Today's been a pretty good day.

[xiphias]

Last night and today were Purim, so, last night, we went out to the megillah reading at my shul/Hebrew school, and had fun. When I got home, there was a message from a friend saying that said friend's life was actually going pretty well. In the morning, I went to the shul/Hebrew school's Purim Carnival, and played music for folks as part of it. People seemed to have a good time, then we had pizza. When I came home, we tried to listen to the radio program Says You!, which was pre-empted for a pledge drive for re-runs of Garrison Keillor (why? Why would you do re-runs of "A Prairie Home Companion" instead of a new episode of "Says You!"? Nothing against APHC, but, still), but Lis was able to find another station that was playing it, from Ohio, and stream that one.

Then we drove out to the movie theater -- and Lis got the show streaming through her phone, so we could still listen while we were driving, and even plug the phone into the car stereo to listen through better-quality speakers -- and saw PAUL.

Short review? If you're on my friends list, you're probably the target audience for this movie, and you'll likely enjoy it.

Slightly longer review?

It is so completely, unabashedly, joyfully geeky. The opening scene has the two main characters at ComicCon, talking about how weird it is that they're five thousand miles from England, but they feel, for the first time in their lives, completely at home. This isn't played for laughs or anything -- it's a genuine exciting, sweet moment.

Roger Ebert didn't completely like it. He thought it almost worked, but somehow missed it by that much. Flick Filospher, on the other hand, felt it absolutely DID hit exactly what it was aiming for.

Downsides? Um, I dunno. It's clearly not a GREAT MOVIE FOR THE AGES, or anything, but it's solid, it's fun, it's actually sweet, it has good guys smoking and drinking and smoking pot and dancing REALLY badly and thinking about having sex.

What else? Well, I enjoy a bit of fundie bashing as much as the next fellow, but the anti-Creationism message was a bit oversold, I thought -- it works fine as an anti-Creationist message, but I've always felt that it's a bit of a stretch to extend a solid anti-Creationism message to be a general atheist message. But that's a really minor quibble. And Paul DOES point out that, to be completely fair, his existence doesn't really disprove ALL religion -- just all the Abrahamic faiths . . .

Now, just as font geeks notice people in movies making poor font choices, I'm a theology geek, so I feel compelled to point out that Paul's existence only disproves some particular literalist/Creationist interpretations of the Abrahamic faiths. Yes, Paul completely destroys the faith of a sheltered creationist fundamentalist, but had, say, mabfan or brotherguy encountered Paul, it wouldn't have shaken THEIR faith at all.

That's my biggest quibble about the movie. They were insufficiently technically precise on a particular theological point that is important to character development, but, since the IMPORTANT part was the breaking of the brittle kind of rigid faith that fundamentalism creates, I can let it slide.

Also, I've probably just spent more time writing about it that it actually takes in the movie.

Female characters generally have some agency, and there are, um, four reasonably significant ones. It DOES barely squeak a "pass" on the Bechdel/Mo's Movie test, about thirty seconds before the end credits.

Homophobia? Remarkably little. The two main characters are occasionally mistaken for lovers, and their response is embarrassment, but not defensiveness. When they accidentally are given a hotel room with one king-sized bed instead of two double beds, the person bringing room service asks if they're on their honeymoon. They try to explain that they're just friends, and there was a mistake with the room, but the explanation begins to get confusing, they just drop the subject, and when he leaves with a "have a nice honeymoon," they just say "thank you." They're embarrassed like you would be if someone assumed that your opposite sex platonic friend was your boyfriend/girlfriend, but not like anyone said anything BAD about you.

Lis had been showing me all the trailers and clips that have been released, and I was afraid that I'd already seen everything good in the movie. As it turned out, I probably only saw about HALF the good lines. If I had it to do over, I'd avoid the trailers and just see it cold, but it's worth seeing.

Not as good as SHAUN OF THE DEAD or HOT FUZZ, but that's an unfairly high bar to set.

So, yeah, a good day.

Edited to Add: In looking this over, I thought of one more positive comment to make about Paul. Note that, in the quote, Paul talks about how he invalidates "Abrahamic" faiths. They used the proper term, "Abrahamic", meaning religions which count their descent in some way from the Old Testament story of Abraham -- i.e., primarily Judaism, Christianity, and Islam -- rather than using the all-but-meaningless and deeply annoying term "Judeo-Christian".

Comments

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

I'm now a little more interested in seeing this film, but I'll probably wait for DVD. It doesn't sound like it requires big screen if getting out to the movies is difficult to do (as it is for us right now).

And yes, alien life would not shake my faith one bit. Unless Oolon Colluphid was among the aliens... :-)

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think this one would be fine on DVD. It DOES earn its R rating with language, violence, and bawdy humor, so you probably will want to make sure Muffin and Squeaker are asleep first. :)

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

I wasn't interested in seeing PAUL until I heard it stars Simon Pegg & Nick Frost, and by extension, stars their friendship. Their friendship is one of my favorite comedians ever, being sweet and loving and witty and good natured, so now I very much want to see this movie.

[felis-sidus.livejournal.com]

When I read the line "Paul DOES point out that, to be completely fair, his existence doesn't really disprove ALL religion -- just all the Abrahamic faiths . . . " I was already yelping "WHAT? Wait a minute!" before I got to your next comment.

So... What you said.

In my first grade religion class (at Saint Patrick's Elementary School, back in the early 50s), Sister Mary Anne felt entirely comfortable leading a discussion of the possibility that G-d also created life on other planets, and that maybe on one or more of them the intelligent life forms had never gotten themselves into a situation where they needed a Redeemer. And Sister Mary Anne was definitely not a rebel or an unusually free-thinking member of our religious community. If Paul had shown up on Sister Mary Anne's doorstep, she'd probably have invited him in for cookies and a cozy theological discussion. Lost her faith? Not so much.

[jim-p.livejournal.com]

Flick Filosopher is a friend of mine and a con-goer, so I figure she'd Get It :)

[spatch]

I enjoyed the geek side of PAUL. All the sci-fi and fantasy quotes and allusions and the veritable chorus line of Slave Leias at ComicCon and oh yes, the Wilhelm Scream was in there too.

But I'm of similar opinion in that the film really mishandled the religion angle something fierce. Even though Paul asserts he doesn't invalidate all faiths, I still got an impression that the film confused Creationism with religion as a whole, or at least presented a general polarized line between religion and science. The strawman creationist (and the strawkristenwiig, which was weirder to type than it is to read) were also embarrassingly one-dimensional, almost drawn from a Bizarro Jack Chick tract.

Still, the film tries for balance but just a little bit. One character is saved by their faith. Paul does throw out the disclaimer, and doesn't deny the existence of any higher powers. (However, while he uses the correct term Abrahamic, at another point he quotes "an eye for an eye" as coming from the Old Testament. Hammurabi wouldn't be pleased.)

I saw this on Friday and have been mulling it over the entire weekend. I want to write more about it but am waiting for spoilers to blow over.

[kerrypolka.livejournal.com]

To be fair, ayin tachat ayin *is* in the Tanakh several times, even if it didn't originate there...

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Exodus 21:23-25
23 But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life,
24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,
25 burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.

It's there. It may be taken from Hammurabi, but it's in the Old Testament, too. Now, the ongoing Jewish tradition re-worked it to be a system of tort laws involving financial reparations for damages, and Christianity entirely repealed it -- in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth'. But I say to you, do not resist an evildoer. If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also." I don't know enough about Islam to know for sure how Muslims interact with the notion, but a very brief skim of Wikipedia suggests that Sharia law accepts the idea, but allows, and highly encourages, the victims to accept monetary compensation instead.

Personally, I feel that goes too far in the other direction, but, again, in the ongoing development of Christianity, Christians HAVE developed ways to resist evildoers -- just as we Jews have found ways to avoid taking lex tailonis literally, Christians have found ways to avoid taking "turn the other cheek" to an extent that would destroy society.

Society cannot survive EITHER too much justice OR too much mercy. It needs both in balance.

In any case, I agree that the religion was arguing against a strawman -- but I'm not COMPLETELY bothered by that. I perceived it as a disagreement in worldview that I, personally, have with the characters of Paul, Grahame, and Clive. And, in real life, I have that disagreement with people I like, so I found myself able to accept that.

It's probable that Pegg and Frost have similar views as Grahame, Clive, and Paul -- but, just as that doesn't make me dislike Pegg and Frost, it doesn't make me dislike the movie.

[jehanna.livejournal.com]

Society cannot survive EITHER too much justice OR too much mercy. It needs both in balance.

*applause*

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

The notion is a fundamental one in all the extant religions I know which are dependent on interaction with the world. There have been historical cultures and religions based on pure justice -- I'd not want to live in them. And there have been and are religious communities based on pure mercy -- Jains and Amish for two -- but they exist by maintaining a careful balance of existing within and apart from the framework of a larger community in which the majority DOES use both mercy and justice to regulate itself.

[jehanna.livejournal.com]

It's true. From what I've seen, in societies that tend to go more towards one extreme or the other, it just makes the tension between the two pull harder within that society. That's human, I think. The impulse toward both exists everywhere.

[felis-sidus.livejournal.com]

*more applause*

[pogodragon.livejournal.com]

Not as good as SHAUN OF THE DEAD or HOT FUZZ, but that's an unfairly high bar to set.

As I found Hot Fuzz barely watchable, Shaun of the Dead utterly tedious and only just managed to convince myself that Mr Pegg didn't quite totally ruin the latest Star Trek movie I think I should hand back my geek card. I seem to be the only person I know who finds him unwatchable.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Then this movie is not for you. It really depends on you actively liking Pegg and Frost's characters, who are, of course, more-or-less themselves.

[pogodragon.livejournal.com]

I'd already decided that based on the print adverts I've seen :-)

[dancing-kiralee.livejournal.com]

I find the use of the term 'Abrahmic' disturbing - I would say offensive or blasphemous, if my response was more intense. I'm not satisfied with the term 'Judeo-Christen' either.

I guess the best analog to my take on religion is late Roman - I believe that respect for secular (civil) authority is more relevant than unity of religious worship / authority; I expect the state to be a multi-cultural entity, and citizens of the state to engage in religion as a private practice through a series of different cults (I'm using the term here in the greco-roman sense, where a cult meant a congregation dedicated to a particular interpretation of a particular god / gods, one that did not necessarily deny the existence or power of other gods, although, of course, some cults, such as the Christian cults, did - a belief which I find intensely destructive).

That being said, religions are intrinsically a part of the moral and ethical dialog of a state, being, as they are, so much a part of the moral and ethical background of those citizens who are religious. In a tolerant state, where the citizens take part in the dialog of how laws are enacted (and which laws are enacted), moral and religious sensibilities will clearly inform the legal process; in an intolerant state, where the controlling interests impose a specific religion, and / or draw on a specific religion to inform the legal process, this happens too, but in a much more narrow, and clearly not multi-cultural, way.

Anyway, I tend to think of Jewish, Christen, Moslem, and Mormon faiths as sects of the cult of the Nameless God. To me, it's important that the nomenclature reflect, not a common myth, but the similarity in the entitie(s) followed. To fail to do so is a denial of what I am - it makes me invisible in a way that I'm uncomfortable with; that's the part that I find offensive (or something like that, but maybe not at quite that intensity). It's also a denial of the divinity in question to identify the myth rather than the God - a divinity which I myself acknowledge, although I'm not a part of any of the sects mentioned; that's the part I find blasphemous (although, again, not at quite that intensity).

Anyway, I probably won't see the film, as, despite the home geek feel, I dislike the use of the term enough to avoid it. (I think it's inaccurate too - other religions have creation myths that are contracted by evolution - they just don't have enough 'credit' within our society for us to be willing acknowledge, or even notice, what affect it might have).

Kiralee