Controversy sells movie tickets...books whatever; bad publicity is still publicity. The Da Vinci Code will be number 1 at the box office this week just because...because it has nothing but hype and pre-release press, a 'Right Wing Christian' boycott and such going for it. Like everyone who is panning the film in advance of ever seeing it, and the critics that have seen it and (as usual) do not like it either, I guess I will put in my few comments.

I really, seriously did not want to touch this one at all but I guess I have to say something because a lot of what I have been seeing and hearing this week pisses me off. I hate the kind of couched censorship that is rampant in our society. It is not just whenever someone thinks that something might possibly offend someone else. It is even when people are stupid enough to confuse art and fiction with rreality and their daily lives. That 'political correct' police thing is a whole 'nother issue altogether, the 'Left Wing Liberal' extreme of lunacy that I suppose counterbalances the aforementioned Right Wingers.

It is just that I hate it whenever anything comes into the mainstream that treads on the path of someone else's sacred cow.

For the past few weeks I have been receiving material and emails from evangelical religious zealots telling me all sorts of crazy things about the movie and in summation they conclude that no true believer (Christian) should see this movie because anyone who goes to this movie I will very likely burn in hell. Okay, I am exaggerating a bit but really not all that much. I have conducted extensive research over the past couple of seconds and recall no one burning to death let alone in the bowels of purgatory after reading Dan Brown's best selling novel.

Novel...yes, there is the key word. It is fiction! Look up the definition of fiction. Okay, okay I'll save you the trouble. Here it is, straight from a Google search, so you know it is right...Fiction: 1) A literary work based on the imagination and not necessarily on fact 2) fabrication: a deliberately false or improbable account. 3) a term used to describe works of the imagination in contrast to non-fiction, which makes factual claims about reality. A large part of the appeal of fiction is its ability to evoke the entire spectrum of human emotions: to distract our minds, to give us hope in times of despair, to make us laugh, or to let us experience empathy without attachment. 4) Prose based on something that did not happen or has not happened, implementing plot and character to exemplify thought.

Now that we have the term pretty clearly defined and in focus let me just say that I didn't read the book. I never made the time to read the book. It is an interesting premise, though. It is just that it really isn't the sort of book I would read.

Dan Brown has researched a theory based on the discovery of a 3rd Century AD document that was purported to be a missing gospel of the Christian Bible and he was inspired to write a book.

The theory for those of you who have been cowering under a rock lately, and haven't heard is that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalen (she was the prostitute that he spared from being stoned to death) and they had children; their descendants live even to this day and the Church in the book (and movie) wants to suppress that knowledge just as much as the Church community in the 'real world' is trying to prevent the faithful and the semi-faithful from even going to see the movie.

Oh well. **stretches and yawns**

Perhaps the outcome of the association with this movie (or the book) remains to be seen. My daughter has read the book. Come to think of it what book hasn't she read recently? 'Avid Reader' falls short of describing her. Anyway, she didn't ask my permission nor should she have to. She is graduating from HS this week. Despite that she had about six months to go on the 'age of majority' thing, she may as well be an adult. I have always allowed all of my kids to be free thinkers. They see the world very differently than I do but that does not make me wrong or them wrong. They have grown up to be pretty good kids, good students and very well adjusted despite the strange things that have confronted them in the course of their lives.

My daughter gave me an impromptu review. She said the plot of The Da Vinci Code was interesting but a little confusing at times and that it reads like an over-extended screenplay. Based on that I figure they could have made a mini series from this book and it would have been more accurate to the book at least, but probably no more or less entertaining.

I guess what I am getting at is that no one has the right to tell anyone else what to see or read. It smacks in the face of civil liberty and the freedom upon which this country was founded - or at least that is my take of the Constitution which I whole heartedly encourage you to read sometime. What an achievement our Constitution is when you consider that a bunch of guys got together and hammered out a set of rules for running a country everyone sort of agreed on.

I think that if someone's faith in Jesus as their Savior and the Son of God is founded on such shaky ground as to be swayed by watching a movie or reading a book, then you probably need to spend a lot more time reading the Bible and going to Church. Once again it brings me back to the overall theme of this blog entry, the book and the movie are works of fiction! F-I-C-T-I-O-N.

Making them out to be anything else is a silly as founding a religion on the tenets of a 1950's sci-fi novelist's research and ideas of how the human mind really works. Oops, sorry if I just offended Tom Cruise, et.al.

I do not like movie adaptations from literature but there are exceptions that have been pretty faithful interpretations of the original work. I suppose that an adaptation of The DaVinci Code was inevitable and it could be entertaining. Ron Howard directing it was a good start. Convincing Tom Hanks to risk his storied acting career to make this movie was probably a good lock on getting some seats pre-sold at theaters. I have some respect for Tom Hank's acting ability but I also know that one actor can not save a celluloid fiasco even though at times the actors are blamed for a flop. Hate the game not the players.

As a writer I am very much aware of the difficulty of adaptation from one entertainment medium to another. I also know that at times it is very specific to the material. I don't know, to me it seems that someone somewhere was looking to rake in some loot on the controversy and all - a week before the next X-Men movie was released. Any moron realizes X-Men will take the top spot at the box office next weekend.

I am not even a big X-Men fan but I know that. I have watched the previous movies and I am gradually getting into the world. I may even go to see this one in the theater which will be a change for me.

As for The DaVinci Code (movie) it is probably going to be one of those things you have to endure because there is nothing else you can do, like being stranded at a railroad crossing because there was a train wreck and there is no way to get around it. Yeah I might personally prefer mowing the yard or sitting quietly watching fresh paint dry but I have to admit that the promising premise has sold millions of books. You might think the movie would be worth a watch. I'll rent the DVD when it comes out - it should be out in month or so judging from the reviews.

Yeah, well when Spectre of Dammerwald is made into a movie, I'll be the hermit hiding in the mountains somewhere until the slam fest over that adaptation ends.

E