LBTM: Accumulated radiation

We left off with poor Clarence Gilyard, alone in an inappropriately Lutheran looking church.

I have to give the filmmakers some credit here for including this scene at all. In the book, the Rev. Bruce Barnes' story is recounted second-hand, without any sense of immediacy, but director Vic Sarin and the screenwriters here at least recognize that Bruce's situation deserves a bit more attention. The man was a professional Christian minister in a rapture-obsessed congregation. Yet here he is, left behind, because he wasn't a Real, True Christian. There ought to be an interesting personal story there.

Unfortunately, what that story is neither the book nor this movie ever really explores. Neither suggests that Bruce was an outright, deliberate charlatan. It seems more that he was just going through the motions. "Knowing and believing are two different things," Bruce says here in the film, but just what he or the filmmakers mean by that isn't clear. It seems as though he simply lacked the passionate sincerity needed to achieve escape velocity with the rest of the congregation when they blasted off the planet.

The set-up here, and a good bit of the dialogue, makes this seem like a typical raging against/arguing with God(s) scene. This is something we're all familiar with -- it's literally one of the oldest stories in the book. So we watch this scene begin with certain expectations, anticipating seeing the familiar pattern unfold.

And such a scene would make sense here. Bruce Barnes is certainly at a point where some questioning of the Almighty seems appropriate. God has rejected him, explicitly. Not only that, but God has taken away his family -- his wife and children and everyone else's children too. God's got some explaining to do.

So we all arrive at this scene -- the viewers, the screenwriters and the director, and the actor Clarence Gilyard -- with every expectation that we'll be seeing something like this wonderful confrontation with God from The West Wing episode "Two Cathedrals." The setting is the same, a man alone in a church, racked by grief and loss and awareness of his own guilt. And we all expect that Bruce Barnes will argue with God the way that Martin Sheen's President Bartlet does:

She bought her first new car and you hit her with a drunk driver. What, was that supposed to be funny? "You can't conceive, nor can I, the appalling strangeness of the mercy of God," says Graham Greene. I don't know who's ass he was kissing there 'cause I think you're just vindictive. What was Josh Lyman? A warning shot? That was my son. What did I ever do to yours except praise his glory and praise his name? ...

Gratias tibi ago, domine. Yes, I lied. It was a sin. I've committed many sins. Have I displeased you, you feckless thug? ...

Haec credam a deo pio? A deo iusto? A deo scito? Cruciatus in crucem! Tuus in terra servus nuntius fui officium perfeci. Cruciatus in crucem.

Eas in crucem!

But there's no place in LBTM for that sort of questioning and accusation. Bartlet is furious because he almost lost someone who was like a son to him. Bruce Barnes has actually lost his actual son, but the only response he's permitted here is wretched compliance. "Cruciatus in crucem" -- "to Hell with your punishments" -- is not a phrase anyone in LBTM is allowed even to think, much less to say.

Gilyard and the screenwriters cling to pieces of the conventions of a scene like that one, but those pieces can't be made to fit with where LaHaye and Jenkins have decreed the story must go. So while Gilyard paces and fumes, turns his back and walks away and even -- implausibly, in a one-in-a-million carnival-game toss -- knocks the cross from the altar of the church, his rage here seems as impotent and harmlessly weightless as that little blue paddle ball.

Tim LaHaye's theology and the awkward plot Jerry Jenkins has constructed for it simply do not allow for humanity to rage against or to question or to negotiate with God. LaHaye's whole End Times construct seems designed to remove any grounds for such complaint: The deserving righteous are raptured away to safety and the undeserving unrighteous are tortured and destroyed over the following seven years. In LaHaye's scheme, the righteous do not suffer and the wicked do not prosper, so all of that bellyaching in the Psalms about the apparent injustice of this world is rendered moot.

That framework restricts and constricts what Bruce Barnes/Clarence Gilyard is allowed to feel or to say in this scene. The rage and resentment the scene starts with fizzles into a repentance as ill-defined as that distinction between "knowing and believing." The scene never delivers the emotional and theological fireworks it seemed to promise and instead it ends with tears and a mawkishly soaring soundtrack playing some mixture of a revival hymn I can't quite place and the theme from Blazing Saddles, complete with harp glissandos.

Yes. Harp glissandos.

We cut to CamCam somewhere in Manhattan at night. He is, at last, on the phone, trying to reach Alan Tompkins. "Alan, are you still there?" Buck says. "I need to know what Dirk Burton sent you."

This is how CamCam seems to view the Event -- as an intrusive annoyance that might complicate his getting in touch with sources for this big story he's working on. CamCam is so dedicated as a reporter that he keeps following his nose for news even when some of the people he needed to interview for his story have mysteriously vanished, leaving their clothes behind them. But CamCam won't let these petty distractions keep him from tracking down what he senses could be a really big story about currency trading or food prices or something.

Almost every CamCam scene is like this. He and the filmmakers seem oblivious to the fact that the world has just turned upside down. They just keep following along with the Dirk/Stonagal subplot as though nothing important had changed.

This is weirdly unsettling, particularly since Jenkins and the screenwriters keep tossing out so many customary elements from a paint-by-numbers espionage thriller. These genre elements are so familiar that one can be momentarily lulled into playing along -- A secret computer disk? What does it say? But then one remembers the thing CamCam never seems to remember -- this is an End of the World movie, a disaster pic and not a spy thriller, and in the wake of billions of disappearances on a suddenly childless planet, it doesn't really matter what Dirk's pre-Event e-mails might have said.

The effect here is something like settling into a scene in which Hercule Poirot is interviewing suspects. Then, just as you're thinking, "Ah, a nice mystery story," you realize that Poirot isn't on board the Orient Express, he's on the Titanic and it's already sinking fast. The familiar genre elements don't work in this new context. As the icy water reaches the detective's knees and he continues, oblivious, cross-examining his fellow passengers about their alibis, you realize this is neither a mystery nor a disaster movie, but some new kind of madness.

The filmmakers wisely jettisoned several pieces of this thriller subplot -- the London pub, the car-bombing, the very brief faking of his own death -- but inexplicably, they retained from the novel all of the irrelevant and not-very-intriguing intrigue with Dirk and Stonagal and a global conspiracy of conspiring conspirators. Thus here, as in the book, Buck's scenes feel like they're occurring in a different world, in some alternate universe where the Event never happened, the children are all accounted for, and reporters have the luxury of chasing the very same stories they'd been pursuing before the world began to end.

We cut back to New Hope Village Church and it's daylight again. (Does this mean another day has passed? Probably not.) Bruce Barnes and Rayford sit together watching the In Case of Rapture video prepared by Bruce's old boss, the Rev. Vernon Billings.

I like the choice here of having the two men watching this together. And I like the colorblind casting choices of Gilyard and T.D. Jakes -- the real-world pastor portraying Billings. That casting is intended, I think, to present a laudable, if implausibly wishful, picture of New Hope as a multiracial, multicultural congregation. It's commendable that the filmmakers consider such a harmoniously integrated local church to be desirable, and I'm sure that L&J would also share this fictionalized ideal.

In the real world, of course, 11 a.m. on Sunday remains the most segregated hour of the week. I'm pleased to see the filmmakers at least wistfully wishing that this were not so in evangelical churches, but I wish they had also taken the next step and explored some of the theological reasons why this segregation continues. They might have explored why it is, for example, that the other-worldly escapism of LaHaye's premillennial dispensationalist "Bible prophecy" scheme is predominantly a white evangelical phenomenon. Or why it is that black churches in America are inclined to take a more millennialist view of faith and history, one that reads Revelation through the lens of Exodus. Exploring questions like that might have led them to some uncomfortable discoveries about the roots of American evangelicalism's other-worldliness and its intrinsic, inextricable connections to slavery, legal segregation and other forms of what John the Revelator called "The Beast."

White evangelicals sincerely do want harmonious multi-ethnic congregations. They just don't want to have to re-evaluate their theology to figure out how to make such a thing possible.

Bishop T.D. Jakes himself is a good example of this contrast between the this-world-doesn't-matter escapism of white evangelicals like LaHaye and the oh-yes-it-does theology more typically found in the black church. Jakes heads up a Pentecostal-ish nondenominational mega-church infected with a weak strain of the prosperity gospel disease. In its most virulent form, the prosperity gospel is a form of predatory hucksterism, a name-it-and-claim-it con game that bilks parishioners out of their money by duping them into believing that their tithes are an "investment" in future riches. The prosperity gospel Jakes preaches is something less toxic -- it's more like a spiritualized version of Booker T. Washington's boot-strap philosophy of self-help.

The focus of Jakes' preaching and of his many inspirational self-help books, in other words, is this world. Not pie in the sky when you die, but our daily bread.

That being the case, I couldn't figure out what Jakes was doing here in this PMD wish-fulfillment fantasy. The answer, I think, isn't so much theological as practical. Jakes wanted to get into the movie business. And he has. He appears in, produced and wrote the story for Not Easily Broken which, as it happens, opens today in a theater near you.

Suddenly we're in Manhattan again. The establishing shot shows us one of those hip converted-warehouse apartment buildings with people calmly walking by on the street. Inside the building, CamCam pounds on an apartment door which Ivy Gold opens, armed with a poorly employed frying pan. Seeing Buck and realizing he's been spared from the inexplicable random mass-disintegration, Ivy gives him a genuine-seeming relieved hug.

This is reasonable behavior for a character in a mid-apocalyptic disaster movie. One might expect the End of the World to bring about chaos, looting and panic in the streets, so barricading your door and answering it with whatever weapons are handy makes sense. But here, as we've already seen, there is no panic in the streets, just orderly pedestrians strolling by with no sense of anything out of the ordinary.

Once again the seams are showing between the post-Event storyline and Buck's laughably out-of-context thriller subplot.

"I've got a lead on the vanishings," CamCam tells Ivy and her sidekick/flatmate.

Huh? CamCam remains clueless and incurious about the vanishings. What he's got is the disk that Dirk showed him days before the vanishings. Dirk said it had evidence tying together the "planes falling out of the sky" and Stonagal and the world food crisis, but he never suggested it had anything to do with the vanishings.

What follows is our trio oohing and ahhing over the irrelevant absurdities contained on Dirk's disk. First there's something labeled "Tactical Campaign Simulation," which would seem to be the plans for the Russian nuclear assault on Israel we saw earlier. Because Top Secret Russian military plans are always written in English and made to look like CNN graphics.

Then there's a graphic labeled "Global Crop Area Deficits," having something to do with the pre-Event food shortage from back when there were 6 billion people to be fed instead of the 4 billion-and-dropping now remaining. (The biggest post-Event crisis facing Feed the Children would be how to tactfully go about changing their name.)

This is followed by a graphic labeled "Temple Structure Simulation," showing a rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem.

"What is that?" CamCam asks and, rat-a-tat, we see the "United Nations, New York." And even though we aren't shown the full outline of the iconic and unmistakable U.N. building, we know that's where we are because out front we see the flags of every nation: Nunavut, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, Newfoundland and Labrador ...

Inside the "U.N.," Chaim Rosenzweig is studying a blueprint as Nicolae Carpathia looks on ... a blueprint of the very same Temple! That exclamation point, and Rosenzweig's amazement, might be called for if blueprints for this particular building were actually hard to come by. In reality, you can find detailed plans for the construction of this building in the night stand drawer of almost any hotel or motel room.

Rosenzweig's initial enthusiasm disappears as he suddenly remembers that a lack of blueprints has never been the main obstacle to any plans to rebuild the temple, but Nicolae reassures him. "We have the formula," he says, wild-eyed. Of course, the formula. Who wouldn't gladly allow their holy site to be razed in exchange for the promise of slightly cheaper food?

Back in Ivy's loft apartment, CamCam and his backup singers are studying the very same blueprints. "No question," Ivy says, uncomfortably smoking what's probably a clove cigarette because she's all hippy-funky like that, "it's a diagram of Solomon's Temple. It used to stand on the holiest site in the Jewish faith."

"The Jews have been trying to rebuild this Temple ever since the Romans destroyed it about 2,000 years ago," CamCam adds.

Solomon's Temple, Herod's Temple. Same difference, I guess.

"OK ladies," CamCam says. "Here's what we need: Some sort of connection between the Temple, the [vast] tracts of land and the destroyed planes. And I don't know what it is, but somehow all this stuff ties together with Stonagal and Cothran."

"International bankers," Ivy says.

There's absolutely nothing here suggesting any of this is connected to the Event, yet still CamCam believes there's some kind of pattern. What is it that might tie together the Jewish Temple, the secret Jewish formula and the "international bankers"? Whatever could it be?

Meanwhile, back at the Steele's house in that other parallel movie where the Event still seems to matter, Rayford tells his daughter, "I know where Mom and Raymie are."

"Where? Where are they?" Chloe asks with a hint of the desperation that's sorely lacking in this movie, in which every character, at every moment, ought to be asking just that, over and over. "Where are they?"

"They're in heaven, with God," Rayford says. After which we get a brief, but competently acted and not horribly written bit of conversation between father and daughter. A welcome interlude.

Back in NYC, Ivy and her friend are watching a Nicolae Carpathia press conference on Ivy's computer -- a nifty trick back in 2000. Nicolae offers the same nonsensical non-explanation for the disappearances that he offers in the book: "We have confirmed that the disappearances have been caused by accumulated radiation from decades of nuclear weapons testing."

That doesn't even try to make sense, yet here, as in the book, everybody happily swallows this. Not only do they universally accept this explanation for why random people simultaneously disintegrated (and only people, no animals or plants), but they universally greet as reassuring the news that the atmosphere is filled with undetectable radiation that might, at any moment, cause them to spontaneously disintegrate too:

"Where are they? Where are my mother and my brother? Where are my children?"

"Don't worry, they disappeared due to accumulated radiation from decades of nuclear weapons testing."

"Oh. Well, OK then. Anybody know what's playing at the multiplex?"

Nicolae babbles on about making sure that "every human mouth on earth has been fed," as though this were anyone's main concern at this point. And then he rises and shakes hands with -- gasp! -- Stonagal and Cothran!

Back in Chicago, it's nighttime again, making this either Day 5 or Day 2 of our story.

Hattie shows up at Rayford's house. "I'm going to the U.N., the only place that offers any hope," she tells him. Long pause, and then, "Unless I have a reason to stay."

Awwwk-waaard.

Comments

[Salamanda]

AIEEE! Hooray!

*goes back to actually read the post*

[Ursula L]

Hattie shows up at Rayford's house. "I'm going to the U.N., the only place that offers any hope," she tells him. Long pause, and then, "Unless I have a reason to stay."

Awwwk-waaard.

All the children have disappeared. What can Rayford offer, as a reason to stay, if Hattie sees hope on addressing that problem by going to the UN?

That could have been an opening to evangelism, if Rayford was already converted. Hattie is looking for hope, and sees it at the UN, but a converted Rayford would theoretically be able to offer a more persuasive explanation, and better hope. Or it could be a trigger for Rayford to look for hope, himself, in the midst of the post-Event chaos, perhaps finding it at the church.

Instead, it is just a romantic ultimatum.

[aunursa]

In reality, you can find detailed plans for the construction of this building in the night stand drawer of almost any hotel or motel room.

It's the little things like this that I appreciate.

[Salamanda]

I think I hang around here too much when my first response to the scene @1:08 is: "HAHA WOMG SLASH!"

And, uh, I do believe Nicky said, "Nuke-you-lar" back there.

[Daughter]

In the real world, of course, 11 a.m. on Sunday remains the most segregated hour of the week.

I'm not sure that's so true anymore. At least, I've visited quite a few somewhat integrated churches ("somewhat" because one race tends to be the majority in most, but there are a significant number of members of other races as well) over the last few years, including congregations of both liberal and conservative stripes. However, none were of the PMD-obsessed variety.

[Jos]

The Jews have been trying to rebuild this Temple ever since the Romans destroyed it about 2,000 years ago

Have they really being trying to rebuild that thing? I'm vaguely aware that what Israel wants and what the RTCs want Israel to want isn't always the same thing, so I'd like to know for sure.

[Jos]

'Have they really being trying'?

OK, that's it. Time for bed.

[Moderately Unbalanced Squid]

It's hard to fault actors and the director for not knowing what kind of movie they're in when the authors didn't really know what kind of book they were writing, I suppose. I consistently get the impression that Left Behind is really just sort of a Tom Clancy for RTCs.

[theRidger]

I love the way Rosenzweig says "We have been waiting for thousands of years - generations!"

[Aaron]

"I consistently get the impression that Left Behind is really just sort of a Tom Clancy for RTCs."

Hey, yeah. It's godawful worse than even Tom Clancy, but still I think you're on to something.

[Joshua]

I admit I laughed at the "International bankers! Of course!" line, but probably not for the reasons the movie wanted me to.

Also, I read Ivy's "sidekick" as her lesbian lover. I mean, it's a PMD movie, right? Two (supposedly) intelligent young "alternative" chicks sharing an apartment? In New York? And they immediately believe everything Carpathia says? Of course they were both left behind, because there's no girl-girl action allowed in Heaven.

[aunursa]

I love the way Rosenzweig says "We have been waiting for thousands of years - generations!"

From Tribulation Force: "To tell you the truth," Dr. Rosenzweig said, "I don't know [the prophecies]. I was not a religious Jew until God destroyed the Russian Air Force, and I can't say I'm devout now. I always took the messianic prophecies the way I took the rest of the Torah. The rabbi at the temple I attended occasionally in Tel Aviv said himself that it was not important whether we believed that God was a literal being or just a concept. That fit with my humanist view of the world..."

Rosenzweig is simultaneously Orthodox and secular.

[Jake]

So Chaim "not-a-religious-Jew" Rosenzweig has the plans of the temple committed to memory well enough that he can tell just by looking at the new blueprints that it's a perfect match?

Also, the acting in Ivy's apartment, especially Ivy's admiration of Carpathia.

Also, "I'm sorry your wife and child died yesterday, now be my boyfriend or I'm leaving town."

I have no words.

[Salamanda]

Of course they were both left behind, because there's no girl-girl action allowed in Heaven.

I beg to differ, good sir!

(Aw, come on. Next you'll be saying there's no milkshake pool, either...)

[SchrodingersDuck]

I'm beginning to think that the flat, broad characterization we're seeing here is intentional, at least on the film-makers part. There's no character tics to distract from the message, no subtle nuances. Just interchangeable stereotypes that spout prophecies and rattle through checklists without ever requiring any thought on the audience's behalf.

Take Ivy for instance. There's nothing complicated or contradictory in her nature; from her "alternative" henna spiral tattoo (which seems to have spread, Uzumaki style, onto her shoulder), through the charming thingamajig around her neck to her loosely-implied lesbian partner, everything about her is a wolf-whistle to the RTC audience - "this woman is misguided but not evil, ignore what she says".

The film-makers don't dare depict the characters as anything other than single dimensional stock archetypes for fear that if the audience stops considering the message and starts considering the film, the entire concept; the greed and horrific selfishness of PMD becomes clear. If the audience sees Ivy or the guy with the funny hat as even vaguely human, the whole thing falls apart.

[Bob]

"We left off with poor Clarence Gilyard, alone in an inappropriately Lutheran looking church."

Au contraire. Lutheran churches tend to have a lot of exposed wood -- Scandinavians were big ship-builders after all. I'd peg this one as Methodist.

[Crazy F]

I'm surprised Fred, but it seems the AV Club actually went through all of the trouble to watch Not Easily Broken. The review is scathing anyone thinking of seeing it should probably be aware of the horrors to come. I can't figure out how to post links though, so you guys will have to copy/paste to read it: http://www.avclub.com/content/cinema/not_easily_broken

[Chris]

They just keep following along with the Dirk/Stonagal subplot as though nothing important had changed.

I read this as a simpler failing: despite the fact that it makes absolutely no sense that these things be connected, they *are* connected, and Buck, having read the script, knows that. That's why he keeps going after this story as if it means something - he knows it does, even though he can't possibly know it does.

Having characters behave as if they know things they couldn't possibly know is a classic bad writer mistake, so it's not surprising to see L&J do it.

The set-up here, and a good bit of the dialogue, makes this seem like a typical raging against/arguing with God(s) scene.

They can't afford to actually have such a scene, of course. It's bad enough that *most* such scenes end up with the human being more sympathetic, but in this case, L&J's god is a complete monster and any examination of him, even a brief one, will strip away his Designated Good Guy status.

P.S. Great clip (the West Wing one, I mean, not the LBTM :D ), but the link is broken. Paste it into the URL bar and you'll see the problem.

[Michael Cule]

"I'm a different person now."

Does anyone else find that pod-person-like and creepy?

[Not Really Here]

We cut back to New Hope Village Church and it's daylight again. (Does this mean another day has passed? Probably not.)

Well, we are talking different time zones. Maybe it's late afternoon in Chicago, and just after dark in Manhattan?

Bruce Barnes and Rayford sit together watching the In Case of Rapture video prepared by Bruce's old boss, the Rev. Vernon Billings.

In case of Rapture, your seat cushion can be used as a flotation device. The emergency exits are in the front, on either side, and all the way to the rear.

I like the choice here of having the two men watching this together. And I like the colorblind casting choices of Gilyard and T.D. Jakes -- the real-world pastor portraying Billings. That casting is intended, I think, to present a laudable, if implausibly wishful, picture of New Hope as a multiracial, multicultural congregation. It's commendable that the filmmakers consider such a harmoniously integrated local church to be desirable, and I'm sure that L&J would also share this fictionalized ideal.

Beg to differ, Fred. Given the obvious racial tokenism of the book series, I don't think the casting of Gilyard and Jakes were at all colorblind. I think it was a very self-conscious choice. "Um, you know, maybe we should make one of the major characters black in the movie so people won't think we're racist. And while we're at it, let's make Vernon Billings black, too."

Back in Ivy's loft apartment, CamCam and his backup singers are studying the very same blueprints. "No question," Ivy says, uncomfortably smoking what's probably a clove cigarette because she's all hippy-funky like that,

Great. Now I want one. [goes to the desk in the living room and gets a clove cigarette and lights it, making note of the fact that clam shells make right handy ash trays]

"it's a diagram of Solomon's Temple. It used to stand on the holiest site in the Jewish faith."

"The Jews have been trying to rebuild this Temple ever since the Romans destroyed it about 2,000 years ago," CamCam adds.

Oh, look, awkward and sloppily executed exposition. Because PMD Pastors haven't been explaining to their congregations, and PMD televangelists to whoever is watching, for years that in order for prophecy to be fulfilled, the Temple has to be rebuilt. But, see, there's that pesky Dome of the Rock thing in the way, and demolishing that so the Temple can be rebuilt will cheese off the Muslims, thus triggering the Battle of Armegeddon... Sheesh, doesn't anybody watch Daystar?

"Where? Where are they?" Chloe asks with a hint of the desperation that's sorely lacking in this movie, in which every character, at every moment, ought to be asking just that, over and over. "Where are they?"
"They're in heaven, with God," Rayford says.

Apparently unaware that God is actually on vacation in Bora Bora, and has left the Blessed Mother in charge. Mary decided to redecorate, and since we're talking about repainting, recarpeting and refurnishing an entire dimension, she needed a coupla billion more pairs of hands, hence the Rapture.

Nicolae babbles on about making sure that "every human mouth on earth has been fed,"

Get up in the morning, slaving for bread, sir
Til every human mouth on earth has been fed...

Poor me, the Antichrist.

[Cowboy Diva]

Does anyone else think that Ivy's smoking is another dogwhistle, in that smoking==going to hell?

Also, I agree with Joshua and SD; does the roommate/significant other get to have a name?

And by the way, it is fascinating how Ivy can say "Yep, Solomon's Temple" with such a matter-of-fact delivery.

[Saffi]

I thought that scene from The West Wing was magnificient. I watched the commentary piece on the DVD, and they interviewed cast and crew who were there that day. They actually filmed it in the National Cathedral, and the crew were nervous by the disrespect Sheen was supposed to show in front of the real clergyman (a bishop? I forget exactly) who was watching the shoot. But when warned, apparently he said "Yeah - it's going to be great!"

[Fraser]

"The effect here is something like settling into a scene in which Hercule Poirot is interviewing suspects. Then, just as you're thinking, "Ah, a nice mystery story," you realize that Poirot isn't on board the Orient Express, he's on the Titanic and it's already sinking fast. The familiar genre elements don't work in this new context. As the icy water reaches the detective's knees and he continues, oblivious, cross-examining his fellow passengers about their alibis, you realize this is neither a mystery nor a disaster movie, but some new kind of madness."

Fred, marry me and bear my children.

(I should note I've been fascinated for years by the idea of people winding up in the wrong movie, so this was extra funny for me).

[aunursa]

And by the way, it is fascinating how Ivy can say "Yep, Solomon's Temple" with such a matter-of-fact delivery.

C'mon, EVERYONE immediately recognizes ancient Jewish architecture ... just as American newspapers and Israeli botanists stay current on the latest political news from the Romanian legislature.

On the other hand, those of us who weren't raised Christian know absolutely nothing about the Jesus of the New Testament, the NT itself, messianic prophecies, Premillenial Dispensationalism, etc... It isn't until one accepts Jesus that one instantly transforms from an ignorant skeptic into a PMD expert fully conversant in every chapter of the Bible, traditional Christian prayers, and the history of the church.

[Mark Baker-Wright]

In reality, you can find detailed plans for the construction of this building in the night stand drawer of almost any hotel or motel room.

Actually, you might be surprised. My grandfather's a Gideon, and some time back I started making it a habit to check whenever I'm in a hotel room to see if there's a Bible in there somewhere. As often as not, I don't find one anymore.

[SchrodingersDuck]

Does anyone else think that Ivy's smoking is another dogwhistle, in that smoking==going to hell?

I sort of the got the impression that it was meant to be cannabis, or at least as close a representation of cannabis as they could get into a PG-13 movie. I can't see very clearly on the grainy YouTube footage, but the cigarette looks handrolled and the room has a brownish smoky haze - both TV/film shorthand for "implied pot smoking".

In fact, I sort of think of Ivy as the anti-Chloe; what Chloe would become had she not been brainwashed converted. Everything about her is like an RTC stereotype of a young liberal, cranked up to 11 and left to run free in the real world.

Oh, and I just noticed her apartment has silvery bead curtains instead of doors. As if anything else was needed to complete the alternative hippie look.

[Joolya]

How, how, HOW can anyone say "Dirk Burton" with a straight face? That is a feat of acting chops. Seriously, CamCam looks like he's going to burst out laughing every time he says it.

And that's just one small aspect of this silliness. Cheers, Fred.

[cjmr's husband]

no girl-girl action allowed in Heaven

And no connection between the Temple and Huge Tracts of Land...

[Not Really Here]

I sort of the got the impression that it was meant to be cannabis, or at least as close a representation of cannabis as they could get into a PG-13 movie. I can't see very clearly on the grainy YouTube footage, but the cigarette looks handrolled and the room has a brownish smoky haze - both TV/film shorthand for "implied pot smoking".

And she's not even offering CamCam or her roomie a hit.

Bogart.

[Dahne]

Is it just me, or does Nikky's accent sound like nothing so much as the girl from that MST3K Werewolf movie?

[noyatin]

"In the real world, of course, 11 a.m. on Sunday remains the most segregated hour of the week."

The most integrated community I've yet seen is centered around Rod Parsley's World Harvest Ministries megachuch in Columbus, Ohio.

I have no repect whatsoever for Parsley - a homophobic charlatan of the first order who is trying to rally "Patriot Pastors" to shred the Constitution - but the congregation and the attendees at the various weekday programs at the church were by far the most racially-diverse groups of people I've seen - much more so than in New York, or DC, two places where I used to live. More to the point, it didn't seem forced - there was no apparent self-conciousness about the racial mix.

I don't know why this is, but I do think it's worth noting.

[Mau de Katt]

[re: Bruce Barnes' Big Scene) The scene never delivers the emotional and theological fireworks it seemed to promise and instead it ends with tears and a mawkishly soaring soundtrack

Yeah, that was my reaction too, when I saw it again for the 2nd and 3rd times. And yet I remembered this scene as being "what it should have been," and actually being very powerful. I've since been trying to figure out why I thought that.

When I first saw the movie, it was after reading *gack* the first three or four books in the series. And I think my reaction to this scene, the frist time I saw it, was a combination of two things: 1) I was expecting the type of "arguing with God" scene that you described, the Archetypal Scene We All Know, and so watched it through this lens, subconsciously filling in the gaps that the movie left glossed-over or flat-out untouched; and 2) Clarence Gilyard (and whats-his-face who plays Rayford) actually did a good job acting out this scene, especially given the extremely truncated and distorted views forced upon the character's actions by LaJenkins' PMD theology.

Seriously -- given the abysmal behaviors of the characters in the books, finding anything approaching Real Human Passion in the movie, expecially viewed through the lens of Archetypal Expectations, is bound to make an overly-large impression upon one.

[Mau de Katt]

Plus, I'm a long-time Trekkie and Whovian... I've become a veritable Master at mentally filling-in-the-gaping-plot-holes, solving-the-unsolveable-discrepancies, and other Required Fandom Mental Gymnastics. It's so long since been second nature to me that I don't even notice I'm doing it, anymore. *g*

we see the flags of every nation: Nunavut, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, Newfoundland and Labrador ...

Oh my god. That's indescribably fantastic.

[victoria]

When I saw the scene with Ray putting his hand on Bruce Barnes' shoulder, I was reminded of the Promise Keepers propagan---er, promotional material my dad would get sent to him when he was active in that scene many years ago. Lots of warm-fuzzy attempts at promoting racial harmony, with none of the hard work of deconstructing a long history of Christian-sanctioned white supremacy. All ya gotta do is sing a praise and worship song in English, Spanish, and Swahili, and, presto! arm in arm before the Lord, problem solved.

[hapax]

Have they really being trying to rebuild that thing?

Absolutely not. Aside from the obvious geopolitical difficulties (oy, razing the Dome of the Rock), any Jew who seriously proposed rebuilding the Temple would be trumpeting his claim to be the Messiah, about to restore the Davidic kingship.

Not only would most of his co-religionists (not to mention the rest of the world) beg to differ, but there is a fairly large contingent that has no more desire to see the imminent arrival of the Messiah than most Christians *really* want the Second Coming any time soon.

[Fraser]

The comments on the table prompted my memory of an old Seaquest episode where the sub discovers the sunken Library of Alexandria—and the bridge crew immediately recognizes it (a library science Ph.D. of my acquaintance pointed out it's nominally in his field and he couldn't have done it).

[ShifterCat]

@Salamanda: That was my reaction too. I mean, first our Large Ham Bruce lets out a holler while clutching at his crotch (that's what it looked like from behind, anyway) and falling to his knees. Then they show Rayford with this "Um, should I leave you two alone?" expression. Then Ray approaches Bruce and they get all tender... I thought they were going to start snogging.

And yeah, if the Antichrist is one of those shady educated intellectuals, how come he says "nuke-you-lar" instead of "nuclear"? Wait, I know... it's a clever ruse to make him seem trustworthy to Americans!

@SchrodingersDuck: I was confused by "wolf-whistle" until I realized you meant to say "dog whistle". "Whooo-wheeet! Lookit them hot alterna-chicks!"

[Mnemosyne]

My grandfather's a Gideon, and some time back I started making it a habit to check whenever I'm in a hotel room to see if there's a Bible in there somewhere. As often as not, I don't find one anymore.

I can't remember who told me this, but apparently it's housekeeping's responsibility to place the Bibles -- the Gideons just drop off a big box of them and the maids have to put them in the rooms. If I had 15 minutes to clean an entire hotel room, I would probably skip the Bible replenishment, too.

[cosmicdancer]

Nunavut, Saskatchewan

I am so exhausted that I read those names and thought "Why is Fred making up names?"

*headdesk.

[damnedyankee]

...they retained from the novel all of the irrelevant and not-very-intriguing intrigue with Dirk and Stonagal and a global conspiracy of conspiring conspirators.

Who pull the strings on The Evil Midnight Bomber What Bombs at Midnight.

[J Neo Marvin]

First impressions:

I'm still baffled about the whole temple concept. If Israelis wanted to build a temple, what's stopping them from just building the thing already? "Oh, we have to fulfill the Christians' prophecy" sure doesn't cut it.

Can I just mention how godawful (so to speak) the music is in this movie? What's supposed to be a spiritual epiphany is made even more feeble than it already is by that saccharine drivel in the background.

Bruce's delivery of that first line about knowing and believing is particularly fake sounding as well.

OK, time to watch the rest of this swill.

[J Neo Marvin]

If Israelis wanted to build a temple, what's stopping them from just building the thing already?

Oh yeah, right, it has to be on the site of the mosque in Jerusalem. (I can't say I'm totally up to speed on these PMD myths.) We-e-e-ell, I can see that being a wee problem. I can also see it making a lot of Americans happy.

[J Neo Marvin]

I can't hear the phrase "tracts of land" without thinking of Monty Python & The Holy Grail.

[Amaryllis]

I don't know about rebuilding the Temple, but I see in the paper that there are new plans afoot to restore the ancient city of Babylon. The announcement comes from something called the World Monuments Fund -- someone ought to check on whether this organization is fronted by a charismatic politician from Romania.

[Mouse]

I know some of y'all liked Bruce's big scene, but I found it unintentionally hilarious, especially when Bruce lets out this yelp and drops to his knees. I kept wondering, "Did God just kick you in the balls or something?" Then again, everyone's been kicked in the balls in this movie, when you think about it.

This is why in my mental rewrite of Left Behind, I got rid of Buck. Buck goes nowhere, does nothing. He's basically Tek Jansen as written by someone who doesn't have Stephen Colbert's self-awareness. At least Rayford has occasional flashes of being human.

Also in my rewrite, crappy though it may be, I also had the characters deciding to renounce and rebel against God because the idea that some sadist, who arbitrarily rips away families and condemns innocent people to die because he can't apply the damn brakes, is horrific to consider. God of Left Behind makes Mengele look like a saint in comparison.

Sorry to bore you all with my blatherings about my own work; I've just had some ideas for another segment kicking around and part of me's wondering if I should get off my tail, get it written, and post it at Right Behind.

[Salamanda]

I can't hear the phrase "tracts of land" without thinking of Monty Python & The Holy Grail.

I'd be willing to bet that goes for just about everyone here. :)

One of my history professors dropped the phrase in the middle of a lecture, and I have no idea to this day whether she did it on purpose or not. Either she was completely unaware, or she had deadpan down to an art. But I gave a little muffled snort, and at least one other person turned around and smiled.

I think, if I were ever teaching a class, I'd drop the phrase just to count how many people smirk/giggle/chortle/whatev. Kinda like playing Hey Cow, only quieter.

[Salamanda]

part of me's wondering if I should get off my tail, get it written, and post it at Right Behind.

Hey, what have you got to lose? Go for it!

[Rabukurafuto]

Something I have always wondered about was the proper pronounciation of the name Carpathia. In the Japanese editions of Left Behind the name is pronounced as kahr-pah-tee-ah, just as the Japanese name for the mountain range, and I assumed this was the Romanian pronounciation too. When watching some of the segments of the film here though I heard Carpathia pronounced kahr-pah-THEE-ah. I'm confused now. Just how are you supposed to pronounce Carpathia?

A little off-topic, but I have a friend who is interested in writing a story with the Antichrist as the central character. He wanted some inspiration, and since he isn't a R.T.C. and thus wasn't sure where to find Antichrist suggestions, I gave him the anti-Beatitudes suggested all the way back in this post. What he came up with is written below. He wanted to thank the posters who suggested what a real Antichrist would say, and he wanted to know what you guys thought of his anti-Beatitudes.

People of the world! The passing of his Holiness has brought great sadness to all of us. He was a great and honorable man who did what was best for us all, to have us be happy to be the children of God. But his unfortunate death was the result of the age of sorrow, which has poisoned this world and took his Holiness’ life away from us. But don’t fret, my people! His passing has not been in vain; it has brought the end to this age of sorrow. I’ve heard the voice of our Lord in Heaven when I accepted this responsibility, and he has told me of what must be done to refill our home with the divine light. This sorrow must end, this pain must heal, these ways must change. The words I speak are the words of our Lord in Heaven. These are the words of God. These are the words of The Father, Son, and The Holy Spirit!

Blessed are the strong in spirit, for they will make heaven on earth. The world is rotting, and those poor in spirit are letting it continue to rot. Doing nothing solves nothing. Stand on your feet and accept all forms of power, for they will make you strong.

Blessed are the great, for they will inherit the earth. Having this world is something one must earn, not deserve. Work to be great and you shall have what you desire. Don’t let others stray you away from your desire, for you’ll be straying away from the path of greatness.

Cursed are the mourned, for they will not be comforted. God loves you, but you must help yourself. Living in tears is a sin. Abandoned your sensitivity and embrace your insensitivity. Do so and sorrow shall not consume you.

Cursed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will not be filled. Righteousness will bring you suffering of unsatisfactory. Go beyond and have what justice has hold you back from. Dispense justice and you will more filled than you can ever imagine.

Cursed are the merciful, for they won’t receive mercy. Compassion and mercy only brings back the evil that keeps corrupting that which is sacred. Show no mercy to any enemy, and you shall have true peace.

Blessed are the impure of heart, for they will see God. The act of vile behavior will make our Lord in Heaven notice you. Beg for his forgiveness, and he will keep a close watch on you; there, God will know you exist.

Cursed are the peacemakers; make them infamous as the fathers of hell. Their words are lies to enslave you to their will. God wants you to be happy. Find peace and happiness for your sake, not theirs.

Blessed are those who are intolerant of all, for they will make heaven on earth. Toleration will bring chaos and disorder. They destroy those who disturb society, for they enforce law and keep order. Give them your gratitude and they shall continue to do their job.

These words of our Lord in Heaven are said to save us from destruction. Take these words to heart and live your lives by them. Do so and we will be rewarded! Do so and we will be happy! Do so and we will have light! Do so and we will have harmony! Do so and we shall have eternal salvation!

When I saw the scene with Ray putting his hand on Bruce Barnes' shoulder, I was reminded of the Promise Keepers propagan---er, promotional material my dad would get sent to him when he was active in that scene many years ago. Lots of warm-fuzzy attempts at promoting racial harmony, with none of the hard work of deconstructing a long history of Christian-sanctioned white supremacy. All ya gotta do is sing a praise and worship song in English, Spanish, and Swahili, and, presto! arm in arm before the Lord, problem solved.

Oh come ON now! Why, they did TONS of Hard Work to promote racial harmony! Why, they had National Renoun BLACK PASTORS get up on stage and proclaim that Slavery Was A GOOD Thing Because It Brought All Those Black People Over To Be SAVED BY JEEBUS!!!

:/

(Although, to be non-snarky, they really did try to work at it... but the ~real~ "more than just preaching & praying" racial harmony building was not done at the organization itself so much as through the local-church PK groups. I know, because part of my job there was collecting the news accounts talking about the "feet on the street" things that local groups did in this regard. But whether these efforts were long-lasting or wide-spread, though, I don't know.

Also -- half the work of my department, Public Affairs, was spin control to deal with what some of the Featured Speakers would ~say~ at the big stadium events....)

I know some of y'all liked Bruce's big scene, but I found it unintentionally hilarious, especially when Bruce lets out this yelp and drops to his knees. I kept wondering, "Did God just kick you in the balls or something?"

Well, let's face it -- isn't that what The Tribulation really is, God kicking Sinful Humanity in the balls?