Angels & Demonizing: ‘Fiction With an Agenda is Propaganda’

Warning: This post divulges the entire “Angels & Demons” plot. If you haven’t seen the movie and intend to, go no further for there be spoilers…

People whose opinions I respect have defended A&D as not being anti-Catholic. This is probably due to the end of the film which delivers a trumped up moment of warmth and reconciliation between Tom Hanks’ Robert Langdon character and the Church in the form of a new Pope.  From my perch, this moment is a subtle but devious cherry on top of a blisteringly unfair and wholly dishonest attack on the Church.

Serial adulterer Martin Luther King, Jr.

Serial adulterer Martin Luther King, Jr.

Serial adulterer Martin Luther King, Jr.

One way to dishonestly destroy someone or something is to repeat only the negative about that someone or something. DreamWorks has just announced a new film about the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. and were it to focus solely on King’s extra-marital affairs no one would argue that the movie was anything other than a propaganda tool produced with the goal in mind of assassinating his character. (more…)

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Tags: Angels and Demons, Catholic church, Martin Luther King, Propaganda, Ron Howard
Posted May 19th 2009 at 9:37 am in Entertainment, Politics | 1381823 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2009/05/19/angels-demonizing-how-cinematic-propaganda-works/Angels+%26amp%3B+Demonizing%3A+%27Fiction+With+an+Agenda+is+Propaganda%272009-05-19+16%3A37%3A26John+Nolte

Angels & Demons and the Hollywood Magisterium

I didn’t get permission to see Ron Howard’s “Angels and Demons” film from anyone official but as a member of the media as well as the Catholic Church my gut feeling was that I should see it, but not pay for it. I wasn’t sure how I was going to pull that off because although the program I host on St. Joseph Radio is heard on EWTN, it’s really not on anyone in Hollywood’s radar, and my in-box at Indie 1031 has got Internet radio written all over it’s empty enclosure. Somehow I was invited to a screening at the ArcLight in Hollywood presented by Flemming’s Steakhouse. Perfect!

We could debate for a while whether A&D is really a movie at all or just a series of scenes with silly dialogue propelling an action filled scavenger hunt through Vatican City. Instead I will try to be as informative as I can about whether the movie is offensive, blasphemous, inaccurate, or just a joke; or all of those things like “The Da Vinci Code.” (more…)

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Tags: Angles and Demons, Catholic church, Da Vinci Code, Galileo, hollywood
Posted May 18th 2009 at 10:04 am in Entertainment, Politics, Religion | 137382No Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jescalante/2009/05/18/angels-demons-and-the-hollywood-magisterium/Angels+%26amp%3B+Demons+and+the+Hollywood+Magisterium2009-05-18+17%3A04%3A29Joe+Escalante

Open Thread: ‘Angels and Demons’

Have at it.

Discuss. Debate. Write your own review…

Big Hollywood’s review can be found here.

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Tags: Angels and Demons, Catholic church, Da Vinci Code, dan brown, Ron Howard
Posted May 15th 2009 at 5:33 pm in Entertainment | 136166No Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bighollywood/2009/05/15/open-thread-angels-and-demons/Open+Thread%3A+%27Angels+and+Demons%272009-05-16+00%3A33%3A54Big+Hollywood

Review: ‘Angels and Demons’

There’s a lot of “It’s better than ‘The Da Vinci Code‘” flying around about director Ron Howard’s “Angels & Demons,” but that’s a lot like saying “It’s smarter than Nancy Pelosi” or “It’s less involved with the Nazis than George Soros.” For starters, A&D is not better than “Da Vinci,” which at least made some sense in helping us to understand how the mind of Symbologist Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) worked. Instead, this follow-up offers the same plodding plotting, outrageously dishonest Catholic bashing and numbing over-length … but now Langdon’s mental methodology is made completely incoherent to the point of gibberish.

The Pope is dead and to elect the new Holy Father, the ancient ritual of the Conclave is set to begin when the four Cardinals most likely to be chosen, the preferiti, are kidnapped. An ancient brotherhood known as the Illuminati takes responsibility. They have no demands and only wish to teach the Church a lesson for a violent purging of their scientific “free thinkers” hundreds of years ago and to do that they have promised to violently kill one Cardinal an hour, each in a different location, with the grand finale being the complete destruction of Vatican City with an anti-matter bomb stolen in the film’s opening scene.

The only clues offered that might save the day are also meant to further the Illuminati’s pro-science stance. Each clue is based on the four altars of science: earth, air, wind, and fire and to help unravel these symbols, Harvard Professor Robert Langdon is called in. Joining him is Vittorio Vetra (Ayelet Zurer), the gorgeous Italian scientist who helped create the anti-matter and the best hope to disarm it. (more…)

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Tags: Angels & Demons, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Catholic church, davinci code, Ewan McGregor
Posted May 14th 2009 at 5:28 pm in Featured Story, Reviews | 1351222 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2009/05/14/review-angels-and-demons/Review%3A+%27Angels+and+Demons%272009-05-15+00%3A28%3A56John+Nolte

Ron Howard’s ‘Demon’ Defense Doesn’t Hold Water

People do not believe lies because they have to, but because they want to. – Malcolm Muggeridge

I’m a fan of Ron Howard. I’m also a Roman Catholic. So when Howard recently defended his upcoming film, Angels and Demons, on the Huffington Post from criticism leveled by William Donohue of the Catholic League, I sat up and took notice.

Here’s an understatement for you: Not everybody likes William Donohue. Whereas some admire him as a passionate defender of the faith, others view him as a hectoring, self-righteous censor, with a tendency to get red-faced and a bit shouty when locking horns on one of the ubiquitous news talk shows.

Howard, of course, is always calm and collected. Besides, he’s Opie; and who doesn’t like Opie? So I enter this fray with the greatest trepidation, fully expecting to regret every minute of it. (more…)

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Tags: Angels and Demons, Bill Donohue, Catholic church, davinci code, Ron Howard
Posted May 1st 2009 at 8:07 am in Entertainment, Politics, Religion | 12196611 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/aleigh/2009/05/01/demonizing-angels/Ron+Howard%27s+%27Demon%27+Defense+Doesn%27t+Hold+Water2009-05-01+15%3A07%3A59Andrew+Leigh

A View From Stage Right; Part 2

Part 1 of what I half-jokingly called my “Manifesto.”

In a fiscal conservative’s utopian dreamworld, there would be no federal funding for the arts (or so many other government agencies or programs for that matter).  This has been our position since the inception of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in the early 1970’s.  We’ve been saying that if elected, we would abolish these misguided programs and departments and bring our government back to the bare-bones constitutionally described role that it has and leave everything else to the states.

We’ve held the influential bully pulpit of the presidency for twenty of the past twenty-eight years, and what has happened to the NEA?  It has grown.  While we have stood on principle,  we have also stood on the sidelines.  The founding fathers would be outraged that the federal government is funding art with taxpayer money, but because we are on the sidelines standing on our principles, all of that money is going to the people creating art with messages that undermine our very existence. (more…)

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Tags: "And the Band Played On", "Angels in America", abortion, AIDS, Andre Bishop
Posted Mar 4th 2009 at 5:50 pm in Entertainment, Politics | 7162661 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/sright/2009/03/04/a-view-from-stage-right-part-2/A+View+From+Stage+Right%3B++Part+22009-03-05+01%3A50%3A22Stage+Right