Religion is taking a back seat in the seriousness of our world. Nowhere is this truer than in the "comedy" called "Dogma" which makes fun of Catholics and the Catholic religion, even though there are serious undertones.
This is a movie directed by Kevin Smith, whose claim to fame was a very low budget film called "Clerks". He also did "Chasing Amy". And his success with those two films obviously gave the powers-that-be in Hollywood who hold the purse strings the incentive to give him the go-ahead to what I call "Animal House" with God and his angels in place of John Belushi and his frat brothers. Anyway, the film made money. It also made me realize the difference between humor and cleverness. This film is clever. It is as clever as kids making faces or throwing spitballs in church when the priest or minister isn't looking.
I checked some of the reviews- many of which were favorable, including TIME, which headlined its review: "Can God Take a Joke?" (Nov 8, 1999), and Roger Ebert, the Timothy Leary of wannabe film critics, who gave it a rave on his syndicated TV show.
Oh, I admit I laughed. But that is not a criterion why I believe the film fails as true satire and/or slapstick. For one thing, there are many clever references to Catholic dogma with which the ordinary movie-goer (and even a lot of Catholics) are not familiar. I had to ask around to find out what a plenary indulgence was. `
The point of this film, it seems, is whether Jesus would accept modernizing the church, as a trendy bishop, portrayed by the comic George Carlin, would like to do? The answer would be a qualified Yes- as long as the idea of a belief in God and his domain over all living things is not disturbed. One would assume that Jesus spoke in the Hebrew of his day, and not the Latin that the Christian church adopted for its rituals.
However, I am pained by the idea of Rufus, allegedly the Thirteenth apostle, and obvi...