"After..." at AFI!!

In case anyone still reads this blog, I wanted to let you know that my first film, "After...," has been accepted into the AFI Film Festival this November. No word on screening dates or times yet, but you can win an all expenses paid trip to the premiere by visiting our myspace site: www.myspace.com/themovieafter. I hope to see you there!

A Bit of Shameless Self-Promotion

But hey, that's what blogs are for, right? This is the poster for my upcoming movie, a supernatural thriller about three urban explorers who get more than they bargain for when they set out to explore the secret world beneath Moscow. Click the poster to go directly to our official site.

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The Da Vinci Code Breaker

(James L. Garlow with Timothy Paul Jones and April Williams, Minneapolis: Bethany House, 2006.)

I’m not a big advocate of authors who make a living refuting other authors’ books. However, I’m also not overly fond of authors who write a novel and then put a disclaimer up front saying that although the particular events within the book are fictionalized, the research behind them is not. (That goes for apocalypse-obsessed Christian authors as well as Dan Brown.) In my opinion, authors should make up their mind beforehand whether they want to write a novel, a history book or a polemic, and then write one of the above. Otherwise, it’s too easy for gullible readers to become confused; and confused they will become.

I’m not being elitist either. Even with four years of Bible college, one year of seminary, and nearly ten years of researching and writing Christian books under my belt, I was confused by several elements in The Da Vinci Code. While I had a rough working knowledge of the Gnostic tradition from whence this book comes, my understanding wasn’t nearly robust enough to offer a full-on rebuttal of Brown’s unorthodox portrayal of Christ. In fact, for a brief moment, I even began to wonder whether or not Brown might really be onto something… Gullible? Who, me? You bet!

If that was the case for me, meagre Bible scholar that I am, what about the millions of people who read The Da Vinci Code but have no Christian education whatsoever? Although it is merely a novel, Brown’s book presents a narrative that is compelling enough—and seeded with just enough truth—that it really does sound, well, true. In fact, I couldn’t help but feel that the person who gifted me with a copy had a look in her eye that said, “This’ll set you straight.� She’s not alone. I wouldn’t be surprised if millions of people are reading this novel and accepting its rewriting of history as fact. Hence the unfortunate need for books that attempt to set the record straight.

Which brings me back to my main point: While I don’t normally endorse books that merely offer counterarguments, I want to make an exception for The Da Vinci Code Breaker by James L. Garlow, Timothy Paul Jones, and April Williams. I appreciate this book because, rather than launch a polemic to counter Brown’s polemic—which rarely advances an argument to any sort of constructive level—the authors have chosen instead to create a fact checker, a mini-encyclopaedia of over 500 people, concepts, locations, events, and terms mentioned in The Da Vinci Code. I am under no illusion about this being an objective account of the facts. But it does offer a clear, concise representation of what orthodox Christianity has had to say about such matters. Armed with these competing truth claims, readers are much better equipped to decide for themselves which version of the facts seems more plausible in light of history, experience, reason, and Scripture. This book doesn’t attempt to make up readers’ minds for them. It merely provides them with enough information to do that on their own. I really wish I had it handy when I first read The Da Vinci Code.

So, no matter where you fall along the theological spectrum, I encourage you to read The Da Vinci Code and The Da Vinci Code Breaker hand-in-hand. If your mind is truly open to all of the facts, I think you will pleasantly surprised by where you wind up at the end.

The Ten Commandments: 50th Anniversary Collection

How many filmmakers get a chance to re-make their own movie? I can think of two: George Lucas—who at least got to re-work the special effects in his first Star Wars trilogy—and Cecil B. DeMille, who, after making an epic, black and white silent version of The Ten Commandments in 1923, got to shoot an epic sound version of the story twenty-three years later in dazzling Technicolor.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of DeMille’s Academy Award-winning second kick at the can, Paramount has just released a lush DVD package that includes both versions of the film as well as a host of special features. These include a six-part behind-the-scenes documentary, two full-length commentaries by Katherine Orrison, author of Written in Stone: Making Cecil B. DeMille’s Epic, The Ten Commandments, as well as newsreels and trailers heralding the 1956 film’s original release.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with either The Ten Commandments or Cecil B. DeMille, the 1956 film is one of the most extravagant movies ever made by one of the most extravagant filmmakers ever to come out of Hollywood. Budgeted at what was then an astounding figure of $13.5 million, the film went on to become Paramount’s biggest-grossing movie up to that time. For years it ranked second only to Gone With the Wind as the most successful film in Hollywood history. Starring Charlton Heston, Yul Brynner, Anne Baxter, and a host of other greats, the film spawned a number of big budget historical classics, such as Ben Hur, Cleopatra, and Spartacus. But few matched The Ten Commandments in terms of scope and pageantry.

Whether you’re a fan of Hollywood’s golden age—when Bible-based films were guaranteed box office gold rather than a curious subcultural phenomenon—or you're merely curious to see what special effects-laden movies were like before the digital revolution, this is one DVD you won’t want to miss.