Skunkyrate Gripping story with well-crafted characters

Numerootno A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

Lachlan Coulson This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

Cassandra Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

AHOLDER-1 Sound: Nice use of buzzing flies with the 3 skater/hockey players-Beelzebub lord of the flies, in conjunction with the sound of their skates. The orchestral score was along the lines of religious drama music we have heard before but not extremely well developed. Sound was mixed well. 60/100 Technical: Good use of off-screen violence. Competently shot but nothing really special here. 60/100 Narrative: Too much exposition. The film utilizes an apologia in the beginning to try and keep the watcher from being too harsh. A journey structure is used to propel the story; go from point A to point B with interactions to increase the dramatic points. 40/100 Character/Acting: Good character arcs. Some poor dialog and misuse of religious or theological terms. Use of Deus Ex Machina. 40/100 Did I enjoy it: Yes, even though it is controversial and questions/lampoons my beliefs. When paying attention this film has much more merit than The DaVinci Code or Angels and Demons and really addresses a lot of the publics' misunderstanding of theological truths; and really attacks pop culture based theology with logic errors. 70/l00 Artistic merit: Other than the controversial elements and addressing them in a comedy without apologia or authority; nothing much here. 50/100 FInal score 53.3/100

oscar-35 Dogma, 1999. *Spoiler/plot- Humanity is put on trial for it's 'humanness' by the heavenly powers. *Special Stars- Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, M. Garafolo, George Carlin, Star & Writer & DIR: Kevin Smith. *Theme- Only suckers believe in spiritual matters from the Bible.*Trivia/location/goofs- Satire film on organized religions. This film and Kevin Smith is very much loved by the college and university crowd.*Emotion- If your a cynical person and anti-spiritual, you'll love this indictment of the Catholic Church from one of it's early initiates, this film's writer, star and director, Kevin Smith. Humanity is helped along by human assistants made up of the most trite biblical characters. These helpers spend their screen time with juvenile toilet jokes and extensive unnecessary cursing using God's name. A total waste of your time to learn anything positive about dogma or biblical or spiritual matters. Just cheap and boring sectarian tripe from a wise-ass dolt who shows you his hatred of Catholic matters by mocking them at every turn.*Based on- Media driven sectarian biblical matters

Jonkeenan-237-838968 Obviously we cannot thank these guys enough.It's almost twenty years since this came out and reviewers here are still rendering plot synopses? Fer Pete's sake, anyone here has already seen the film, therefore recaps are redundant.I got to this film looking for more Damon/Afleck stuff because I watched GWH, again, on a flight to Copenhagen. After six months I've found this movie and have explored the whole Kevin Smith thing.Masterpiece. Then Clerks and Amy, etc. and I'm on to Smith, who's inspiration/business- model can be summarized in two words; Lucas & Bruce. Lucas created a cinematic universe and Springsteen created a fan-base. Good work. Excellent.My hat is off to Smith, who did it all with just his local buds, a bit of sympathetic outside talent, and chutzpah. Plus, Jason Mewes makes it all worthwhile. Don't buy it? Watch his little "Amy" bit again. If you can't admire that, what DO you admire?I won't even go into Rickman, Rock, and Morrisette, their parts made me want them to be here forever.Just give 'isms and 'phobias a rest and enjoy an excellent film.

SnoopyStyle The fallen Angel of Death Loki (Matt Damon) and his friend Bartleby (Ben Affleck) find a way to return to Heaven. Cardinal Glick (George Carlin) is revitalizing the church and rededicates St. Michael's Church in New Jersey. The papal sanctioned entrance allows all those who enter to have their sins forgiven. The two angels need to walk through the archway and then die to reenter Heaven. Catholic Bethany Sloane (Linda Fiorentino) works at an abortion clinic and is struggling for faith. She is tasked by the angel Metatron (Alan Rickman), the voice of God, to stop the two angels or else it could undo all of God's work. To help her, he sends her two prophets, Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Kevin Smith). Azrael (Jason Lee) and his hockey playing goons try to stop her. Along the way, they are aided by the 13th Apostle Rufus (Chris Rock) and the muse Serendipity (Salma Hayek).There are just so much religious exposition. It probably took up half of movie to explain who these characters are and what they represent. Towards the end, the whole thing gave me a headache. I think it is something very compelling for Catholics but less so for most everybody else. I guess all the complicated history is part of Kevin Smith's commentary on the religion.Some of the movie is more fun than other. I love Jay and Silent Bob. They're funny in this movie. Linda Fiorentino is a little dour but she's still pretty good as the lead. I got bored with the Damon Affleck massacre tour. It's not funny or compelling. The road trip works in the first half with some fun introductions of Chris Rock and Salma Hayek. The second half gets bog down from time to time. I probably would be happier with "Jay and Silent Bob Save Creation".