I can now post and noone can com­plain about how I had not read the book. Al­thou­gh of cour­se, I ha­ven't. But this is about the mo­vie.

Firs­t, I want to say that I must co­rrect my pre­vious co­m­men­ts, cau­s­ed by rea­ding a sy­nop­sis of the book in Dan Bro­wn's si­te.

I must say (a­s­su­ming the mo­vie fo­llo­ws the book) that it does­n't paint Opus Dei as a clan­des­ti­ne sect at all (not even as spe­cia­lly in­te­res­ted in ob­tai­ning any se­cre­t). On­ly one spe­ci­fic cou­ple of Opus Dei gu­ys are. Whi­ch is fi­ne and dandy for me. Se­cret so­cie­tys can cha­se ea­ch other around the glo­be. Their pro­ble­m.

Of cour­se it al­so means the fo­llo­wing ( agai­n, if the book is like the mo­vie ):

• The co­­­m­­men­­ts de­­fen­­ding the book's po­r­­trait of Opus Dei as a se­­cret so­­­cie­­ty as appro­­­pia­­te fi­c­­tion are no­n­sen­se, be­­­cau­­se the book does­n't do tha­­t. You we­­re de­­fen­­ding the book of so­­­me­­thing tha­­t's not in the book.

• The guy that wro­­­te the sy­­no­p­­sis in Dan Bro­­wn's offi­­cial si­­te has not read the book.

Ha­ving said tha­t, on­to mo­re se­rious ma­tter­s...

Ron Ho­ward is in­ca­pa­ble of fil­ming a com­prehen­si­ble ac­tion sce­ne. Do­n't trust me? Wa­tch the Smar­tcar cha­se.

Tom Hank's hair is sca­r­y. It's a weird bi­la­te­ral com­bo­ve­r. I us­ed to do tha­t. I do­n't an­y­mo­re. I am ri­ght about sto­ppin­g. Be­si­des, it's way too dis­trac­tin­g.

Pro­fe­s­sor Lan­g­do­n, I pre­su­me?

I en­jo­yed the mo­vie as a pop­corn fli­ck wi­th pre­ten­tion­s, but most of the plot fo­llo­ws no lo­gi­c.

Sau­nié­re tri­ggers an alar­m, in the Lou­v­re, and is then shot in the sto­ma­ch. Then he traip­ses around the mu­seu­m, fin­ds a ma­rker vi­si­ble on­ly on UV li­gh­t, does things to th­ree pain­tings, hi­des a key be­hind a lar­ge, hea­vy pain­tin­g, takes off his clo­the­s, crea­tes an ana­gra­m, wri­tes it on the floor along wi­th so­me num­ber­s, draws a pen­ta­cle on his ches­t, arran­ges hi­mself in a po­si­tion re­mi­nis­cent of the Vi­tru­bian man, and then die­s.

He not on­ly does all that ins­tead of ca­lling an am­bu­lan­ce on his ce­ll, but he does all that be­fo­re mu­seum se­cu­ri­ty ge­ts the­re. In the ga­lle­ry that has the Da Vin­cis.

Not on­ly is it un­like­l­y, but it al­so is stu­pi­d. Had he died ear­lie­r, he coul­d, for ins­tan­ce, ha­ve been found wi­th the key in his han­d, and no clue le­ft for the "good gu­ys".

It's ama­zing the­re is sti­ll any pain­tings in that mu­seu­m, wi­th su­ch se­cu­ri­ty.

And do­n't get me started on the bi­i­i­i­ig se­cre­t. It turns out the Prio­ry of Sion pro­tec­ts a se­cret about Je­sus.

If said se­cret was re­vea­le­d, it would da­ma­ge the ca­tho­lic chur­ch.

Of cour­se... the ca­tho­lic chur­ch al­so kno­ws the na­tu­re (and de­tail­s) of the se­cre­t, whi­ch means the ca­tho­lic hie­rar­chs de­di­ca­te their li­fes to a fai­th they know to be fal­se. Whi­ch makes no sen­se, rea­ll­y.

And then it turns out that se­ve­ral his­to­rians al­so know the na­tu­re and de­tails of the se­cre­t, and ha­ve pu­blis­hed books about it (ex­cep­t, of cour­se, they ha­ve no evi­den­ce).

LAST WAR­NIN­G, HU­GE SPOI­LER HE­RE

REA­LLY

The­re is, ho­we­ve­r, one de­tail on­ly the Prio­ry is su­ppo­sed to kno­w: the lo­ca­tion of a corp­se that could be us­e­d, via DNA ana­l­y­sis, to show that so­me per­son is a des­cen­dant of so­me spe­ci­fic other "his­to­ri­cal fi­gu­re".

Whi­ch is, of cour­se, ab­so­lu­te non­sen­se.

Su­ppo­se I show you a corp­se and te­ll you "this is the corp­se of Joan of Ar­c". You car­bo­n-14 da­te it, and do the usual fo­ren­sic ana­l­y­sis, and all agrees. It's a wo­man, that died in a fi­re, at su­ch age in so­-an­d-­so yea­r.

Then I show you a DNA ana­l­y­sis that sho­ws she is my grea­t-­grea­t-­grann­y.

Am I the scion of the Or­leans Mai­den?

He­ll no! Be­cau­se to ac­cept tha­t, you would ha­ve to ac­cept that the corp­se is her­s!

You can on­ly rea­so­na­bly do that if the­re is a clear his­to­ri­cal re­cord of the whe­rea­bou­ts of the corp­se un­til no­w, or el­se it's a ra­ther sim­ple for­ge­r­y.

For exam­ple, no­wa­da­ys we us­ed DNA of kno­wn des­cen­den­ts of Co­lum­bus to de­ci­de whi­ch of his two alle­ged bo­dies is the real one. About a kno­wn his­to­ri­cal fi­gu­re, worl­d-­fa­mous in his li­fe. We are just not su­re of whe­re his corp­se is. We ha­ve two of tho­se.

Sin­ce the "wi­tnesses" of the au­then­ti­ci­ty of this corp­se are the ones that are bound to gain from the clai­ms, it's sus­pect at bes­t.

If you go ba­ck a cer­tain num­ber of ge­ne­ra­tion­s, al­most eve­ry corp­se wi­ll be your grann­y.

I am pre­tty su­re that a lar­ge per­cen­ta­ge of mo­dern eu­ro­peans are re­lated to al­most any ran­dom 2000 yea­r-old corp­se.

An­d, in the spe­ci­fic ca­se of the mo­vie (or the book), even if you as­su­me it is the corp­se of who they sa­y, so wha­t? That sho­ws she is the des­cen­dant of a cer­tain wo­man, not of a spe­ci­fic man. Get it? You do­n't pro­ve the big pre­mi­se. On­ly the li­ttle, mea­nin­gle­ss pre­mi­se, that M.­M. (not Ma­ri­l­yn Mon­roe) had a chil­d. Who gi­ves a dam­n?

The se­cret the Chur­ch is tr­ying to keep se­cre­t, the se­cret the Prio­ry is not tr­ying to make pu­blic an­ywa­y... does­n't ma­tte­r. It does­n't cau­se what the chur­ch fear­s, it does­n't cau­se what the Prio­ry ho­pes, it does no­thing.

So, rea­ll­y... mu­ch ado about ve­ry li­ttle. If I we­re the chur­ch, I would let them say whate­ver they wan­t, and no­thing would ha­ppen. Ab­so­lu­te­ly no­thing.

Not to men­tion that the apo­cr­y­phal Leo­nar­dian de­vi­ce, the cr­yp­tex... it's ... I ha­ve no wor­d­s. If you miss­ed it, the idea is that the­re is a pa­p­y­rus in­si­de it, and a vial of vi­ne­ga­r. If you try to open it wi­thout the ke­y, the vi­ne­gar "dis­sol­ves the pa­p­y­rus".

Do you know what pa­p­y­rus is? It's ma­de of the ste­ms of a plan­t, and it looks a lot like pa­pe­r.

It's ce­llu­lo­se. It does­n't dis­sol­ve in vi­ne­ga­r. It's like sa­ying le­ttu­ce dis­sol­ves on vi­ne­ga­r.

You can make a pa­per that dis­sol­ves on vi­ne­ga­r, but pa­p­y­rus is not pa­pe­r.

It may make so­me sen­se if you said the ink us­ed dis­sol­ves on vi­ne­ga­r, but it's not what they sai­d. What they said is stu­pi­d.

So, it de­fies rea­son how so many peo­ple can en­joy a book ba­sed on a pre­mi­se in­no­cent of lo­gi­c, about a cons­pi­ra­cy to pro­tect no­thing.

In­spired by "From Dusk Till Dawn".

Sto­ry Nr. 1: Night of the preda­tor

Gen­re: Su­per­nat­u­ral Hor­ror.

Notes: This sto­ry should be writ­ten in Love­craftian pros­e, and try to pro­vide a sense of fore­bod­ing, and im­mi­nent doom, while seem­ing com­plete­ly ob­vi­ous.

Fran­cis was the sev­enth son of a sev­enth son of a sev­enth son. As such, his fate was pre­or­dained. On ev­ery ful­l-­mooned fri­day, he would ex­per­i­ment a hor­rid trans­for­ma­tion.

He runs through the woods while re­mem­ber­ing the strange ad­mo­ni­tions from his fa­ther, who ex­plained to him the blood­thirst of the were­wolf, the hor­ror of his ac­tion­s, the curse up­on his vic­tim­s.

He feels a nag­ging sense of things be­ing all wrong. A hunger for strange, un­named things. An ea­ger­ness for for­ward mo­tion. A preda­to­ri­al wish.

Then, while in the wood­s, look­ing at the moon, he ex­pe­ri­ences a painful elon­ga­tion of his body, a con­stric­tion of his limb­s.

His skin changes quick­ly, his teeth grow too long and sharp for his mouth.

He flops around for a minute or two and dies.

The sev­enth son of a were­wolf is a were­shark.

The rest of the sto­ry is a CSI-style po­lice pro­ce­dur­al about the ori­gin of a shark corpse 500km away from the sea, the pro­tag­o­nists are park ranger­s.

Sto­ry Nr. 2: The man with the gold­en brain

Gen­re: bon­di­an su­per­spy.

Notes: This should in­clude a lot of tech­no­jar­gon which makes no sense, and the prose should be quite bad. Think Ian Flem­ing.

Our su­per­spypro­tag­o­nist is tasked with de­stroy­ing the world-de­stroy­ing weapon of a thirld world dic­ta­tor with a sur­pris­ing­ly large mous­tache and a beret.

This dic­ta­tor's head­quar­ters are be­neath a vol­cano, and his weapon would de­stroy the world by pro­vok­ing catas­tro­phes of a very com­pli­cat­ed na­ture (to be de­ter­mined. ideas: drive all farm an­i­mals in­to a killing fren­zy, make all 7up bot­tles ex­plode at ran­dom times, turn cock­er spaniels in­to evil sci­en­tist­s).

Our hero en­ters the lair through some com­pli­cat­ed path in­volv­ing sew­ers and airduct­s.

He is cap­tured by the evil tyran­t, and tied to a ta­ble with a gi­ant laser aimed at his groin.

While the tyrant pre­pares to kill him in this over-­com­pli­cat­ed man­ner, the hero says "be­fore I die, can I ask you one thing?".

The tyrant replies by blow­ing hero's head with a colt 45 then says "Hel­l, no!" [1].

Unim­ped­ed in his plans be­cause all in­dus­tri­al­ized na­tions re­lied on a sin­gle guy work­ing alone, he black­mails all the world in­to sur­ren­der.

The rest of the movie is a geopo­lit­i­cal thriller about:

• The dif­­fi­cul­­ty of rul­ing the world from an un­der­de­vel­oped coun­try, with em­pha­­sis on tele­com­­mu­ni­­ca­­tion is­­sues.

• The eco­log­i­­cal sit­u­a­­tion stem­ming from the forced un­de­vel­op­­ment of West­­ern Eu­­rope and North Amer­i­­ca in or­der to re­­duce the stress on the en­vi­ron­­men­t.

• The psi­­cho­log­i­­cal stress­es on the world pop­u­la­­tion when they re­al­ize their lifes de­pend on the whim of the guy with the big­ger gun.

• The com­­pas­­sion­ate rule of the afore­­men­­tioned tyrant and benev­o­­lent di­­ca­­tor for life, who pro­ceeds to dis­­arm all armies (in­­clud­ing his own), and nev­er ac­­tu­al­­ly us­es his weapon.

Epi­logue:

200 years lat­er, the im­pos­si­bil­i­ty of re­mote­ly con­trolled ex­plo­sive 7up bot­tles is ter­mi­nant­ly proven.

---

[1] This is tak­en from the "Guie for the Per­fect Tyran­t".

Saw Nar­nia the oth­er day.

Liked it.

Of course, the whole sto­ry makes no sense, but hey, that's how it's sup­posed to be.

If you have not seen it, and have not read the book, and in­tend to ig­nore the plot, please stop here. Ok?

There is this large li­on, Aslan.

He gives his own life to save that of a snivel­ing treach­er­ous, sil­ly kid who sells oth­ers for turk­ish de­light (a can­dy Rosario tried in Is­tan­bul, and tells me is pret­ty good, so there is some sense in him).

Ok, so the kid is ac­tu­al­ly just scared, and pet­ty, and a kid, and he's not that bad.

On the oth­er hand, the li­on...

For the whole movie, the White Witch is built up as evil, and mon­strous and a killer. But it turns out that the worse she does is freeze her vic­tim­s. Un­harmed.

She even­tu­al­ly kills some­one in a bat­tle (but so does Pe­ter, our 14-year old "hero").

The frozen guys can be re­vived at will by Aslan. Who for some rea­son had not done so.

On the oth­er hand, Aslan's big sac­ri­fice? He knew all along that he would be un­harmed. Even his mane re­grows af­ter a few hours.

At least he could have told the two poor girls who thought had seen him die. And skipped the whole heavy-­heart­ed "o­h, I am so sac­ri­fic­ing my­self" walk through the wood­s.

Oh, you may say, but the war is fought so that the true rulers of Nar­nia will as­cend to their thrones!

Well, how in hell are those four eng­lish kids the true ruler­s? They had nev­er been there, they have no con­nec­tion to any­one there!

Hell they are the on­ly four bloody hu­mans in the world!

It looks amaz­ing­ly racist to me. Species-ist?

So, hun­dreds of Nar­nia in­hab­i­tants die (and I mean re­al­ly die, not fake-die like that Aslan kit­ten) so some car­pet­bag­gers get to lord as kings over the ple­beian mass­es, in­stead of an­oth­er high­-born chick.

My sug­ges­tion to the hordes of gryphon­s, sphinx­es, po­lar bears, faun­s, cen­taurs and dwarves:

Kill them al­l, and start liv­ing a de­cent life, with­out sup­port­ing use­less par­a­sites.

Free Phillip!

PS: Yeah, I did like it ;-)

Last sat­ur­day I went to see King Kong with Rosar­i­o, and some­thing hap­pened I nev­er saw be­fore.

For what­ev­er rea­son, we went at the 1:25AM ses­sion. I don't think I had ev­er been to one so late.

And then it last­ed 3 hours. And it was al­most the long­est day of the year.

So when we left, at 4:30 AM, walk­ing through a ghost­ly mal­l, it was dawn.

It's a small thing, but it was quite shock­ing :-)

The movie... she did­n't like it and in­sists Nao­mi Watts is wear­ing, in one of the sce­nes, a Lurex dress, which could­n't pos­si­bly be the case in the 30s.

Me, I liked it quite a bit, per­haps my sus­pen­sion of dis­be­lief is not so eas­i­ly taxed by tex­tile is­sues, ex­cept for some se­ri­ous moral trou­ble I got a day or so lat­er.

You see, killing Kong on the Em­pire State build­ing was right.

That damn beast had just stomped, thrown, smashed, chewn and swat­ted about 2500 peo­ple.

He was go­ing all 9/11 on Man­hat­tan, and just be­cause he did­n't feel like crush­ing one spe­cif­ic blonde (although he sure killed all her pre­de­ces­sors on the sac­ri­fi­cial girl job), we are sup­posed to feel sor­ry for him?

Cry me a riv­er of gi­ant al­li­ga­tor tears, I am not. I say we should bazooka the evil man-eat­ing mon­key, and put Den­ham in jail for reck­less en­dan­ger­men­t, along with all his ac­com­plices.

AND he should lose his shirt (a­long with his the­ater bankroller­s) in a civ­il suit to the fam­i­ly of the maori guy whose head got chewed by Kong, or Lumpy, the cook eat­en by gi­gan­tic man-eat­ing mag­got­s.

At least in the orig­i­nal movie, the girl has the good sense to be scared sense­less by the sight of a gi­ant go­ril­la with ro­man­tic lean­ings.

Here? She laughs while they ice skate, I as­sume ig­nor­ing the blood stains all over the mon­key's fur.

Yes­ter­day I was talk­ing with Rosar­i­o, and we had a strange ar­gu­men­t. She said I was not in touch with my fem­i­nine side, and that she did­n't like that.

To which I replied I don't have a fem­i­nine side.

Of course that caused a re­ply of "y­ou do, but you are not in touch with it" and what­ev­er. I asked her what my fem­i­nine side is sup­posed to be, and she men­tioned that it was the part of me where I could find my feel­ings and some oth­er things.

To that, I say, nyah nyah!

The idea that just be­cause I have a cer­tain kind of chro­mo­somes, in or­der to find my feel­ings I must have a side that's "fem­i­nine", I say that's just pro­pa­gan­da.

I am a guy. I am mas­cu­line. I cry when­ev­er I watch the end of For­rest Gump, The part of me that's cry­ing is not some fem­i­nine side. It's my mas­cu­line side. I cry mas­cu­line tears, be­cause a movie trig­gers some re­sponse in my very mas­cu­line feel­ings.

If I were to tell a wom­an that she has to get in touch with her mas­cu­line side so she can, say, drive a car bet­ter, I would be called a chau­vin­ist pig. And cor­rect­ly.

The idea, I sup­pose, is that her fem­i­nine side can drive just fine. Well, my mas­cu­line side can cry on movies, and fall in love, and miss my mom, and pet my cat just fine, thank you very much.

So, I don't have a fem­i­nine side Rosar­i­o, it's just my oth­er mas­cu­line side, and he loves you too.