Being Forced to Watch "The Da Vinci Code"

[The Deacon]

I am sooo over "The Da Vinci Code"
Last night: SciFi, Discovery Channel & History Channel all had programs on relating to it. A & E Television decided to be different. They had a program on about Dan Brown's first novel in the series, "Angels & Demons" about the Illuminati.
I was sick & tired of Dan Brown, "The Da Vinci Code" and movie hype in general. I wanted my tv channels back - I didn't read the book when it first came out (and the first time all my favorite cable channels went "Da Vinci" crazy.) No political or religious reasons there - just didn't strike me as my usual taste in mystery writing. I hadn't planned on going to see the movie - theater prices, not political or religious reasons were the deciding factor there, though I do enjoy Tom Hanks acting & Ron Howard's directing. Figured I'd just wait for it to come on Pay Per View (very economical.)
Then the protests started. Somebody in India threatening to fast until death unless censors ban the movie. Somebody in my local morning paper claiming it was a Hollywood smear in response to "The Passion of the Christ" (despite the fact that "Da Vinci" was already a best seller in 2003 & "Passion" wasn't released until 2004.)
I hate these people. They are FORCING me to go shell out my limited funds to buy the book and watch the movie - as a protest against censorship.
Still think I'll sneak in my own popcorn, though.

[Hugin]

1. Take a drink too.

;)

[billybob537]

2. FICTION

LOOK IT UP!

[enlightenment]

3. Check the book out of the library.

Wait for the movie to come out on pay per view. You don't have to support the movie company to protest censorship.

Besides, if this movie is anything like most book based films, the book is WAY better.

[RaleighNCDUer]

13. I actually hope the movie will be the better.

I thought the book was something of a potboiler. No problem with the theories -- read 'Holy Blood, Holy Grail' twenty years ago; just didn't care for Dan Brown's writing style.

[Skidmore]

4. Awww, wait a week or so. I want that movie to be a monster hit with

the public. I'm just passive aggressive enough to want see the power structures of organized religions to be shocked by the nation-wide, inch-deep religiosity of the American people. I don't buy the idea that Americans are more deeply religious than the rest of the world or they wouldn't live as materialistically or engage in vice at the supersize level they do. I think Americans are just trained to buy a product that's packaged in glitter, something televangelists and fundamentalists have been doing well for the last two decades. Americans...well... Americans like sin. They love sin. They'll pay for sin.

I hope the Code makes millions and millions.

[demosincebirth]

12. Sorry, but the reviews I've read on the internet and in the local

and national periodicals don't give it much hope to be anything but and average draw.

To me, the book was anything but an average read...and anyone who, supposedly , has their faith shaken by this book or movie is very gullible and naive.

[Frank Cannon]

5. The reviews are horrible: 21% on Rotten Tomatoes

I liked the book, and I appreciated the issues it brought up, but I think I'll pass on this film. Ron Howard's pretty hit-and-miss, and it looks like he missed on this one.

[Common Sense Party]

7. I'm listening to it on audible.com now, and it's pretty lame.

The writing is more formulaic, cliched and klunky than even John Grisham.

I won't even get into the far-fetched Catholic conspiracy aspect of it--I know it's just fiction.

But thus far, I'm not impressed with Dan Brown as an author.

[Sal Minella]

8. I find Brown's prose simply unreadable -- overwrought & dorky.

[Common Sense Party]

11. I'm glad I'm not the only one.

I'm listening to it and about every scene I'm saying to myself, "Oh, good grief! Who wrote this schlock? Who speaks like that?"

His use of convenient flashbacks to explain what *just* happened, his convenient coincidences, the insufferable dialogue...ugh.

I'm going to keep slogging through it, just so I know what all the hubbub is about.

But this is one of those pulp fiction best-seller blockbusters that leaves me scratching my head, wondering: "Does the general public have NO discriminating taste any more?"

If not for the controversial (and convoluted) subject matter, this poorly-written novel never would have sold so many copies.

[Sal Minella]

18. A couple of movie reviewers have complained about the dialog,

and I'd bet a nickel most of the dialog is lifted right out of the book!

[RebelOne]

15. Well, seems many people are reading Brown's books.

And he is laughing all the way to the bank with the profits.

[Common Sense Party]

20. John Grisham wrote the same book five or six times

and people kept buying it. Who cares if he was a poor, hack writer? He raked in millions and now he phones 'em in.

[Sal Minella]

21. Dan Brown, Stephen King, Danielle Steele....can't read them.

Given a choice, I'd bet each of them would exchange the fabulous wealth for writing talent. Or maybe not.

Edit: Each of them, given a choice, would exchange the fabulous wealth for writing talent, I'd bet. (misplaced phrase, sorry Mr. Strunk)

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. Fun from the Guardian review

I was approached to join the Priory of Sion as an undergraduate at Cambridge. I was a naive, beardless youth reading for the Church, and an eminent literary scholar had invited me to tea in his rooms in Magdalene College. Pushing a subtly recessed mahogany panel, he opened a secret door and I was led, wonderingly, into the gigantic underground vault beneath that college, rarely, if ever, shown to outsiders. An inner chamber, lit by flickering candlelight, was thronged with sinister chanting figures in monkish robes, gathered round an enormous silver pentangle. I recognised former Cabinet minister Norman St John Stevas under one cowl. A female figure, the Prioress of Sion, sat enthroned above them. Suddenly, the chanting stopped, and there was a loud animal squealing as one monk dragged a terrified billy goat into the centre of the pentangle, its hooves skittering frantically on the marble floor. The Prioress drew back her hood and the face of Princess Margaret was revealed, contorted with livid emotion. She stood up, and produced a jewel-encrusted dagger. The floor was soon awash with blood as the Prioress slaughtered Norman St John Stevas in front of the poor animal - and the organisation arranged for a double to take his place.

Priapic dancing followed and then over coffee and petit-fours my host explained to me that in about 20 years' time, with their connivance, a novel describing the Priory's activities would appear, a novel of such deliberate and ineffable clunkiness that no one would believe it. Billions would be mesmerised. The plan was that a film would follow, which would be the same only more so, imitating the jaunty plonking rhythm of the book. It was to be sublimely implausible: the Priory's secret would be safe for another generation.

And so it has come to pass. It has to be the only explanation for this film: a bizarre succession of baffling travelogue escapades taking Hanks and Tautou, as two cardboard cutout characters on the trail of the terrible secret, scampering from the Louvre to Westminster Abbey and a remote place of worship north of the border - decoding away like billy-o with a gun-toting albino monk on their tail. If it's Wednesday, it must be Scotland. Ian McKellen plays the twinkly-eyed British scholar Sir Leigh Teabing who opens their eyes to the truth, Jean Reno is the grizzled Paris cop who suspects them of wrongdoing, and Paul Bettany is the creepo assassin-monk from Opus Dei who mortifies his flesh with a cat-o-nine-tails and a barbed "cilice" belt round his thigh. He could have put himself through a lot more agony just by nipping out to Borders for a copy of the book.

http://film.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/Critic_Review/Guardian_review/0,,1777817,00.html

[RaleighNCDUer]

14. LOL!

[TomInTib]

6. Fiction based on fiction. nt

[MetaTrope]

10. What we need is a film based on the 9-hour stage version of ILLUMINATUS!

If it was good enough for the Queen of England, why not Hollywood audiences?

[Bridget Burke]

17. What's Peter Jackson doing nowadays?

He could do a good job with the Illuminatus trilogy.

I retched my way through the TV show on Angels & Demons. How could the discuss the Illuminati without Robert Anton Wilson?

[AzDar]

16. NOT a good book...suspect the film will be worse. LOVE how it's

stirrin' up the Vatican, though...LOL.

[Maiden England]

19. I just got back from seeing the movie

I thought it was a great film, but then I loved the book. The film is a really awesome adaptation and tells the story brilliantly. If you like a fast paced, drama/thriller type movie, you should enjoy it immensely.