio movie scheduled for release against DVC is the DreamWorks animated feature Over the Hedge. The trailers look fun, and you can take your kids. And your friends. And their friends. In fact, let’s all go see it.

"Let’s rock the box office in a way no one expects — without protests, without boycotts, without arguments, without rancor. Let’s show up at the box office ballot box and cast our votes. And buy some popcorn, too.

"May 19th. Mark your calendars now: Over the Hedge‘s opening weekend. Buy a ticket.

"And spread the word. Forward this e-mail to all the Christians in your address book. Post it on your blogs. Talk about it to your churches. And let’s all go to the movies."

Spread the word. And go to the movies on May 19.

(Credit note: I received notice from an email forward originally sent by Barbara Nicolosi of Act One. The campaign was originally started by Quoth the Maven.)

This’ll Be Good For Box Office

Sir Ian McKellan was on the Today Show this morning with the rest of the cast of The Da Vinci Code, plus director Ron Howard, and when the interviewer asked what the cast would have thought about it if the movie had carried a "This is just fiction" title card, McKellan immediately responded that he thought the Bible shoulc carry such a notice.

Perhaps sensing he had gone too far, he then tried to explain and then backpeddal and ultimately made a mess of things.

WATCH THE VIDEO.

VARIETY SLICKS NIX PIC!

YEE-HAW!!! That magisterial mag of movie magic, Variety, has done the dishes on The Da Vinci Code and dished the pic a turkey-sized pan!

Here are some blurbs SONY probably won’t be using from their review:

"A stodgy, grim thing"–Variety

"Perhaps the best thing the project’s critics could have hoped for"–Variety

"Exceedingly literal-minded"–Variety

"Ron Howard and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman have conspired to drain any sense of fun out of the melodrama"–Variety

"An oppressively talky film"–Variety

"It is impossible to believe that, had the novel never existed, such a script would ever have been considered by a Hollywood studio"–Variety

"The irony in the film’s inadequacy is that the novel was widely found to be so cinematic"–Variety

"What went down easily on the page becomes laborious onscreen"–Variety

"High-minded lurid material sucked dry by a desperately solemn approach"–Variety

"A palpable lack of chemistry between Hanks and Tautou"–Variety

"Howard . . . makes them both look stiff, pasty and inexpressive"–Variety

"A film so overloaded with plot that there’s no room for anything else, from emotion to stylistic grace notes"–Variety

"Hans Zimmer’s ever-present score is dramatic to the point of over-insistence"–Variety

"Missed opportunities"–Variety

"The final dramatic revelations . . . come off as particularly flat"–Variety

READ THE WHOLE THING!

CANNES AIN’T CONNED, NEITHER.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

A Da Vinci Flameout?

If I were Ron Howard and the folks at SONY, I’d be nervous right now.

Why?

Because we just witnessed the underperformance of Mission Impossible III, which is a summer-release movie that is build on a popular, pre-existing franchise. If that’s a signal for what the rest of the summer holds (and it goes along with the trend of underperforming blockbusters that we’ve been having the last few years) then it may speak ill for The Da Vinci Code movie.

Also, there as been a chorus of cardinals at the Vatican dissing the film. Sure, controversy sells, but there is such a thing as too much controversy.

Also, the studio has been WAY cagey with advance screenings–which is a sign of lack of confidence in a film since holding more screenings and having them earlier would let more negative word about a film get out there. (It’s not like this is Episode III, where Lucas was trying to keep spoilers from getting out. Everyone already knows what the spoilers for The Da Vinci Code are.)

And then there’s this Barbara Nicolosi comment over at Amy’s, which one reader helpfully pointed out down yonder:

The buzz on the streets here in Hollywood is that the film is embarrassingly bad. The studio has stirctly limied the MPAA screening – usually about 500-800 people – to only 100 people. No one is getting in to advance screenings which has everybody saying things like, "The only time studios act this way is when they have a Class A Dud on their hands."

The script is a dud. The ultra-weird transitions from people running from long-winded seminars on ecclesiastical history to murderous Opus Dei assassins to Biblical period flashbacks of Jesus and Mary Magdalen looking tenderly at each other made me laugh at loud.

Sony knows they will only have devastating word of mouth on this one. So they have to get everybody in the first weekend.

On her own blog, Barbara says that

RON HOWARD SURE LOOKS NERVOUS.

Sounds like it’s with good reason.

There are few things I’d like more going into Memorial Day Weekend (a traditional blockbuster time) than a flameout at the box office for The Da Vinci Code.

The JA.O Literary Club

I just wanted to thank everyone who participated in the discussion of "Through and Through" for the JimmyAkin.Org Literary Club.

I also want to thank Tim Powers once again for granting permission for the story to be reprinted on the blog.

Though I labelled the meeting #1 in case I do it in the future, I wasn’t sure about whether there would be future meetings, but after seeing the level of interest that was displayed in continuing the venture, I’ll see what I can do about securing reprint rights to other stories that the group might be interested in.

These may not all have Catholic themes. I don’t know that there are enough obtainable stories out there that are Catholic themed–certainly not as much so as "Through and Through." Some future offerings may simply be stories that I find entertaining or interesting. We’ll have to see.

Also, as one perceptive person noted in the combox, I likely don’t have time to deal with unsolicited manuscripts, so the stories that get considered will tend to be already-published things (some published long enough ago to be public domain) that I run across and think might be worthwhile for the group.

I also wouldn’t want to commit to doing this "regularly," since that would put pressure on me to come up with stories on a particular schedule, and that pressure would tend to lower the quality of the stories offered for discussion. I’d rather keep the quality of the stories higher (according to my own, subjective determination) and have meetings on an irregular basis–just as pleasant surprises that show up as part of the mix.

So thanks once again to one and all for making the first meeting of the JA.OLC a success!

The Da Vinci Movie: WORSE Than The Book?

The movie version of The Da Vinci Code is scheduled to be released this Friday and, though I’m not at all happy about it, I’ll need to go see the thing for professional reasons. (I expect that I may come out of the theater so mad I could spit.)

One of the questions I have about the movie is whether the filmmakers will have done anything to ameliorate the anti-Christian elements in the book. For a while, some have been hopeful that they would do so–perhaps even changing central elements of the book in the way that Hollywood films often do.

But if a (non-committal) review carried in The Telegraph is accurate, not only does the film closely follow the book but it may actually be worse than the book:

Although the movie closely follows the book’s storyline, Howard delivers something Dan Brown doesn’t – dramatic recreations of events relating to the book’s central inflammatory theory that for 2,000 years the Catholic Church has been covering up the fact that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and fathered a daughter, whose bloodline has survived into present-day Europe.

As well as scenes of the Inquisition and of women being tortured, burned and drowned, Howard shows Mary Magdalene fleeing the Holy Land for France and giving birth there.

GET THE STORY.
(CHT to the reader who e-mailed.)

How To Judge A Book By Its Cover

Perhaps you have heard the old adage that you should never judge a book by its cover. Nonsense! … At least when we’re speaking literally, anyway.

The apologists here at Catholic Answers often get calls from inquirers asking whether we have read such-and-so book and, if so, what do we think about it. Unless the book happens to generate a lot of inquiries — on the order of, say, The DaVinci Code — the answers are often “No” and “We don’t have an opinion on it.”

Don’t despair. There are ways to glean a lot of information about a book without having to read the thing. Here are some tips:

Title: What does the title say about the author’s approach to the subject? If you were wandering through the parenting section of your local bookstore, a quick scan of the titles can give you insight into the approaches taken to parenting. The Strong-Willed Child may suggest a more combative approach to childrearing than Raising Your Spirited Child. If you have a gentler parenting philosophy, you’re more likely to be drawn to Unconditional Parenting than to Laying Down the Law.

Author: What else has this person written? What are his credentials in the field? These answers to these questions and many more can be found by plugging the author’s name into Google. These days, when many authors maintain personal web sites as marketing tools, you’re likely to find out a great deal about an author from the Internet.

Cover blurbs: Who is endorsing this book? Have you heard of them before? Do you know their reputation? If we move back to the parenting section example, if names like James Dobson or Dr. William Sears appear on the dustjacket, you’ve found an important clue about the author’s parenting philosophy. In the Catholicism section of the store, an endorsement of a book by Fr. Richard McBrien will suggest one thing, while an endorsement by George Weigel will suggest something else.

Publisher: What other titles has this company published? What is the company’s target audience? What does its web site reveal about the company? If the book is on Catholicism, is the publisher a Catholic company? If so, is the Catholic publisher orthodox, heterodox, or is it a mixed bag? Is the company secular? If so, what other religious titles has the company produced?

Copyright: If the copyright date is old, will there be current information missing? A book on nutrition from decades ago might still talk about the four food groups rather than the newer food pyramid. A Catholic book written before 1983 might reflect the 1917 Code of Canon Law and thus be out of date in some matters of ecclesiastical law.

Notes: If the book is non-fiction, does the author cite sources? Does he cite sources in a uniform manner, or is his citation haphazard? Are the bulk of the sources primary (e.g., studies, academic papers) or does he rely on general information books in his field in which the authors agree with his thesis? (You’d be surprised at how sloppy some researchers can be.)

Bibliography: What titles did the author use for research? Does the author recommend certain titles? If so, do you know anything about these titles or authors?

Acknowledgements: Who does the author thank? Thanks to experts in the field is helpful and the names can be plugged into Internet search engines for information about credentials and philosophy.

Foreword and Afterword: Who wrote introductory and/or summary matter? What is that person’s experience in the field? A book on the liturgy with an introduction by the former Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger would suggest that the book would be orthodox, while an introduction by Sr. Joan Chittister, OSB, would suggest something quite different.

After your gleaning, take stock. Are there red flags flying? If so, the book may not be worth your time. If you do have time to spare and your curiosity continues to be piqued, you may still want to read the book but you’ll know to rev up your Purity Filter before reading. In any case, you’ll have a pretty good gauge of the book before diving in. So, yes, you can judge a book by its cover!

Through And Through

[NOTE: A lot of folks in other countries see the site at unsual hours, and I didn’t want this week’s special event to get buried under other posts and be less visible over the weekend, so I moved the two relevant posts to the top. This should also make it easier for folks who want to participate but who couldn’t read the story during work hours. For an explanation of what we’re doing see here.–ja]

Through and Through

by Tim Powers

ALREADY when he walked in through the side door, there were new people sitting here and there, separately in the Saturday afternoon dimness. The air was cool, and smelled of floor-wax.

He almost peered at the shadowed faces, irrationally hoping one might be hers, come back these seven days later to try for a different result; but most of the faces were lowered, and of course she wouldn’t be here. Two days ago, maybe—today, and ever after, no.

The funeral would be next week sometime, probably Monday. No complications about burial in consecrated soil anymore, thank God . . . or thank human mercy.

His shoes knocked echoingly on the glossy linoleum as he walked across the nave, pausing to bow toward the altar. In the old days he would have genuflected, and it would have been spontaneous; in recenter years the bow had become perfunctory, dutiful—today it was a twitch of self-distaste.

There were fewer people than he had first thought, he noted as he walked past the side altar and started down the wall aisle toward the confessional door, passing under the high, wooden Stations of the Cross and the awkwardly lettered banners of the Renew Committee. Maybe only three, all women; and a couple of little girls.

They never wanted to line up against the wall—a discreet couple of yards away from the door—until he actually entered the church; and then if there were six or so of them they’d be frowning at each other as they got up out of the pews and belatedly formed the line. silently but obviously disagreeing about the order in which they’d originally entered the church.

Last week there had been five, counting her. And afterward he had walked back up to the front of the church and stepped up onto the altar level and gone into the sacristy to put on the vestments for 5:30 Mass. Had he been worrying about what she had said? What sins you shall retain, they are retained. Probably he had been worrying about it.

As he opened the confessional door now, he nodded to the old woman who was first in line. The others appeared to be trying to hide behind her—he could see only a drape of skirt and a couple of shoes behind her. He didn’t recognize the old woman.

He stepped into the little room and pulled the door closed behind him. They wouldn’t begin to come in until he turned on the red light over the door, and he needed a drink.

Continue reading “Through And Through”