Well, not just the critics are knocking the new film version of The Da Vinci Code, the flick’s own actors are doing it as well. Ian McKellen, who has been getting raves for his work in the film, calls Dan Brown and his story “codswallop,” according to The Guardian. What is “codswallop,” you may ask? Answer here. I’ll check it out over the weekend to see if I think it’s “codswallop” as well. I suspect it is. But the question is – is it good “codswallop”?
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“But it’s really GOOD codswallop, Mrs. Preski!”
(I hope SOMEone gets the reference…)
On codswallop.
The cod part comes originally from the use
of codpieces in elizabethan england.The purpose of this affectation was to enhance the apparent size of a mans package.
When i was a kid , my father would say i was codding him when i told an untruth.
In short, a misrepresentation of fact.
The amount of hype generated over a film is inversely related to the quality of the script.
A corolary to this statement, in the case of this particular movie: the excitement created among its producers is directly related to the amount of offense it might create among Christians.
When the dust settles, however, the Opus Day might come out as winner.
Speaking of ‘codswallop’ and new movies…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4764909.stm
Ian could have turned the part down.
Or if he feels so strongly about it, donate his paycheck…………
And Mel still laughs all the way to the bank…….
I just heard on the news that the pic was financed by a wealthy Muslim, living in London.
Doesn’t it figure?
They back a film that tries to destroy the Christian faith by maintaining as “fiction” (jokes are on the Christians!) that Jesus didn’t die on the cross for our sins as the Son of God, but was only too human by marrying Mary Magdalene, fathering children and dying an old, ordinary man.
Not only that, but the movie & book also skewer the Opus Dei sect of the Catholic Church, composed of devout, pious Catholics who want to practice a more demanding version of their faith.
(By the way, one of the more prominent members of Opus Dei is Louis Freeh, former head of the FBI.)
And all of that’s OK, we Christians take it all in stride.
But let the Danes publish a few cartoons featuring Mohammed and it’s Katie-bar-the-door all over the world and a global fatwa and jihad.
“Freedom of speech for me, but not for thee, infidel!”
Well, I think that the DaVinci Code, as a story is indeed most likely codswallop (I just read Brown’s book “Angels and Demons” it too was codswallop and poorly written codswallop at that). However, having read much of the source material (well before Dan Brown wrote his story) it does appear that there were some shady things happening in the Church though I don’t agree with his conclusions as to what it was.
I do find it funny that some Christians are trying to make this argument “historical” as if we have any evidence outside of the Bible that Jesus ever existed. If a person desires to live as Christlike as possible and accept on faith the information in the Bible, thats a fine thing. But, if they try to state categorically what DID happen in history, well, they’re probably going to be as wrong as Mr. Brown. It reminds me of some Intelligent Design arguments. If a person desires to believe something, thats great… faith has been a mainstay of humans for as long as we have recorded history. However, once we try to bolster faith by making unprovable statements as fact… well then I think we’ve left faith and grabbed dogma, and that doesn’t seem healthy to me.
robert hansen, the death-dealing spy for russia from the fbi and filmer of sex acts with his wife for the amusement of the guys, is also opus dei.
and who says jesus has to be celibate to be divine? he could marry mary, sire children, and still die on the cross and be resurrected. the two possibilities are not mutually exclusive.
Piffle. It’s much more akin to balderdash, or even tommyrot.
My understanding is that Brown based much of the “historicity” of DVC on an earlier load of codswallop called Holy Blood, Holy Grail. The two surviving authors of that book, Michael Baigent and Richard Lee, have been interviewed for documentaries and TV lately, and it’s always amusing to hear them basically disavow the factual value of their own book. Basically, they say, “Well, we don’t claim that any of this is true. We claim that it might possibly be true.” Big difference, there.
Holy Blood, Holy Grail relies a lot on the whole “Priory of Sion” business, without revealing that this organization was actually cooked up by some crazy Frenchman named Pierre Plantard, who claimed he was heir to the Merovingian kings. He was aided by a couple of dissolute associates, one of whom wrote out a detailed confession before he died, admitting that it was a complete hoax and that they’d done it as a lark. So much for historical fact. Actually puts a big dent in even the possibility of factual value.
Oops. It looks like Henry Lincoln, the third author of Holy Blood, Holy Grail is still alive, but not entirely well. A correction in the name of factual value.
Via Drudge:
…She never got a chance. There was little lingering or mingling with the crowd. Thanks to their critical mauling, the stars seemed keen to walk down the red carpet in double quick time.
Earlier, at a press conference Tom Hanks, who plays symbologist Robert Langdon, insisted the movie was a “crackerjack”.
Director Ron Howard defended it as “a very rich film-making experience for me on a lot of levels”.
—
I’ll just bet it was “rich” for him.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/showbiz/showbiznews.html?in_article_id=386675&in_page_id=1773
If you likedthe ‘Da Vinci Code’ you’ll just love
‘Piltdown Man: The Movie’.
TO Friendly Grizzly:
Firesign Theatre Rules!!!
Queation. Why do settlers always put their wagons in a circle when indians attack??
Roger;
“I began as a sceptic. I strarted “researching” the Da Vinci Codes” I really thought I would disprove a lot of this theory about Jesus, Mary Mad. and Holy Blood and all that, I became a believer.”- Dan Brown.
Dan Brown goes back and forth between “It’s just a novel”, and “I researched it and I believe” when it suits him. Of course he has a right to say and write any thing he wants. But he is trying to sell this as true and he wants this to become what people will believe in. And he tries to sell his research as “historical.” When proffessionals, Art historians, Theologians, and historians, started to look into his “claims” 80 per cent of what he wrote fell apart under scrutiny. That is when he stopped talking about his claims as research and fell behind the “lighten up, it’s just a novel” tactic.
There is also the “I just wanted to spark conversations” dodge. If someone wants to start conversation on a topic one generally doesn’t use a lie to start it. “This is true” “It’s not?” “oh well, let’s discuss it anyway.”
Roger, Imagine if a talented writer took the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” and wrote a page turner out of it. Imagine at some point the author tried to sell the idea that he researched it and found some interesting “facts”. Imagine if a major corporation spent a quarter of a million dollars making a “crackerjack” thriller out of it where the hero promotes the truth of the story. You wouldn’t say “It’s just a novel”