religion Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Being one not entirely fond of controversy for controversy's sake, I cannot deny that the prospect of 'Politically Incorrect' host Bill Maher working with Borat director Larry Charles to make a documentary regarding religion in any respect and having it distributed by a studio all too proud to remind you of the hand it had in releasing Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 wasn't one that had me eager to line up around the block for it any time soon.

However, all things considered, while the new trailer for Religulous fails to dilute any notions that this thing is a lightning rod in waiting, I found myself unexpectedly consoled by the fact that Maher and Charles appear to be covering every faith and denomination that they can in making a film about the seemingly ridiculous nature of any one belief to another.

If Ben Stein can both cause an old-fashioned ruckus with his doc on the exclusion of creationist thought in public schools and rake in some relatively decent grosses while doing it, it'll be interesting to see just how much attention this film will inevitably garner come this October 3.

My earlier column about the controversy swirling around The Golden Compass generated a lot of thought-provoking comments, and I thought that, with the film's opening date coming up on December 7, this might be a good time to address one of the questions underlying a lot of the comments we've had on the subject: Is a story, in this case, just a story? Or is it a tool with which to push or indoctrinate a set of beliefs?

One of our commenters, Rodway, included a link to this post titled "Sympathy for the Devil" over on Plugged Online, a movie blog arm of Focus on the Family. The site's "About Us" section says about its mission:

"Plugged In is a Focus on the Family publication designed to help equip parents, youth leaders, ministers and teens with the essential tools that will enable them to understand, navigate and impact the culture in which they live. Entertainment is a potent influence on our culture for both good and evil. Through our reviews and discussions of that entertainment, we hope to spark intellectual thought, family discussion, spiritual growth and a strong desire to follow the command of Colossians 2:8. "See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ."

So you can probably figure out going in which side of the debate this post is going to weigh in on. Nonetheless, the piece does offer a fairly reasoned argument to its target market for why Christian parents should keep their kids away from The Golden Compass, both in its (likely to be) watered-down film form, and its even "more dangerous" written form to which your children (so implies the author) will surely be led if they watch the film.

Just the other day, before the Academy was set to release the list of eligible foreign films for an Oscar, Israel found out that their own submission was a no-go -- disappointing news for sure. While Israel is bummed, India has gotten quite ticked off -- at least their Oscar selection committee has. Reuters reports that they are not too happy with a letter they have received from Hollywood's Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science, which they say contained "disparaging" comments.

India had selected Vidhu Vinod Chopra's Eklavya: The Royal Guard to be their Oscar shot, as Eric D. Snider pointed out in September. The thing is, it was reportedly considered a flop by both audiences and critics -- this isn't a case of moviegoers raving and critics wretching. To make things even more complicated, Bhavna Talwar, the director of the second-place Dharm (Religion) took the committee to court. She claims that she was slipped in second because of Chopra and his producer's connections with some of the selectors.

So, the Academy wrote a letter to the committee to express their surprise over the selection ordeal. To add insult to injury, they then told the selectors that they should have better standards for their selection process. Ouch! Vinod Pande, the chairman of the committee told Reuters: "It was a little disparaging the way things were put in that letter." He also said he's told them that they have "strong democratic values and that an aggrieved person had every right to seek justice in court." Nevertheless, they are meeting this week to see if they want to stick with the first choice. Either way, they're not going to escape some embarrassment.

Larry Charles made his feature directorial debut with the utterly ridiculous Bob Dylan film Masked and Anonymous, but he has been a big name in television for years. He wrote several classic Seinfeld episodes and is a frequent Curb Your Enthusiasm director. Those two credits make him a hero to me, but it was his last film that really catapulted him onto the A - list: Borat. You would think after the enormous critical and commercial success of that film, the guy would have no problem setting up another project. Unless that project is a sure-to-be controversial flick about "the role of institutional religion around the world." Charles showed a ten-minute promotional reel of his new film to around 200 buyers at the Cannes Film Festival on Friday, and it already has people speculating that it will cause an uproar.

The film, currently titled A Spiritual Journey is said to be "a blend of comedy and reportage," which makes it sound like some of the lighter segments of Michael Moore's work. The movie has finished production, but has yet to be edited. Comedian Bill Maher will narrate the film, and he is no stranger to controversy himself. His comments criticizing the US government after September 11th led to the cancellation of his show Politically Incorrect. A Spiritual Journey has been selling quite well to foreign distributors, but America might be a trickier proposition. Those who saw the advance footage think it would be an extremely difficult film for a division of a major studio to handle. We live in a world where even the suspicion of religion bashing can cause huge protests and boycotts -- Dogma and The Last Temptation of Christ are just a couple examples of flicks that infuriated religious groups. That sort of controversy can make the big studios wary, but it can also sell a lot of tickets. I have no doubt we'll see A Spiritual Journey here at some point, but it sounds like it's going to come with a whole lot of hubbub.

As Chris reported recently, the producers of Facing the Giants have accused the MPAA of hitting their film with a PG rating because it was just way too into the Lord. The film, which is about a high school football team that has prayers answered and experiences miracles after it puts its season in God's hands, is getting a load of free publicity (I don't remember Roy Blunt writing a letter about the rating given to ATL, for example.) from this controversy, and if its makers have any brains, they sure as hell (sorry) don't want it to go away.

For a while yesterday, though, it looked like everything had been sorted out: MPAA chair Joan Graves told Variety that, in a phone call with the "film's backers," said backers "acknowledged they made a mistake" in assuming the PG was for the movie's religious content. When contacted for their reaction, however, the backers acknowledged no such thing. While a rep from producer Provident Films did acknowledge that they had spoken with Graves, he insisted that her report of the conversation was "absolutely inaccurate." And, furthermore, it's the MPAA that's changing its story, not the Facing the Giants team: According to Provident, "The first communication from the MPAA was that religion was a factor in the rating. Since then, the MPAA has revised those factors to no longer include religion." Take that, MPAA.

If nothing else, this at least means the controversy will keep rolling. Thank goodness for that.