{"id":277,"date":"2009-04-22T09:50:00","date_gmt":"2009-04-22T09:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2009\/04\/blasphemy-isnt-what-it-used-to-be\/"},"modified":"2009-04-22T09:50:00","modified_gmt":"2009-04-22T09:50:00","slug":"blasphemy-isnt-what-it-used-to-be","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2009\/04\/blasphemy-isnt-what-it-used-to-be.html","title":{"rendered":"“Blasphemy isn’t what it used to be.”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a>
Phil Nugent<\/a> at The Screengrab makes my favorite comment about the controversy over Angels & Demons<\/a><\/i> to date:<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, we don\u2019t really have a dog in this race. And make no mistake about it, we here at the Screengrab are just crazy about blasphemy and try to encourage it whenever we can. What\u2019s discouraging, though, is [Ron] Howard\u2019s good-natured, reasonable tone: yeah, we kind of dis your church\u2019s history and make your guys look like nut jobs and gangsters, but we don\u2019t mean<\/i> anything by it! It\u2019s just necessary to the plot of a good thriller. What are you saying, that you don\u2019t like good thrillers? Go dig Hitchcock up and blow shit at him! Some real moviemakers like Bunuel<\/a> risked their careers, their standing in the community, and maybe even their lives to make blasphemous movies, and somebody like Howard flirts with it, out of commercial necessity\u2013somebody<\/i> is going to make movies out of Dan Brown\u2019s bullshit\u2013and expects everybody to understand that it doesn\u2019t really mean anything to him, so it shouldn\u2019t give offense to anyone. I myself am no fan of Oliver Stone\u2019s JFK<\/a><\/i>, either as a movie or as an historical argument, but I\u2019ll give it this much: I\u2019m willing to believe that the murder of John Kennedy is something that Stone is, or was, genuinely freaked out about. it\u2019s understandable that Howard would be baffled and even offended by William Donahue\u2019s assertion that he\u2019s actually a hater and propagandist against the Catholic church instead of a guy trying to make a buck with a pre-sold property, but if he would open his mind up a little, he might be able to see that, in his way, Donahue is paying him a compliment by suggesting that he\u2019s a serious enough man to believe in his own crap. As Al Pacino put it in Dog Day Afternoon<\/i>, if somebody\u2019s going to blow my brains out, I hope it\u2019s somebody who does it because he hates my guts, not because it\u2019s his job.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Meanwhile, some new clips from the film have been posted here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Phil Nugent at The Screengrab makes my favorite comment about the controversy over Angels & Demons to date: Now, we don\u2019t really have a dog in this race. And make no mistake about it, we here at the Screengrab are just crazy about blasphemy and try to encourage it whenever we can. What\u2019s discouraging, though, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n"Blasphemy isn't what it used to be."<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Phil Nugent at The Screengrab makes my favorite comment about the controversy over Angels & Demons to date:Now, we don't really have a dog in this\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2009\/04\/blasphemy-isnt-what-it-used-to-be.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\""Blasphemy isn't what it used to be."\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Phil Nugent at The Screengrab makes my favorite comment about the controversy over Angels & Demons to date:Now, we don't really have a dog in this\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2009\/04\/blasphemy-isnt-what-it-used-to-be.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"FilmChat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-04-22T09:50:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_MwnH1kpbPRM\/Se9Ov0Nid3I\/AAAAAAAADEA\/gVAqjeZ2XH4\/s400\/angelsanddemons.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Peter T. 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