Posted by Mr.CombatisMattSaxe at 2cust31.tnt26.chi5.da.uu.net on November 29, 1999 at 15:23:31:
All right I promise no spoilers. First off let me say that my dad is catholic and my mother is Jewish, so when I go to confession I take my lawyer. Just kidding. I don't go to confession at all, I was raised and still am a practicing Jew. But my dad has been a devout Catholic all his life, he went to Catholic school, and an all-male Catholic college, Saint Mary's U. in San Antonio. He goes to Mass every Sunday and attended the Papal Mass in person when the Pope came here to St. Louis. He struggled a little with his faith after serving a year of combat duty in Vietnam and losing his best friend since childhood to a land mine, but managed to regain his faith and keep it to this day.
I encouraged him to go see Dogma because I wanted to know what he thought about it as a Catholic and as a good, smart man. Well, he saw it Saturday night and we discussed it during commercials on Sunday while watching the Rams whip the Saints on t.v. He really liked it. He called it the "smartest most interesting" movie he had seen all year. He liked how God was played and represented. He thought it had a really good message to people about faith. He found the ideas in it, not offensive, but interesting, some of them he had heard before in college, (specifically the one involving Mary and Joseph after Jesus). He found a lot of it funny, particularly George Carlin and Chris Rock. Azrael-Jason Lee was his favorite character, and he loved Lee's performance, and he felt sorry for Bartleby and Loki and really sensed the struggle Bethany was going through, because of his loss of faith due to his war experiences and loss of his best friend. He found Jay's language a little offensive, (simply put, "The guy said the f-word a little too much for my taste") and he had a hard time understanding Salma-Serendipity during the Golgothan scene. Speaking of which, he found Big G and the triplets very interesting and called them and Azrael the best villains he had seen in a while. Overall, he was not offended by the movie whatsoever, he really liked it a lot and he and his date discussed it for a couple of hours after leaving the theatre.
They saw it at an art-house theatre in one of St. Louis's most expensive malls. Tickets were $6 and he said the theatre was full at his 6:45 showing. The audience consisted of mostly all people his age and type, Mid 40's to early 60's, (he's 55) and white middle to upper class. He said the audience response was high. So there you have it. I wish all those protestors and hate-mail writers could talk with my dad, a kind good man, a devout Catholic, hard-working, veteran with 2 children who has tried to do his best in everything throughout his life who rally enjoyed this movie. He did admit he woouldn't have gone unless I had encouraged him to go, (You're welcome Kevin, hope his and his date's 12 bucks buys Harley something nice), but he did and he was glad. Maybe he could talk a little sense into them. I am going to write some more about the St. Louis Dogma scene and the MTV Movie Awards which I think Dogma should take over this summer. And once again in my next post, I will try my hardest to put NO SPOILERS in it. Thank you for reading. Your View Askew friend, Mr. Combat. (Not a liscensed member of the WWF).