Another thing I hate about The Da Vinci Code

:rant:

So Forrest Gump and Amelie consult Magneto, the most smartest Grail-ologist in the whole wide world, and Magneto proceeds to rattle off the top ten Most Universally-Known Grail "facts" as if they're secret or esoteric knowledge.

That's bad enough, but I understand it; film marketeers want the product to appeal to the widest audience possible, and if you alienate the dumbest third of the viewership by putting someone onscreen who's too smart, you're going to hurt your bottom line. So a knowledge of pseudo-secret trivia is offered as a proxy for wisdom or intellect. Like I said--I understand why they do that.

But then Magneto, in full righteous indignation, howls about the evils of the Catholic church and the centuries of atrocities that it's committed against everyone, but most particularly against women. He refers to a horrific and ancient tome used as a handbook for identifying and executing witches. Naturally, the noble scholar has a copy on hand, and he produces it for Forrest's enlightenment. Here's the cover:



The problem? That's a crap-bound ten-dollar paperback edition, available in every shitty New Age shop from coast to coast. For gravitas, it's about the equivalent of the translated Dover edition of The Canterbury Tales.

You'd think that a world-renown scholar with a flair for the dramatic could do better than a 1971 mass-market printing. Hell, Bruce Campbell's copy of the Necronomicon was more convincing...

Has an albino ever been portrayed as a positive character in a mainstream Hollywood film?

And even in that movie the albino was a bit of a slacker and commited automotive theft as well as cheating slot machines to buy malt.

"Powder"? Wasn't the main character in that movie an albino?

nyuk nyuk nyuk

:rofl:

I gotta million of 'em!


But that's a good question--I'm not sure if he was albino or just bald and electrifying...

;)

Oddly, though, I think that he's slept approximately four hours total since his auspicious birth lo these many days past. He's cute, but when he's screaming at three in the morning, I am forced to console myself by attacking the shortcomings of big-budget films.

Send him this way. I have no idea how to get babies to stay sleep, but we won't notice one more. :)

There've been so many babies around here lately, I don't remember sending my good wishes to you and Mrs Orrex. :thumbsup:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=5892936">Here's the thread wherein I first announced the momentous occasion.

And http://www.maj.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=130430">here a few other selected photos of the new arrival.

Wild times in the Orrex household, I can assure you!

Maxel tov! :bounce:

he blew his wad on a high-tech A/V rig. maybe he had to hock his old-skool copy of the Malleus Maleficarum to pay for the CGI work.

But I got lost trying to decode the secret messages in Tom Hanks' mullet.

For the record, we read that book as part of my History of Witchcraft class in college. Same cover too. :D

I shut it off and never finished it. The book wasn't good enough to make me sit through a bad movie.