The Soulpass Project

You need to read this article from Esquire about snakes on a plane:

The “Snakes on a Plane” Problem

It is very well-written, and talks about the problem I’ve had with this movie ever since the day I first heard about it. Ironically, the author of the column has never seen the movie, which was the same situation in one of my previous posts. This is my favorite part:

I have not seen Snakes on a Plane, so I have no idea how good this movie is (or isn’t). But I do know this: Its existence represents a weird, semidepressing American condition, and I’m afraid this condition is going to get worse. I suspect Snakes on a Plane might earn a lot of money, which will prompt studios to assume this is the kind of movie audiences want. And I don’t think it is. Snakes on a Plane is an unabashed attempt at prefab populism, and (maybe) this gimmick will work once. But it won’t keep working, and it will almost certainly make filmmaking worse.

Wikipedia has all kinds of depressing trivia in the SOAP article. Here’s one on the product placement (I hate product placement; it’s disgusting) in the film:

The film includes several product placements including Kawasaki and Red Bull in the opening scenes, GMC Trucks driven by Eddie Kim, onscreen use of a Sony PSP and mention of an Xbox and a PlayStation 2 (which is credited by Flynn as indirectly saving the plane: “All praise to the PlayStation!”), a Palm Treo 650 Smartphone (used by the character Mercedes to advance the plot, photographing the snakes and e-mailing the photos to rescue workers on the ground to have the right antivenom ready), Purell hand sanitizer, a Nintendo DS, San Pellegrino mineral water, and Pepsi products on the plane.

I will not see this movie.

The worst movie of the summer opens on the 28th. I have not seen it, and refuse to… but if you have seen the trailer and are still excited to see it, then you should really consider some sort of therapy.

When I first heard about the movie “The Beast,” I was intrigued. I went to The Beast’s official site to check out the word there. From what I read, it seems that this movie is claiming to have secrets that prove that Jesus Christ never existed! Yikes, that’s quite a breakthrough! Well, I checked out the forums, and to my suprise, it seems to be a highly interesting place. I wanted to find out more about this Beast movie, so I made a post with my questions and concerns:

When I first heard about this movie, my impression was that it was made with the intention of disproving the idea that Jesus Christ ever existed. I read that the director had done some personal research, and intends to let the world know about these revolutionary secrets that he has found. That got me interested. My first thought was “wow, I hope he’s ready for some heavy scrutiny by thousands of scholars around the world…” My next thought was “I hope this isn’t going to turn out to be a Michael Moore-type disaster…” i.e. - A great movie that has a lot of great things to say, but fell short just enough to earn horrible PR and distrust. Another thing that crossed my mind, and I’m sure it has crossed many others as well, is why on Earth would no scholar or skeptic have found these secrets before?

Now I’m having pre-release disappointment. Okay, let’s say I actually have some secret that proves that Jesus never existed. Wow! This is groundbreaking! Hmm, forget about scientific and religious journals and making money through publishing some of this research I have done. I think I’ll share this world-changing news through a Hollywood feature film! Yeah, that’s the way to do it. That’s how I envisioned finding out about it…

Yeah, so as far as breaking any ground, this movie will probably be a big disappointment to a hardcore skeptic. I’m sure a lot of 12-year olds will lap it up, though. It’s in a movie, and it talks about something that goes against what their parents teach them, so it must be gospel!

At first I was intrigued about the cast and crew being legally sworn to secrecy, now I’m sure it must be nothing more than a ploy to build hype.

So, my take is, once everyone who is going to see it sees it… We’ll be right where we left off. No solid proof one way or the other. Well, I mean, let’s face it, there might be a reasonable amount of evidence that Jesus actually existed, but I’m not sure it really matters whether one believes it or not. After all, what we don’t have is hardcore, tangible evidence that God exists. Or that It doesn’t. However… If it were possible to provide reasonable proof that Jesus never existed, now that would be something. That would change the world in a big way.

So am I missing the boat completely here? Is this movie not even trying to accomplish what is advertised? I just noticed on the homepage that the words “fictional thriller” are now being used to describe it. When I first did some research on it, everything I read indicated that the movie is trying to present some sort of research-based “proof” through a fictional storyline… What’s the deal?

-Daniel.

I got a reply. Mind you, it’s not a reply from the director or anything, but it seems logical enough for me. Here it is, a reply from “djbell”:

grooveNectar wrote:
So am I missing the boat completely here?

Yeah. The Beast is a ficticious movie where a girl ficticiously finds out that the J man never existed.

The God Who Wasn’t There is an anti-fundamentalist documentary that acts as an introduction to the idea that Jesus didn’t exist. It’s obviously biased and not long enough discuss everything the apologists say, but I found it to be an fun introduction to the subject.

Honestly I think that all you have to do to learn that Jesus didn’t exist is to read the New Testament and compare with history of the early first millenium. It’s as easy to believe as if I told you that Moses parted the Atlantic last week. Which leads us to faith- that’s the only possibe reason anyone could believe in the historicity of Jesus.

It’s not a particularly fringe concept to not believe in Jesus. On the planet, there are 2 billion Christians, of which constitute an enormous percentage of Biblical scholars; but how many take the Bible literally anyway– half, or less? Then there are a billion Muslims who believe in a very different legend of Jesus. And then a billion non-religious or spiritual people, and the remaining two billion people religious people, obviously believe the Jesus story is not to be taken literally.

So, it’s not as it appears… Still looks like it might be entertaining, so I think it’s worth a watch. I’ll try to catch it in theaters. On a side note, I’d encourage anyone to check out those forums, there’s some really good stuff in there.

Recently Billy, Alex, and myself saw Sin City in the Sunchase movie room. It was great! My only complaint is a bit of bad acting from one of the actresses, and the worst of it was only one line. She says “wait a minute, somethins’ not right here,” and I think to myself “yeah, your lack of skill at your own job for which you get paid sickeningly large amounts of money.”

Anyway, back to the movie. It is harsh, blunt, in-your-face, confident, shocking, dark, and delightfully sinful :-). Apparently it is based on a famous comic book series by the same name that I have never read. Here’s a kicker… I have heard from more than one source that the movie actually represents the books well! Now how often do you hear that? I recommend this movie, even though it’s not for the faint of heart.

I recommend seeing I Heart Huckabees!! Just saw it with Billy and SunGrooveTheory last night. I don’t know that everyone would find it as entertaining as I did. One reason that I did is because it allowed me dive into thoughts of deep symbolism through the movie. Probably a dangerous thing, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Of course, it could have all been in my head. Regardless, it was wonderful, and I wouldn’t mind having a copy of the film. Two important qualities of the movie that make it good is it how unique and clever it is. Those are two elements that are lacking from (in my opinion) just about all movies that are coming out these days. This movie has them, and that’s one reason that I like it.

The symbolism that I saw in it was religious-based — the core principles. Neither of my friends saw it that way until I mentioned it.