Sam Harris

Me and my sister went to see “Angels & Demons” the new Tom Hanks flick last night. Contrary to what’s being reported by the likes of Bill Donahue of the Catholic League, the film is not anti-Catholic.

The story evolves around Professor Langdon (Tom Hanks revises his role from The DaVinci Code) and he’s summond by church officials to go to The Vatican in Rome to help solve the mystery of the abduction of four Cardinals who are in line for Pope after his holiness dies. Being a professor of symbology, we are lead through a series of twists and turns as Langdon unravels the puzzle of where the Cardinals are being held and where they will be killed. He must get to them before that happens.

There is also a sub-plot to find the missing anti-matter that was stolen from the underground physics lab in Switzerland. It is believed the Illuminati have returned and plan to use it to destroy the Vatican.

Good film. I give it 4 starz

Ron Howard: It’s a Thriller, Not a Crusade

William Donohue of the Catholic League is on a mission. Whether it is a “mission from God,” as the Blues Brothers would say, only God knows, but the goal of his mission is clear: to paint me and the movie I directed, Angels & Demons, as anti-Catholic.

For a $5 donation to his organization, Mr. Donohue will send you his glossy new booklet (Angels & Demons: More Demonic Than Angelic), in which he writes that I and the people who made this thriller “do not hide their animus against all things Catholic.”

He’s been making these assertions for years, going back to the theatrical release of The Da Vinci Code. He stepped up his campaign more than a month ago with a series of press releases. And there he goes again, in a Daily News op-ed last Friday, saying that Dan Brown and I “have collaborated in smearing the Catholic Church….”

Let me be clear: neither I nor Angels & Demons are anti-Catholic. And let me be a little controversial: I believe Catholics, including most in the hierarchy of the Church, will enjoy the movie for what it is: an exciting mystery, set in the awe-inspiring beauty of Rome. After all, in Angels & Demons, Professor Robert Langdon teams up with the Catholic Church to thwart a vicious attack against the Vatican. What, exactly, is anti-Catholic about that?

read more at link…

rab - 16 May 2009 04:59 PM

Me and my sister went to see “Angels & Demons” the new Tom Hanks flick last night. Contrary to what’s being reported by the likes of Bill Donahue of the Catholic League, the film is not anti-Catholic.

Say what you will, I’ll still likely go see it.

Byron

SkepticX - 19 May 2009 12:10 AM

Say what you will, I’ll still likely go see it.

Byron

Disappointed Byron? 

It does give a bit of the church’s bloody history if that makes you feel better.

I read the book years ago when it first came out and certainly read it as an expose of the Vatican.  From the second book, The DaVinci Code, it was apparent that the Vatican knew the truth and that the story of Jesus was pure fiction.  In the book the proof of this exposure went up in flames. 

I read the book in front of my computer checking out the art, architeture and the layout of the entire area.  The book was fabulous and I liked it better than DaVinci code.  I most certainly will watch the DVD (we have no theater here).....

Thanks for the heads up.