Word: weitze
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...Director-screenwriter Chris Weitz's film version of the first book in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy is meant to be a blockbuster for all major moviegoing demographics, from six to 16. Wreathed in lavish CGI effects, The Golden Compass traces the quest of the 12-year-old Lyra (Dakota Blue Richards) to find a missing friend and, eventually, to save her world. On the way to her destiny she's imprisoned by a glamorous vamp (Nicole Kidman), befriended by a talking polar bear (the talking is done by Ian McKellen) and accompanied by her own Jiminy Cricket...
...answer to that leading question about blasphemy in The Golden Compass, it would be a resounding "Huh?" If moviegoers are unaware of the Is-God-Bad? debate, they simply will not notice any theological elements, pro or con. That's how rigorously Weitz has secularized and sanitized the novel. Pullman's conception of the Magisterium, the ecclesiastical hierarchy that kidnaps and tortures children (it wants to separate kids from their "daemons," their very essences), is now an oppressive but vague dictatorship that is part Orwell's 1984, part Star Wars' Empire. Weitz also excised the last three chapters...
...fantasy with a glorious visual design: a lovely jumble of Victorian buildings, sleekly modern costumes and Jules Vernean spaceships. The film's climactic battle, between two imposing CGI ice bears, is a literal jaw-dropper. And its two lead performances made me hope there will be sequels - even if Weitz can't infuse this first episode with the animating spark of grand-scale moviemaking...
...according to director and screenwriter Chris Weitz, all those anti-Church references never even made it into the movie. The U.S. Conference of Bishops actually views the movie positively, saying, “Most moviegoers with no foreknowledge of the books or Pullman’s personal belief system will scarcely be aware of religious connotations, and can approach the movie as a pure fantasy-adventure...
...grownup replay of the freaks vs. squares and smart kids vs. populars from junior high and high school 40 years ago. "The emphasis in the 1960s on being yourself gives women today a cultural grounding that lets them say 'Hell, no'" to artificial color, says Weitz. "More women today are more financially independent, and that leads them to a place where they have the resources to do what they want to do." Weitz suggests that because baby boomers represent such a large segment of the population, even though the fraction of gray-haired women who don't dye is relatively...