Wednesday, January 05, 2011

THINGS TO COME: SUING THE DEVIL

Okay, I’ve been known to give Christian movies a bit of a hard time on this blog because, well… a lot of them aren’t really very good are they? But Suing The Devil, currently scheduled for a March 11th release, has Malcom McDowell chewing the scenery as Old Scratch himself, and I’m always willing to give the benefit of the doubt to the guy who starred in Clockwork Orange and Time After Time.

Of course, McDowell also starred in Tank Girl and (sweet Mary, Mother of God pray for us) Star Trek: Generations, so he’s certainly not infallible. Plus, judging by the trailer, there are a lot of people in the film who… aren’t Malcom McDowell. So, yeah, the trailer leaves me a bit torn. Still, I’m pretty sure I’m going to watch this one.

Plus, it’s interesting to note that Suing The Devil is coming out on the heels of Anthony Hopkins’ exorcist in training movie The Rite, as well as last year’s Devil and The Last Exorcism. It would seem that, despite the best efforts of the evangelistic atheists last year (the billboards were pretty lame, guys), the movie going public is more interested than ever in seeing Satan depicted as a reality. And that’s fine with me, because as the Catechism notes, when we pray “deliver us from evil” every week at mass, that “evil is not an abstraction, but refers to a person, Satan, the Evil One, the angel who opposes God.” So, yes, keep’em coming and I’ll keep watching them. I mean, there’s no way any of them could be worse than Star Trek: Generations, right?

RIGHT?

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

"I mean, there’s no way any of them could be worse than Star Trek: Generations, right?"

From your mouth to God's ear!!

Xena Catolica

belinda said...

I think the movie looks terrible and I can't wait to see it. hahaha

I'm sure this movie will touch some people and hopefully convert more than a few to Christ.

Thanks for sharing.

EegahInc said...

I've been scolded in the past for being too harsh in my prejudgment of movies based on trailers (I'm looking at you, Happy Catholic :)), so I went easy on some of the acting on display here. When the guy falls to his knees in front of the bridge, I'm afraid all I heard in my mind was Darth Vader from Episode III screaming NOOOOOOOO! But their hearts seem to be in the right place, so I'm definitely gonna give it a watch.

belinda said...

I've been convicted!!!

(That's what my protestant friends say when I've been rightfully scolded:)

I have been wrong so very many times after I've judged a movie by it's trailer and I've told myself I wouldn't do it anymore but to be fair they do "put it out there" for us to judge.

Though I liked True grit I would say that the trailer makes the movie look even more exciting than it really was.
***
My daughter is an animator in L.A. and working on two movies. I need to be kinder in my assementments of other peoples work. I forget that there are people behind this stuff and I need to remember to pray for them so that maybe they could imspire and not deconstruct society with their art.

Boy, is hollywood creepy. Oh, the stories my daughter tells me.

newguy40 said...

I love Malcom McDowell. What a great career he has had. What actor can say they portrayed both Caligula AND HG Wells!? Not many, ha! He also does loads of voiceover work in cartoons er... animation.

I just don't get the attraction to Satan / Exorcism other than it gives actors a chance to (as you say) chew on the scenary. I think it also gets to show Evil as something familiar and safe to view rather than dealing with abortion, addiction, etc.

EegahInc said...

"Boy, is Hollywood creepy. Oh, the stories my daughter tells me."

To quoute the movie Scream, "Well, you can only here that Richard Gere Gerbil story so many times before you ..." Seriously though, urban legends aside, I've heard it's a pretty bad place as well.

"I just don't get the attraction to Satan / Exorcism"

Hmm, them you're probably not going to like this...

http://insidetv.ew.com/2011/01/05/discovery-exorcist-files/

Not sure I'd trust the Discovery Channel if I were the Vatican, but I'll reserve judgment until more details come out.

belinda said...

"I just don't get the attraction to Satan / Exorcism"

-Me either!

I don't even wanna know about the Gere gerbi and I could argue that hollywood is stranger than my neighborhood, though probably not by much.

newguy40 said...

Well, I did look at the link. The Vatican's recent history of publicity success is pretty poor.
Maybe if they got Sarah Palin to narrate?

Honestly, I try to be open to ANY Christian/Christology show in TV. Unfortunatly, they all seem to me to leave out Jesus divinity or state "It is believe that Jesus (insert miracle here). In order to keep my peace, my wife insists I turn the program off. I guess I'll have to stick with Turner Classics and EWTN. Wow. What an odd combo...?

EegahInc said...

"Unfortunatly, they all seem to me to leave out Jesus divinity..."

I had to quit watching anything on the History Channel with a religious theme. Bad for my blood pressure. Turner Classics, however, is on all the time.

(former) Rocket Scientist said...

I seem to be one of the few people who loved the movie "The Devil's Advocate". Not because I'm a fan of Al Pacino (too much violence) but because it's one of the first modern movies I've seen that treats Satan as truly evil. His evil simply reeks from the movie. From the trailer above, looks like Malcom McDowell isn't in the same class as Al Pacino in the same role, but they probably don't give away all the evil bits in the trailer. I think I'd like to see this one, if the trailer is honest and the movie doesn't have one of those twists where the bad guy turns out to really be the good guy. Poor Satan. People can be so judgemental about evil. :)

EegahInc said...

I'm afraid Devil's Advocate suffers from the Keanu effect in which you keep waiting for him to add "Whoa" to any given line reading, as in "So you're my father AND Satan. Whoa."

But I agree with your sentiment about portrayals of Satan and so does the director of Suing The Devil apparently. He's quoted as saying, "it [the film] will expose the devil’s tactics and bring hope in a very dark world.” We'll see.

Anonymous said...

It's a very good movie - I saw it.

Anonymous said...

Best way to become an atheist:

Read the bible, from cover to finish. Take in EVERYTHING that is written in that book, not just the parts that YOU like to acknowledge. Don't ignore a single element of the book.

If you are not an atheist now, you will be by the time you finish reading the Bible completely.

EegahInc said...

Hmmm, for the sake of argument, I'm going to assume the last two anonymous posters are not the same person.

To the first anonymous, thanks, I'll definitely check the movie out.

To the second, hey, thanks for dropping by. Interestingly enough, the CNN Belief blog just posted a story (http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/08/10-things-the-belief-blog-learned-in-its-first-year/) that relates how atheists are the most active commenters on their site. Atheists just can't stop talking about God. So, anonymous, if you'd like to tell us all specific parts of the Bible that just drive you nuts, keep on leaving comments here, I'd love to discuss them.

Unknown said...

Glad I found a Catholic that will review this movie. This movie has not been played in our city yet (I'm hoping it will be!), but I don't want to see it if it's another Catholic bashing opportunity....
Please let us know when you've seen it what you think! I'll add you to my list - I'll definitely be following your posts - I like your style!
And for the record... I LOVED Devil's Advocate!!!!!!!

EegahInc said...

Thanks for the kind words, wifeforlife. Unfortunately, we're both going to have to wait for my review of Suing The Devil. I just checked the movie's official site and it's not even playing in my state. I'm definitely grabbing the DVD when it comes out, though.