Okay, I liked God's Army. And about half of Brigham City was really good as well. But if I'd known the can of worms they would open, I'd have picketed the theatres when they came out.
When I was on my mission, I looked at Bible-bashing as a sport. I tried to avoid it in practice, but I was endlessly fascinated by it in theory. I received a great deal of pleasure from anti-Mormon literature, and just as much entertainment value from the rebuttal anti-anti-Mormon literature. One of the most amusing examples of this was a book called Day of Defense.
This book was written in the '60s, and is sort of like a Jack Chick tract, but in reverse. It's a 70-or-so page book containing an entirely context-less courtroom debate that goes something like this:
Leader of some church: This part of the Bible proves Mormonism wrong.
Wise Mormon elder: This is the explaination.
Leader of another church: Oh, yeah? Well, what about this scripture?
Wise Mormon elder: Check your facts. Here is another glib rebuttal.
.....
Judge: Well, I guess Mormonism is the true church.
It's nothing to be taken too seriously, but it is nice bathroom reading for the entertainment starved missionary.
Apparently there are some up-and-coming Mormon filmmakers that thought it was something more than that. See the product of this miscalculation HERE. Click on the Watch "Two Friends" Trailer link. But before you do, keep in mind:
1. It's bad. 2. It was based on the least suited book ever written for a movie translation. 3. The acting is bad. 4. The dialogue is bad. 5. The cinematography is bad. 6. The plot is bad. 7. The haircuts are bad. 8. It's really, really bad.
For those of you who thought that The Book Of Mormon movie trailer foretold the scraping of the bottom of the barrel in Mormon cinema, be warned. Someone has drilled a hole in the floor of that barrel, and discovered a spacious sub-basement.
"Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
[ October 10, 2003, 07:13 AM: Message edited by: Speed ]
Posted by Maccabeus (Member # 3051) on :
Actually, I could think of a few less-suited books. But yeah...it looks really bad. Do the people involved not have the capacity to ?
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
I couldn't even stomach watching half the trailer. Ouch. My sense of decency just got hit.
Hobbes Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
I saw a trailer for "The Work and The Story", a mockumentary of Mormon cinema. There's a scholarly-looking person who is nodding sagely and saying, "If independent cinema is usually bad, independent Mormon cinema is, by definition, astoundingly bad."
I saw the trailer at 2nd Hand Lions and thought the same thing.
I also saw a poster at the theater for The Work and the Story, and had a good laugh out of it.
Posted by Annie (Member # 295) on :
Sigh. I think OSC is the only one who will redeem us.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Help us, Orson Scott Cardobi. You're our only hope.
Posted by porcelain girl (Member # 1080) on :
that book, day of defense, was banned from my brother's mission. if there is a movie based on this book, a book that does something that the prophet himself has renounced as appropriate behavior for a latter day saint and disciple of christ, then i hope jesus comes flying through the sky and smites the folks that thought film was proper resurrection for a very stupid book.
Posted by Jacare Sorridente (Member # 1906) on :
The poor thing about the book is the attitude it takes, not the doctrine it teaches. The attitude is one of Bible bashing, which is why the book is less than useful. Doctrinally the points it makes are self-consistent. Basically if the book had taken the stance "These are some of the points anti-Mormons make and here is our doctrine which rebutts these points" it would have been fine.
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