spirituality Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Film Clips: On 'The Golden Compass' and Story -- And Will You Go See It?
Filed under: Drama », Sci-Fi & Fantasy », New Releases », New Line », Fandom », Family Films », Movie Marketing », Columns », Film Clips », Polls »
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.
Review: The Celestine Prophecy
Filed under: Drama », Independent », Sci-Fi & Fantasy », Thrillers », Mystery & Suspense », Cinematical Indie »
When you set out to adapt a best-selling spiritual book into a movie, it's kind of a double-edged sword. You have a built-in audience for your film, but by tailoring your film for that audience, you risk not reaching a wider one. The Celestine Prophecy might please diehard fans of James Redfield's initially self-published, best-selling book, but anyone else is likely to sit there watching in absolute befuddlement as characters prattle on in stilted dialogue about energy fields and insights while assorted baddies -- government soldiers, armed-to-the-teeth rebels AND a Catholic Cardinal -- blow up buses and ancient ruins, shoot and kidnap people, and generally run all amok doing dastardly bad-guy deeds, in an effort to keep people from spreading the word about these ancient "insights". And that's unfortunate, because the message in Redfield's book: slow down, learn to appreciate the coincidences and beauty in life, and learn to touch God directly from within yourself, is a message that a lot of people in our increasingly violent and volatile world could stand to hear. Before I get a bunch of nasty comments from Redfield fans about this review, let me disclaim here: I am a fan of the book (or at least the ideas presented in the book, if not the quality of the writing) and I'd hoped the movie would be really well done. Unfortunately, it just wasn't.
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