Hi Dave, Firstly, can I make an observation about you? Yeah? Good. I have noticed that you answer every person who posts to your forums. Not only is that very time-consuming on your part but it is very courteous. Thank you. The DaVinci Code... ... well yesterday I booked two seats in the cinema to go and watch it tonight, so I'll have a brief report on in the next few days or so for you all (or should that be y'all? LOL!). I'm going in with an open mind despite the horrendous reports that this movie has had over here. One interesting thing sprang to my mind the other day. Has anybody noticed how the interest in this story has really taken off since the film has come out? Like it has EXPLODED!. (I read the book about 12 months ago.) I was thinking about that and I married it to something that (I think) Linda said - ie 10% of the population are responsible for the purchase of 90% of book sales. Hmm. The corollary to that is the other 90% is responsible for 10% (ie they are occassional readers but many people do not read at all). So, all of a sudden... voila! A film is made - "The Da Vinci Code." All of a sudden the "non-readers" are subjected to the story. They can pay $15 or whatever it is for a ticket and go to the cinema. They can sit and vegetate - ooh, I mean... be entertained. Ain't no pain in sitting and being spoon-fed. Sit, look and be entertained. Let's check out the alternative: Become interested, go to the bookstore and pay $20 to $30 (ouch - more expensive than a cinema ticket!) then... ...ugh...ugh... ugh... READ! What? Read over 300 pages? Huh? Good golly Miss Molly! That takes time and effort! Euuuwwww. Now we can see why most people take the easy way out and allow others to do all the work - make a film and entertain me. Dave, I think this goes "hand in hand" with something I'd like to say about your "mooning" post where some larrikin kids exposed their rectal protectors at you. I'll go there and make my comment. Gary

Howdy Dave and the Forumites, Well, I said yesterday that I was off to see the DaVinci Code last night and see it I did. We had pre-paid tickets and I thought I'd be a smartie and walk right on past what I expected to be a massive line of people scrambling to buy tickets. Er... first disappointment. there were perhaps five or six people in the ticket queue. Naturally, my nearest and dearest wanted one of those choc bomb icecream things and, you guessed it, that is where the real line was. Duh! An icecream and a coke cost me $7.60. In we went... At that stage the cinema was perhaps half full. We found a spot in the middle with a couple of seats either side. When I'm in a cinema I can actually position myself in the seat and flare my shoulders a bit to discourage people from sitting next to me. Hey, I like my space. That worked for a while - until the cinema really started to fill up. A couple of middle-aged women sat next to me and kept yakketty-yakking and text messaging on a cell phone right up until the opening scene. I found that mildly disturbing. Anyway... The DaVinci Code I read somewhere that Tom Hanks gave a bit of a "woody" performance but I thought he was pretty good. He wasn't over the top - he was a bit like the way he was in another movie - "Catch Me If You Can." Now, the female lead - whew! I don't know her name but WOW. She is pretty! The storyline followed the book fairly closely. In many respects it wasn't as infuriating to me as the book was. You see Dan Brown went into great detail about every riddle and its laborious unravelling. The film seems to glide along far more swiftly - as you would expect - even though it went for just over 2.5 hours. I was very impressed with the cinematography. The scenes were wonderful and you got a sense of geography - like it was a sort of historical documentary running in the background. Now that was clever from a "credibility" point of view. You see the story is phantasmagorical. It is just so way out and wacky. In one scene a fellow called Teabring (a cripple) flits from seat to seat in his castle opening old chronicles and making power point presentations about "The Last Supper" etc etc. He and Langdon (Hanks) bounce off one another with various fictional "facts" that lead viewers into believing that Mary Magdalene was the lover of Jesus and that they had a child - yada, yada. They made it sound "plausible." The inference was that SOMEWHERE there is a current bloodline lineage that goes all the way from Jesus, through the ages, right up until now. If you want to see the film - follow that part closely. Anyway, the "team" jetsets all over the place to all these old museums and churches as they unravel clue after clue like Sherlock Holmes and his team. It's pretty silly, really. Oh, and they are pursued by Silas the albino monk who indulges in a lot of really masochistic self-flagellation (whip and leg clamp). Those bits are really pretty sick. I glanced at the women around me and they were wincing a fair bit and there was a lot of general seat shifting and low groaning going on. Talking about the women around me... the two next to me must have been bible fanatics (sorry Dave) but they kept making their own commentary, corrections, going "u-huh" - all that. Pity they kept eating these foul smelling antiseptic lollies after which they would use equally foul smelling mouth spray. The miasmic effect was like going in and out of a toilet. Gee, some people can be annoying at close quarters! Back to the film... The acting performances were good, the scenery was marvellous, the story - hmm. It was a bit like a toned-down Harry Potter style thing - not that I have watched a full Harry Potter movie but I've seen quite a few bits and pieces. The worrisome thing with this DaVinci movie is that so many people will take it to be factual and definitive. There will now be many "pseudo-experts" on the matter after having seen this trivial flick. A new "gospel" has been created. There's a bit of a surprise ending but if you have read the book you will know or if you watch the film carefully you will see it coming. Book rating: 3/10 Film rating: 6/10 Go and see it. If you liked "Romancing the Stone" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark" then you will probably like this. It's difficult to say more without using spoilers. I don't want to do this. Hope you liked my little review. Gary

Hi Gary, Thanks for the great review - doggone - now I'll have to go see it! It sounds like a most unusual situation - the movie is better than the book; that doesn't happen very often. Regarding the "bible fanatics," I have been struggling, myself, to understand why people who claim to believe the Bible are making such a fuss over the whole thing. (Which is why I started this thread in the first place.) It is a work of fiction, pure and simple, and I find two things about the whole thing very bizarre: 1.) Apparently some people believe it's based on fact. 2.) Apparently some people believe it's an attack on Christianity. My personal opinion on the whole thing is that it's simply a work of fiction, not well researched or written, with the apparently unusual status of not being as good as the movie. And all this publicity has been VERY good for business both for Mr. Brown and the movie company. God bless, Dave

Hi Dave, Glad to be of assistance with my review. I got the impression as I left the cinema that many people were talking about the basis of the film. (I overheard a few conversations.) Like I said, I think a new gospel has been born. Unfortunately, when some people see something on TV or film it becomes fact to them. Regarding the film being better than the book - yes, in my opinion it was. But maybe that was just because I found the book so dreary. In fact, several times I felt like leaving it and not finishing it. It bored me with its tedium. Many times it just seemed to be going round and round in circles. I like to read the novels of Michael Connelly, Lee Child and Nelson Demille. All of these guys blow Dan Brown off the park with their writing skills - in my opinion, of course. But Brown cleverly picked a topic that has universal interest and he has made 40 million book sales. Wow! That is a lot of royalty money. I am now going to read "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail" by Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln. I think these were the guys who recently took Dan Brown to court, allegedly for ripping off their early 1980's work. He didn't of course. He just used their research and wove a novel around it. Again, he was clever. You see, you can't copyright an idea and so he could not be accused of plagiarism. Gary

HI, Dave and Gary, I have watched this thread progress from my sick bed and I am now wondering if it would be possible to hype up a couple of the wonderful stories I have always liked. The first is 'End of Days' and the second is 'Stigmata'. These two stories reflect the true effects of cinema and film on the psyche of the average (I really would love to call them 'below' average) modern day, book blind citizen. I have seen both these films seriously filed under 'Documentary - Non fiction' in two local English (only) speaking DVD rental shops. I have sent a letter to Harry Potter by owl mail to see if he can sort this out but I was told he was too busy looking for his invisible cat up his invisible gum tree. Regards