But I do think that all those involved made an error in using the film to gratuitously bash the Catholic Church. One of the few genres us Jesus freaks are still able to enjoy is the horror genre, especially as it relates to — say it with me — SATAN!, because for all the horror elements that might turn some social conservatives off (violence, etc.), our faith is at least accepted as a reality. For my money, “The Exorcist” is one of the most Christian films ever made. Bottom line: This Jesus freak loves getting the devil scared out him.

Thus, I purchased my ticket for “The Devil Inside” expecting heroic Catholic priests and the purity of Jesus Christ to be presented as the only antidote to a certain kind of evil in the world. What? Scientists can’t answer everything and fix everything? That’s not what PBS told me… with my tax dollars.

Thankfully, I can report that this marginal horror film that delivers only a very few tense moments does, in fact, star two heroic priests and Christ’s goodness. But for some reason these are “rogue” priests who work outside the church and trash it at every opportunity. You see, because the church is “hypocritical” and “bureaucratic” and “doesn’t care about people,” it no longer sanctions exorcisms, so it’s up to these two to risk excommunication and fight the devil outside the system.

This is Hollywood having its cake and eating it too. Obviously, this is an industry uncomfortable with the concept of God, Christ, faith and most especially organized religion, but by trashing the Catholic Church they can exploit our religion to make a buck and still feel as though they’re standing by their non-principles, non-faith, and deep-seated belief in nothing.

The rogue priest idea is actually a good one. You want your protagonists to be out there on their own. It ups the danger level through a sense of isolation. Story-wise I get that. But the reasoning is lazy and these moments of gratuitous exposition take you out of the story as you share one of those “there goes bigoted Hollywood again” eye rolls.

There are over a billion Catholics in the world. How does this make any sense?

Outside of the obnoxious, hostile politics, “The Devil Inside” has a number of other serious problems, chief among them a narrative that doesn’t create anything close to a sense of dread. Worse, you never feel as though the story is headed towards an inevitable confrontation that will be awful… and awesome. And the climax really isn’t. As our heroes fight the devil, we the customers fight the boredom.

Nikki Finke reports that the film is receiving a hearty “F” from the customers, so just about everyone is feeling duped. Instead of wasting your hard-earned money on “The Devil Inside” this weekend, let me recommend renting “The Last Exorcism” (my review), another found-footage, pseudo-doc that gets better with each viewing. There’s also “Paranormal Activity 1 and 2,” and the grandaddy of them all, “The Blair Witch Project.”

And while it’s pure speculation on my part, based on his juvenile behavior, it appears as if Maher is a disgruntled Catholic trying desperately to convince himself God doesn’t exist; so regardless of how bright he perceives himself to be, Maher lacks the insight to realize that he’s revealing something he’d probably prefer the rest of America not to notice.

For someone as mentally deficient as Maher believes I am, even as far back as the first grade I recognized that there was no direct correlation between parochial school and the personhood of God. Yet for all Maher’s clever innuendo and sarcastic banter, it must go deeper than that, because this man apparently isn’t astute enough to separate Catholicism from God.

Maher was raised by an Irish Catholic father and a mother (Julie, nee Berman) that he was unaware was Jewish until he was a teenager (which right there reeks of family dysfunction). Seems somewhere around the age of 13, when hormone-infused Bill, had he been raised a Jew, might have been practicing his Hebrew to prepare for an upcoming Bar Mitzvah, Maher’s Catholic dad realized birth control was a good idea after all.

Based on Maher’s animosity toward all religion and toward Christianity in particular, one would guess Dad’s gripe with Rome might have impacted his son.

Since then, William Jr., whose parental religious roots are firmly implanted in a Judeo-Christian heritage, has made it a career to get back at God. Try as he might to prove otherwise, Maher’s contempt for Christianity could very well be rooted in his father’s reaction to the Roman Catholic Church’s undying commitment to the rhythm method.

Since the day Maher’s Dad decided pull out of the Catholic Church, any aspirations young Maher had of one day being an altar boy were left lying like a crumpled cassock on the parish Sacristy floor.

Instead, Willy and Julie’s son changed course and chose to fashion what started as a family disagreement over church doctrine into a successful career portraying believers in God as neanderthal nut jobs with nary a brain cell nor a lick of sense.

From age 13 on, English major and 2009 Richard Dawkins Atheist Alliance International award recipient Maher has spent loads of time demeaning what he and an English Lit degree have identified as the Church’s unscientific teachings on homosexuality, abortion and birth control.

Over the years the comedian has transformed into a liberal/apatheist icon who lacks apathy only when it comes to pocketing millions of dollars earned mocking a God he relegates to the same category as unicorns, the tooth fairy, and JLo’s long-lost plan to cook dinner for only one man.

Apatheism is defined as a “disinclination to care all that much about one’s own religion, and an even stronger disinclination to care about other people’s.” Which means Maher is a pretty lame apatheist, because all he does is focus on religion.

What Maher fails to recognize is that his acerbic comments directed toward God make him look like the proverbial spurned middle-school kid with a crush on the head cheerleader. Who knows, maybe besides the birth control brouhaha, somewhere along the line an overbearing nun denied the future comedian a bathroom pass and he never recovered.

What we do know is that Maher behaves like a confused, madly-in-unrequited-love teenager who spends all his energy defacing God’s locker and calling God and His people floozies as payback for some imagined hurt.

Now, almost 50 years later, one would think that for someone who spends his life pointing out the hypocrisy of organized religion and who believes that when it comes to God, “doubt is the only appropriate response for human beings,” Maher would recognize that, in a roundabout way, making a living off something you don’t believe in is similar to attending Mass while practicing off-beat forms of birth control.

So, with that in mind, when Maher mocks Christians, saying “Who needs government when you have Jesus,” or when he produces and stars in a irreverent movie like “Religulous,” his contempt and derision expose a man who, although he sees himself as brilliant, isn’t quite smart enough to recognize the hypocrisy, not to mention the irony, of making a career out of preaching that one person shouldn’t push their religious beliefs on anybody else.

But her almost ethereal calm onscreen also hides a deep Christian faith, and that inspired her to go all the way as the director as well as star of the new film “Higher Ground.” While she’s following in the footsteps of icons like Clint Eastwood, Tom Hanks, and Robert DeNiro to make that creative leap, “Higher Ground” is a quietly personal film – a fictionalized take on the memoir “This Dark World” by Carolyn Bridges, about a woman’s struggle to balance her faith with her awareness of the nascent feminist movement of the early ‘70s – can she insist on having a voice in the small rural church she attends, or does she have to stay silent just because the men traditionally tell the women they need to be silent?

“Higher Ground” was a Sundance favorite in January, landing distribution with Sony Pictures Classics and started playing in New York and LA last week, with cities nationwide to come. Farmiga sat down recently with Big Hollywood to discuss the film and her profoundly personal reasons for directing it.

“I’m getting surprised reactions a lot because of the subject matter,” says Farmiga, an elegant presence who speaks with frequent reflective pauses. “A big reference film for me and one of my top five favorites is ‘The Apostle’ by Robert Duvall — a story about someone trying hard to master the spiritual life and it necessitates making arduous and at times very painful journeys within our selves and our all too human souls.”

Farmiga felt drawn to “This Dark World” because of its similar tale of spiritual struggle, after being introduced to it by the film’s original screenwriter, Tim Metcalfe. Metcalfe was originally supposed to direct the film as well, but couldn’t find the financing to move forward until Farmiga — who was already signed to star — was convinced to take the helm.

After flying out to Iowa to meet Briggs, who’s now a creative writing professor at a college, Farmiga was convinced that the film should focus not on the loss of faith but of a woman’s journey to reach a deeper, more vibrant sense of belief than she could find among her longtime congregation.

“Looking back on her life, she realized that it was a story about the loss of impoverished faith, and she was searching for an authentic faith that was true to her personal relationship with God,” explains Farmiga. “It requires making a leap into the world of uncertainty.”

At the film’s outset, Corinne, an innocent, wide-eyed teenager, falls in love with a slightly older boy who dreams of becoming a rock star. They marry after she gets pregnant but continue traveling with his band, partying with marijuana and alcohol, until an abrupt accident forces their bus off the road and causes it to crash into a lake, nearly drowning the young family.

But when they survive, they immediately attribute their salvation to God and embrace Christianity wholeheartedly. Yet, as the years go by, Corinne realizes that her inquisitive spirit and desire to have a voice in the world is at odds with the strict rules of the particular parish they joined and her husband’s way of thinking.

As it follows her struggle to find the right balance and relationship with God for her life, the film never mocks or demonizes those who remain in her church. It simply shows that everyone has their own personal relationship, or lack thereof, with God, even if it means splitting up the relationships in their earthly lives.

“I think there are two kinds of films — the anti-religion film, and the pro-religion film,” explains Farmiga. “The films that proselytize are made for that community or to convert others to that community, and then there are those that mock the community and are threatening to the community. That’s not the film I was making.”

Nonetheless, Farmiga has received plenty of feedback from pastors who have attended early screenings and have generally warmed to her respectful take on faith. She has also been pleasantly surprised by the reaction her film received at last January’s Sundance Film Festival, where it was one of several films that explored faith.

“What are the questions I’m asking? The ones that touch me,” Farmiga concludes. “There was a strong conviction in me to direct this. I wanted to ask what does it mean to be holy? That’s what I think the audience is asking: What does God mean to me?

“In my experience, the crossroads of doubt and faith are very common and I wanted to make a movie that didn’t judge it. It’s not a bad thing — a reflective person thinks deeply and questions often.”

Chapter Five

The White Room

I looked around.  There wasn’t much to see.  It was a small, cramped, white room.  There were no windows, no two-way mirrors, just the rough painted surface of the blank white cinderblock walls.  There was a white table bolted to the floor, and two plastic white chairs, one on either side.

For a minute or two, I just stood there, staring stupidly at all that whiteness.  I was still a little messed up in my head.  The memories from my attack still clung to me.  The scene had been so real, it was so much as if I were there, right there.  It hurt to be back here again, back in this prison.  Anyplace would have been better.

I heard the lock on the white door snap again.  The door opened.

I turned and saw Detective Rose step into the room.

Man, I can’t tell you what that was like.  At the sight of him, I felt my sore, battered body go weak with relief.  I couldn’t remember the last time I was so happy to see anyone.

“Rose!” I blurted out.  “Dude!  Oh, man, it’s about time you showed up!”

Rose didn’t answer.  His face was blank, expressionless. But then he never was much in the expressing-himself department.  He was a black guy with a round face and flat features, a thin moustache and smart, steady eyes.  He rarely smiled.  He rarely even grimaced.  Even his suits seemed to have no particular color.  He was always all business.

I saw his eyes go over me, pausing on the cuts and bruises.  But all he said was, “Sit down, Charlie.”

I lowered myself painfully into one of the white chairs.  Rose didn’t sit down in the other one.  He put his foot  up on its seat.  He rested his arm on his raised knee.  He looked down at me—studied me—for a long time.

“What happened to you?”

“I fell down,” I said.

He snorted.  “You fell down, huh.”

“I fell down on a sadistic guard.”

“That was clumsy of you.”

“Tell me about it.”  I looked up at him, searching his eyes for something, some kind of hope.  I couldn’t stand the suspense.  “So,” I said to him.  “Are you gonna get me out of here or what?”

“What’s the matter, Charlie?  Don’t you like prison?”

I wanted to come up with a snappy answer, but I wasn’t feeling very snappy.  “It’s bad,” I admitted.  “I’m trying to stay strong in here, you know?  But I’ll tell you the truth, Rose:  it’s really, really bad.”

I thought I saw a trace of sympathy rise in Rose’s eyes, but it was tough to tell.  He just nodded.  “That’s the way it works, Charlie.  You put a lot of bad guys together in the same place, you end up with a pretty bad place.”

“Are you talking about the inmates or the guards?  Because in here, it’s tough to tell the difference.”

The faintest trace of a smile appeared at one corner of Rose’s mouth.  “The guards wear the blue shirts.”

I tried to laugh.  I tried to sound hard and cool the way Rose did.  But even I could hear the desperation in my own voice and I’m sure Rose could hear it too.  The truth was I didn’t know how much more Abingdon I could take.

“So?” I said again, my voice shaking a little.  “What’s the deal:  Are you gonna get me out of here?”

Rose let out a breath.  Something about the way he did it made  my stomach churn.  I could feel the bad news coming.

He took his foot off the chair.  He sat down across from me.  He leaned forward, his elbows on the table, his eyes steady on mine.

“Here’s what’s been happening since they put you away in here,” he said.  “The Homelanders organization has been broken.  The men we arrested at your friend Margaret’s house?  They talked.  They led us to their headquarters…”

“That crazy-looking mansion?”

“The crazy mansion, yeah.  We’ve still got it under guard.  They had computers there, papers, names, locations.  Those led us to the training camp, the place you escaped from.  A series of safe houses.  We’ve rounded up almost all of them.  The Homelanders are over.  They’re done.”

He let that sit for a minute between us, gave me time to take it in.

“So… that’s good news, right?” I said finally.  “The operation was a success.  I did what you wanted me to do.  Hooray, right?  America is safe.  You get a promotion.  Waterman can rest in peace.  And, listen, as far as I’m concerned, you can forget my parade and the medals and all that.  Just get me out of here and let me go home, okay?”

There was another moment of silence.  Then Rose said the words that made my breath catch with fear.

“It’s not that simple.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, my voice rising.  “What do you mean it’s not simple?  Sure it’s simple.  It’s really simple.  You hold a…  whattaya call it…?  a press conference or something.  You hold a press conference and you say, ‘Hey, remember the whole Charlie-West-is-a-murderer thing?  Surprise, we were only kidding.  He helped us bust up this terrorist ring and now we’re gonna set him free so he can have his own reality TV show…’  I don’t care what you say, man.  Just get me out of Abingdon before I…”

Rose interrupted me, speaking in the same flat voice with the same expressionless expression on his face.  “I can’t.”

I was in the middle of a sentence when I felt the words turn to ashes in my mouth.  “What do you mean you can’t?”

“I’m sorry,” Rose said.

I swallowed, hard.  “You mean you can’t get me out of here?”

“No.”

“Not ever?”

His eyes flicked away from mine.  “Not yet.  Not now.”

I felt the strength go out of me.  I sagged against the chair.

Rose went on speaking, without emotion.  “You knew the risk when you signed on, Charlie.  Waterman’s operation—our operation—it was never strictly…  official.  We never really had approval from our superiors.  The government is happy to take the Homelanders into custody in a quiet way, but right now, they don’t want it to go any further than that.”

 “Any further than what?  These people are terrorists.  They’re at war with us.  Why should we tiptoe around about putting them in jail?”

Rose cupped his hands over his nose and mouth and closed his eyes, almost as if he were praying.  But I think he was just trying to gather his thoughts, trying to figure out how he was going to explain this to me.  I was pretty interested to hear what he’d come up with.

“Here’s the deal,” he said finally, dropping his hands.  “An organization like the Homelanders doesn’t just spring up out of nowhere.  People fund it, plan it, support it.  Powerful people in countries in the middle east.”

“So?”

“We need help from some of those countries.  Help with security.  Help with arms negotiations.  Help with oil.”
            “Oil.”

“Right now, it’s convenient for a lot of people in the government to pretend that the Homelanders were just a random bunch of crackpots.  And that you were just a troublemaker who got involved with them.  That way, there’s no pressure from the people, from the media, to go too high up the ladder, to embarrass the people we need to deal with…”

Suddenly I found myself on my feet.  The plastic chair toppled over in back of me, rattling against the floor.

“Embarrass them?” I shouted.  “Embarrass them?  They’re just going to leave me to rot in here so they won’t embarrass people in the countries where these killers came from?”

“It’s a sensitive moment, Charlie.  A very powerful faction in our government is to determined to believe the Homelanders didn’t really exist at all…”

But I silenced him with a raised hand.   I turned away from him.  Paced to the wall.  Braced my hands against it, my head hung down.  I could barely believe what I was hearing—and at the same time, I believed it too well.

Behind me, Rose said, “There’s something else you oughta know…”

I just stood there, head hanging, waiting for it.

“We didn’t get them all.”

Now I swung around, looked at him, eyes glaring.

“Prince escaped,” he said.

“Prince…”

“And some of his top operatives—some portion of his operation—we don’t know how much…”

“But Prince was the head guy.  He was the brains behind the whole deal…”

“I know that.”

“Well, do you have any idea where he is?”

Rose looked down at his hands clasped together on the surface of the desk.  He was silent for a long moment.  Then he raised his expressionless face and stared at me with eyes that said more than he could say aloud.  “The government is convinced he’s left the country.”

“Because they want to be convinced.  Because it’s convenient.”

He nodded.

“But what if he hasn’t?” I said.  “What if he hasn’t left?”

 “Well,” said Rose.  “If he hasn’t left…  you may not be safe.”

I let out a laugh—if you can call it a laugh.  “Oh really?  I’m not safe?  What a surprise.  I thought I was snug as a bug in a rug in here!  I mean, it’s not as if someone just tried to slice me to pieces.  It’s not like some guard just used me as a punching bag for half an hour.” 

“Look, I’m working on this,” said Rose.  “I am, it’s just…  They’ve closed Waterman’s operation down.  I have no official power base anymore.  I’m doing my best to go through channels, through friends…”

Angrily, I reached down, snapped up my chair.  “Channels!” I said.  “Friends!”  I plunked the chair down across the table from him.  I plunked myself down into it.  I was so mad I hardly felt the aches in my body anymore.  “Let me see if I’ve got this right.  Most of the Homelanders are in custody but the government doesn’t want to admit they were a highly funded organization taken down by an unofficial undercover organization.  Because of their negotiations in the middle east, it’s more convenient to pretend the whole thing is over—and to keep me in here, with everybody thinking I’m a murderer.  Meanwhile, Prince has escaped and wants me dead but you have no way to find him because the government prefers to believe he’s gone and you have no power base.  So not only am I stuck in this hellhole, I’m a sitting duck for anyone who wants to earn Prince’s favor by bumping me off.  Have I got all that right?”

For the first time, Rose showed some sign of strain.  He rubbed one eye wearily.  It was a quick gesture, over in a moment, but it revealed to me how tired he was, how hard he’d been working on all this.

“You need to try to be patient…”

“Patient?”  I slammed my fist down on the table.  “You don’t know what it’s like in here.”

“I understand but…”

“What if I call the newspapers?” I said.  “What if I tell them about Waterman?  About the Homelanders.  About what went down?  How it all happened?”

 “Who do you think people will believe?” Rose asked quietly.  “A convicted murderer telling people he’s secretly a hero who busted up a terrorist organization—or a lot of serious-looking officials in suits saying he’s just one of a bunch of troublemakers?”

I didn’t answer.  I knew he was right.  No one would believe me if I told the truth.  Even I could hardly believe it.  I buried my face in my hands.  I don’t think I’d ever felt so low, so helpless in all my life.

“Listen,” Rose went on, “I’m working on something, okay?”

It was another moment before I could look up.  “On what?”

“An appeal.  Through your lawyer.  In the courts.  We’ve got friends there, people who know the truth.  If they can arrange for the evidence against you to be declared tainted, your conviction could be overturned.”

“Overturned,” I said roughly.  The word would hardly come out.

“I know.   It’s not a complete vindication but…  at least it’d get you out of here.”

I looked at Rose—and again, his eyes flitted away.  He couldn’t meet my gaze.  He was ashamed of the position he was in, ashamed of what the government was doing to me.  I didn’t blame him.  On the other hand, when Waterman first recruited me for this job, he didn’t lie about it.  He told me I was risking everything.  Not just my life, but my reputation.  He told me he was operating outside the usual channels.  He told me I might not have the support of the fancy suits in government.  He told me they might pretend I didn’t exist and that the people I loved might go to their graves believing I was a traitor and even a killer.

I’d signed on, knowing all that.  And I’d won, too.  Me and Waterman and Rose and the others.  We’d done what we set out to do.  We’d broken up the Homelanders, stopped them, most of them anyway, before they could carry out their plans.  All except Prince and a few of his friends.

So I had nothing to complain about.  I’d known what I was getting into from the start.

I just hadn’t known about Abingdon.  How hard it would be.  How lonely and terrifying and suffocating.  That’s just not something you can know before you get there, before you experience it for yourself.

And now that I did know, I wasn’t sure I had the courage to stick it out.

“How long?” I asked Rose hoarsely.  “How long would an appeal take?”

“With our friends working on it,” he said.  “A couple of months maybe.  If all goes well, you’ll be out of here early in the New Year.”

I let out a long breath.  “Christmas in Abingdon,” I murmured.  “Just what I always dreamed of.”

“I’m sorry,” Rose said.  He still wouldn’t look at me.

Finally, after what seemed a long silence, his chair scraped against the floor as he pushed it back.  He stood up.  He hesitated, standing over me.

“I’ll tell you something, Charlie,” he said then.  “When you started this, you were a boy.  But you’re not a boy anymore.  You’re a man.  A man and an American.  And I don’t say either of those things lightly.  You’re getting a hard deal from some people who aren’t fit to tie your sneakers.  Government can be like that.  That’s one of the reasons we try not to have too much of it.”

He moved away from me.  He went to the white door in the white wall.  He rapped against it.  Then he looked back at me over his shoulder.

“You won’t be seeing me after this, Charlie.  I won’t be able to get in touch with you directly.  But believe me, I won’t forget you.  I’ll be working on getting you out of here any way I can.  And if there’s any news, I’ll find some way to let you know.”

The door opened.  I could see the guard standing in the hall outside.

“How can I reach you?” I asked him.

He shook his head.  “You can’t.”

“But…”  I stared after him desperately.  “Who do I call if I need help?”

 Another very slight trace of a smile touched the corner of his lips.  “You know how to pray, don’t you?” he said.

And he walked out.

MotorGaga

The Lady in question, known at birth as Stefani Germanotta, has progressed beyond wanting recognition or even fame; now she craves Importance, that vain pursuit which has derailed many a talented artist (and you can quibble about putting that label on her, I’m just being polite). And on Born This Way, this attitude goes beyond didactic lyrics; Gaga puts on the airs of a prophet/oracle/Messiah for the courageous, self-endangering causes of same-sex marriage and female empowerment, doing her best to conflate sexual identity with Christianity–not just any religion, but Christianity specifically.

The album has more references to Jesus than the latest Wovenhand record, the inevitable clash of her Catholic-school upbringing and her professed bisexuality. On the aggressive yet perversely endearing “Judas,” she sings, “I wanna love you, but something’s pulling me away from you / Jesus is my virtue, Judas is the demon I cling to.” Throughout the song, “Judas” has been the “Dear Abby” pseudonym for an abusive lover (perfectly appropriate to compare a bad relationship to the betrayal of the Christ), so first she’s Jesus (a “holy fool”) being betrayed by Judas, then Jesus is an external entity from which Judas is pulling her away… I’m instantly regretting the decision to analyze these lyrics.

The “holy fool” phrase returns on the angsty “Electric Chapel,” which laughably mashes together church bells and “Money for Nothing” guitar riffs. Digging up the long-rotted corpse of the “love as religious experience” metaphor, she entreats her holy fool lover to use her like a priest–”confess to me… pray for your sins… we’ll find a way to make a pure love work in a dirty way.” And, like “Judas,” Gaga continues equating failed relationships and the Crucifixion in “Bloody Mary,” presenting herself as both the execution-happy Catholic queen and, again, a Christ figure, dancing with “hands above my head, like Jesus said.” Sadly, “Bloody Mary” is also the most dialed-down and catchy song on the album, so its obtuse, contradictory lyrics are an even greater letdown.

Aside from these attempts at casting herself as some sort of prophetess, the remainder of Gaga’s religious references express her frustration with the oppressive, patriarchal, heteronormative hatemongering which Jesus represents. On “Scheiße,” she wishes she were able to cut through all the BS of religion and society and be herself–to “dance on a single prayer” and be a strong feminist who doesn’t need anyone or anything. “Americano,” the album’s most openly political song (yes, even more than “Government Hooker“), laments the fact that she can’t marry another woman, so she breaks into a mariachi-inspired beat that blends techno with a historically ethnic musical genre about as eloquently as “Cotton-Eye Joe.” Inspired by Proposition 8’s reversal in California, the chorus sums up the left-wing response to that democratic vote quite well: “I don’t speak your Americano / I don’t speak your Jesus Christo.” Talk about petulance.

The album’s title track destroys any last, desperate hope that maybe Gaga has even a cursory understanding of the theology she rejects. Resting on the inane platitude “God makes no mistakes,” she proceeds to assert that you are morally justified in whatever you do by the very fact that you exist, even pausing at one point to run through a laundry-list of politically correct correct sexual identity labels: “No matter gay, straight or bi / Lesbian, transgendered life / I’m on the right track, baby / I was born to survive.”

Without getting into original sin, if you think that you were “born” into your adult identity, you’ve got some explaining to do. Was John Wayne Gacy born a murderous pedophile and therefore guiltless? Was Roman Polanski born a rapist and therefore guiltless? If sexual identity is predetermined and totally unaffected by your personal decisions, what other personal attributes aren’t predetermined, and how can we tell? What keeps us from admitting de Sade was correct in saying “What is, is right”? But I digress; this is a music review, after all.

“Born this Way” has been accused of ripping off Madonna’s 1989 single “Express Yourself” because of its similar chord progression, but Gaga is more directly plagiarizing the mid-to-late-90s style of Madonna and Cher–cheesy rave beats with overactive hi-hats and forceful chest-voice singing–just with more extraneous noise and louder mastering. Opener “Marry the Night” finds her evoking Cher’s “Believe,” most notably on the bridge’s elongated vocal flourishes. The chorus of “Scheiße” echoes Madonna’s “Sky Fits Heaven,” and, in a move I can’t even comprehend, penultimate track “Yoü and I” is the kind of twangy pop-rock that arose with the likes of Faith Hill and Shania Twain. All in all, this is very backwards-looking pop music.

That said, I’d be a hypocrite for dismissing Gaga’s take on ’90s pop out of hand, especially when I’m on the record praising that style coming from Swedish pop star Robyn. With, no doubt, all the money she wanted at her disposal, the production is top-notch, and despite cuts like “Government Hooker,” which spoils a good beat with an abysmal melody, the first half of the album mostly gets things right. Perhaps it’s just the fact that I’ve listened too many times while writing this piece, but it’s led to some toe-tapping, even singing along. However, after the bouncy self-esteem anthem “Bad Kids,” everything falls apart and the record gets unlistenable. “Highway Unicorn (Road to Love)” and closer “The Edge of Glory” recycle the chord progression from “Hair” (you know, that panderrific “Four Chord” loop that makes me lose any respect for you as a songwriter), and I’m about to add “Heavy Metal Lover” as one of the definitions of “filler” on Urban Dictionary.

Lady Gaga is, apparently, the most powerful celebrity in the entire world right now.  She knows how to get the average person to pay attention to her, if only to be shocked or offended, and she has a willing army of young social media followers willing to do her bidding. It appears that on Born This Way, she’s let that power go to her head. In an attempt to fuse her activism with her music, she’s turned a middling effort into something far more grating. I know I don’t have to say anything to dissuade our readers from buying Born this Way, but the album still deserves commentary. It’s extremely depressing that a 25-year-old who’s still in a “rebel-against-my-parents’-religion” phase is the moral compass for millions of young children, but no one on our side is willing to invest in musicians to model the alternative to Gaga’s postmodern nonsense. We’ve abandoned cultural engagement for so long, we deserve this mess.

Why two actors, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, who bought an enormous amount of audience goodwill with “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz” would choose to go out of their way to antagonize Christians with a $40 million investment on the line is beyond me. I guess their bigotry just got the best of them. Once you add advertising costs to that budget, you’re probably looking at another $25 million, which means the sci-fi comedy will probably have to clear somewhere in the area of $120 million just to break even. Good luck with that.

Word got out fairly early that “Paul” intended to sucker punch we Jesus freaks and it was a controversy that dogged the film in almost every interview I came across with the film’s two stars. Obviously, they tried to downplay the religious bigotry, which is odd. After all, if the entertainment industry is driven only by profit and greed, the Christian-bashing must have been a financial decision, not a political one — so why try to spin it away if it’s going to put more butts in seats?

When sympathetic, left-wing critics wondered if ”Paul’s” Christian bashing would be too much, you had to assume it was even worse than advertised. Well, according to our friends at Screen Rant, from both a decency  and artistic standpoint, it’s even worse than I thought it would be:

 Screen Rant’s Vic Holtreman:

While on the lam our trio runs into Kristin Wigg as Ruth Buggs, a fundamentalist Christian living in a trailer park, and oppressed by her drinking, redneck father. She’s a creationist and “young-Earther,” painted as about as naive and ignorant a person as you’re likely to ever meet. Once she meets Paul, her worldview is completely shattered and she immediately loses her faith. The scene in which it happens is actually pretty funny – she decides that she can now drink, cuss and “fornicate” (that’s a quote). She starts using her newfound permission to spout foul language, but she doesn’t quite have the hang of how to combine the proper words, and it’s funny for the first couple of times she does it (until the joke becomes overused, as the gag is revisited a LOT throughout the film). …

Let’s hit the controversy, now, shall we? The inclusion of a heavy anti-religion message feels very out of place, and I think even folks who don’t have “Judeo-Christian beliefs” (quote from the film) will sense that. The supposed humor is wielded like a club – there’s no subtlety like in Monty Python’s Life of Brian or Kevin Smith’s Dogma (two films that poked fun at religion that I enjoyed). Now ruminate on that for a moment – I’m calling a Monty Python film subtle in comparison to this. Some people have stated that in this regard the film is not mean-spirited, and on that I call complete B.S. It could hardly be meaner – including a scene at the very end where there might have been a chance for at least a small bit of grace (yes, that’s an appropriate word for this), but instead it was another slap in the face. Oh, there’s also a cheap shot at the fact police use, like, GUNS here in the U.S.. I wouldn’t mind if it was actually funny – but again, club, over the head.

All of which begs the question: Which are we going to see more of from “profit-driven” Hollywood in the future? Left-wing bigotry disguised as hipsterism or straight-forward action-adventure films that honor our military and explore universal themes involving duty, valor, self-sacrifice, and forgiveness?

Anyone want to bet on Hollywood chasing the profit over the political agenda — the same Vichy Hollywood that lost hundreds of millions of dollars on sixteen films and counting undermining their own country and its defenders at a time of war?

I didn’t think so.

“The Adjustment Bureau” is all things to all people. For sci-fi fans it’s based on (though largely changed from) a short story by Philip K. Dick,who wrote “Blade Runner.” For thriller fans, it’s written and directed by one of the writers of “Ocean’s 12” and “The Bourne Ultimatum.” For comedy fans, the dialogue is witty and fresh, and for romantics, it’s a love story. 

The Adjustment Bureau is the story of David Norris (Matt Damon), a young politician on the verge of becoming one of New York’s senators. A chance meeting with a ballerina named Elise (Emily Blunt) threatens to ruin his dreams however, when the agents of Fate itself step in and try to steer him back onto the political course outlined for him, and away from the woman he loves. Ultimately, they give him a choice: a chance to change the world, or the freedom to be with the woman he loves. 

I’m typically not a fan of films that are written and directed by the same person. Having a director who can reign in a writer, or who knows how to edit out needless dialogue or scenes is essential. Unless you’ve got the talent of George Nolfi, who has kept the dialogue real throughout the film. 

The acting is solid. Damon and Blunt play off each other expertly, and the agents of fate are neither friendly or villainous. They are doing their job. 

The agents of Fate, an individual who is never shown and only referred to as the Chairman, do their job almost as government employees – in a clinical, methodical manner. They slip up and make mistakes like everyone else. These “angels” as they say some have called them, are neither good nor bad. They are the force that keeps the world from coming unhinged, and they can be interpreted easily as a super-secret government organization of Orwellian proportions or as the servants of the Almighty. This neutrality leaves questions of whether their actions are right or wrong to the audience. 

Aside from the philosophical question of fate and free will as the foundation of the film, which I enjoyed, the film was refreshingly non-political. While Damon’s character is a Democrat, political viewpoints are ignored. In addition, while the film can be viewed as a commentary on the ultimate in big government, it can just as easily be compared to God and religion. Ultimately, it’s a film that viewers can walk away from with either a happy contentment, or enough thought food to digest for a week. 

And that’s how Nolfi wanted it. In an interview with reporters recently in Washington, D.C., Nolfi, who has a background in philosophy and political science, said, “I didn’t set out to write anything religious.” But added, “Any version of fate has some sense of a higher power if you want to take it literally.” 

Nolfi said that he was careful to ensure that the Bureau could be easily interpreted as a metaphor for overbearing institutions like governments. And in advanced screenings in Europe, that’s how audiences viewed it. 

“I probably talked to 150 people in London, Dublin, Berlin,” he said. “Not a single person said ‘is this religious?’ Here everybody asks me. There, nobody.” 

Europe’s take aside, Nolfi said that in the U.S., among religious viewers, the film has received a strong response. 

Whatever your views on religion, or taste in film, The Adjustment Bureau has something for everyone. And as a story free from the nuisance of political preaching and filled with good acting, writing and story, it’s one I highly recommend.

Hey, what’s that he’s reading?

But what does get digitally removed? The best-selling book in history. And what kind of movie does the best-selling book in history get digitally removed from? A movie based on the true story of a young Christian surfer who was attacked by a shark and credits her faith in God with her recovery. You can’t make this stuff up.

Now, below is that part of this story. But don’t go away, because this story somehow gets dumber. Via Paul Bond at THR:

Tom Hamilton prayed for the best but expected the worst. He and his family, all devoted Christians, thought they had lost their bid to keep an overt reference to the Bible in the upcoming film Soul Surfer, based on the true story of Hamilton’s daughter Bethany, who, at age 13, had her arm chewed off by a tiger shark in Kauai but returned to her board to pursue her dream of becoming a pro surfer.

When religious leaders were shown an early version of the Sony movie [Soul Surfer], set for release in April, the words “Holy Bible” had been digitally removed from the cover of the book in a scene depicting Hamilton reading in a hospital where his daughter was fighting for her life. Hamilton says producer David Zelon, an executive at Mandalay Pictures, had lobbied to tone down the film’s Christianity in an effort to broaden its appeal to non-Christian audiences. But the Hamilton family objected, and when they attended a subsequent screening, they were pleasantly surprised with what they saw.  

“I could see the words bright and clear,” Hamilton says.  “I looked at my wife and whispered, ‘Thank you God, they put it back.’ ”

Brace yourself for what’s coming:

In Soul Surfer … country singer Carrie Underwood plays a spiritual mentor to a tight-knit community of Christian surfers. In a scene in which Underwood’s character quotes scripture, some were fine with the verse but didn’t want her to acknowledge that it came from the Bible.

“Can you imagine if a character said, ‘Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country,’ but they acted like it was their own, like it didn’t come from President Kennedy?” Hamilton asks. “This would have been the same thing. So they relented on that point.”

In other words, in order to avoid acknowledging that Underwood’s character is quoting scripture from the best-selling book in history, these bigoted, intolerant lame-brains wanted to plagiarize the Bible — the Bible! –by what, having her spout off like she was some kind of Joan the Baptist Surfer?

More proof of the ignorance of bigotry.

And I dare anyone to try and pitch me on the idea that “broadening the appeal” had a damn thing to do with the motivations behind any of this.  This is the same studio that released the anti-Christian “The DaVinci Code” and “Angel’s and Demons,” and that sucker punch-laden (if you’re a rightie) “Julia & Julia.”  

Help me out here. What should we be more offended by, the bigotry or the fact that they think we’re stupid enough to buy the “broad appeal” spin?

Truth be told, I’m not offended in the least. In fact, I’m thrilled. This is a fantastic story filled with the disinfectant of sunlight. Major kudos to the Hollywood Reporter and Paul Bond for telling it.

Bill Maher is that monkey.

See, Bill Maher’s a smart guy. None of us can deny that. A nuisance at worst, a more than worthy adversary at best, Bill Maher is the kind of intellectual whose worst enemy is his own pride. Smart people generally don’t make intellectual miscalculations; they make careless errors.  Sometimes, a mistruth is so often repeated in society that even smart folk like Maher accept it as fact. A good example would be Bill Maher’s constant claim that the Bible encourages slavery and the founding fathers were anti-Christian.

Firstly, Bill would be right to say that the founding fathers were anti-religion.  One could say the same thing about most pastors heading churches throughout the United States today. A disdain for man-made religion does not equal a hate for personal faith in God. 

As a matter of fact, oftentimes as one grows in their relationship with God, they find themselves saddened by the state of the modern church. People like John Adams and Benjamin Franklin (the same people whom Maher loves to quote) would be perfect, powdered-wig crystallizations of religion-hating, God-fearing Christians. A simple glance through the founding documents or personal journals of the founding fathers confirms it.

As for the Bible being a rampantly pro-slavery piece of literature… false.  It’s true that there are passages in the Bible dealing with slavery, which when read in modern America without the proper context, seem cringeworthy at best. Nowhere in the bible, however, is there an open-ended encouragement of the practice and in multiple places, being what we would consider slavery today is thoroughly condemned.

See, we have to understand that the slavery referred to in the Bible is most often not slavery as we know it today. In both Old and specifically New Testament times, people would go into slavery themselves if they were unable to pay their debts, or unable to pay their own cost of living (which would then be covered by their master). They would have more in common with a lower class worker or a college student still mooching off of their parents than the race-based slavery we’ve known in the Western world.

A prime example of where one does see race-based slavery in the Bible, is when a little group of people were enslaved by the Egyptians solely because they were Hebrew (Exodus 13:14). Anyone know what happened next?

Anyone? Anyone?

…God was pretty ticked. Angry enough to bring the freaking plagues. [Note: They were kind of a big deal.]

The Bible also does address the act of “man stealing,” (exactly the kind of thing that Africans did to their own people) and had this to say about it: “Anyone who kidnaps another and either sells him or still has him when he is caught must be put to death” (Exodus 21:16).

God then went on to put such folks in the same category as murderers and rapists. I guess you could say he had a thing about that.

In the end, don’t blame Bill Maher.  He’s just accepting common mistruths because he doesn’t know any better… and nobody will tell him. Maybe he needs an uneducated, God-loving, gun toting, tea-partying, redneck in his Hollywood entourage.  You know… just to keep him in the know.

—–

For one of the first films of the year, “Season of the Witch” boasts a decent story and script. Screenwriter Bragi Schut’s dialogue, though blocky, fits the 1300s. While the film is deeper than most in the action-adventure genre, it’s inadequate one-dimensional characters limit its impact. There’s next to no back-story, so the film relies on the likability of lead actors Cage and Perlman (who play themselves, in armor) to keep viewers engaged. It’s not the best choice, since meaningful moments disintegrate into melodrama. Fortunately Perlman’s humor keeps the film light enough to avoid dragging in sentiment. Dynamic supporting characters also buoy the film, and Foy’s nuanced performance leaves you wondering who she really is until the end. 

Box Office Mojo reported that the film cost about $40 million to make. Considering another crusade film “Kingdom of Heaven” cost about $130 million, “Season of the Witch” isn’t half bad, though it’s obvious the special effects budget took a hit, and director Dominic Sena (who also directed “Swordfish” and “Gone in 60 Seconds”) rightly panned over special effects quickly to avoid focusing on obvious CGI.

Sena didn’t scrimp on makeup though. The film’s gritty medieval world is populated by boiled, puss-filled plague victims (I was glad I didn’t have popcorn with me for this one) and the decay of medieval Europe shows in the squalid towns, weathered bridges, and slimy mass graves.

The film does, refreshingly, have a clearly evil villain. This isn’t a spoiler – it’s advertised in the trailer. In a modern world that often shuns the possibility of supernatural forces, this one acknowledges evil and fights it with good.

It’s just too bad that “good” only amounts to words on a page with mystical power. God isn’t recognized as good so much as an idea that can be perverted. In its best moments, while we see demonic power clearly, the power of God equals little more than incantations in a book, akin to a silver bullet or a Harry Potter spell. The film shows us the power of darkness clear enough. It just scrimped on the Light.