Word: jesus
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Iowa, where it counts, Forbes has pandered much more heavily to the Christian Coalition than has Bush, who thought a talk about Jesus on the beach with the Rev. Billy Graham would be enough. Forbes diluted his flat-tax message to appeal to religious activists by promising "a new birth of freedom"; that's his way of telling true believers they should be free to post the Ten Commandments in public schools and have only antiabortion judges appointed to the Supreme Court...
...pokes at Catholic doctrine--that God is a woman (Alanis Morissette), that the last descendant of Jesus (Linda Fiorentino) works in an abortion clinic, that there was a 13th Apostle who was black (Chris Rock)--Dogma is a tortured testament from a true believer. In an age when not only belief in God but belief itself brings a smirk to hip, jaded faces, this is a film out of time, the most devout movie in a modern setting since Robert Bresson's Diary of a Country Priest (1951), and a worthy successor to The Last Temptation of Christ, Martin Scorsese...
Every good Bible story needs a heavenly visitation. Bethany (Fiorentino) gets hers from the angel Metatron (Alan Rickman), who tells her she is Jesus' distant descendant and it is her destiny to save the world. Two fallen angels, Loki (Matt Damon) and Bartleby (Affleck), have found a doctrinal loophole that will allow them to return to Heaven by walking through a parish door in New Jersey. "It will undo the world," Bethany is told--unless she can stop the renegades from defying...
...movie follows Bethany (Linda Fiorentino), an abortion clinic employee on the brink of a crisis of faith, who is unknowingly the great, great, great, etc. grand-niece of Jesus Christ. She is enlisted by a seraph named Metatron (a whiny Alan Rickman) to thwart two banished angels from getting to a church in New Jersey. These winged renegades, Loki (Matt Damon) and Bartelby (Ben Affleck), have found a loophole in Catholic doctrine which could cleanse them of their sins and allow them to re-enter heaven, negating the truth that God is infallible and consequently unmaking existence. These two Jersey...
...persecution, suspicion, and a bevy of other moral wrongs. The funny (and much less extreme) situation that Smith uses pictures one Cardinal Glick (George Carlin) unveiling a less then admirable rendering of their Savior to promote his "Catholicism WOW!" campaign: The depressing crucifix has been transformed into a "Buddy Jesus," who gives all onlookers an optimistic thumbs-up. This outrageous movement illustrates one of Smith's principal ideas: Because we cannot absolutely know Him, people should have _ideas_ about God and His Word rather than beliefs. It is okay to have occasional doubts, for obstinate conviction often leads to intolerance...