Passage to Zarahemla

I truly enjoy reading Chris's commentary and, as a professional writer, he very eloquently is able to put into words a lot of the same things I think and feel as well and just not able to fully verbalize.

I do wonder if he might be taking the LDS movie thing a bit too seriously though. If the movie isn't doing as well as he hoped, of course that would be disheartening. But don't put yourself down, Chris. The movie was great! Remember that you didn't have a huge ad campaign going on and that most of the advertising was word of mouth (at least to my understanding). Also keep in mind the state of the economy. It may simply be that a lot of people just aren't buying too many movies right now. My 'drug' in this world is the DVD! I buy them all the time, left and right. Unfortunately, for most of this year I have cut down dramatically on my purchasing because I just can't afford it right now. Others may be in the same boat. Wait until Christmas time. Sales just might pick up a bit. :-)

The next comment I have is for people who take their movies too seriously. Believe me, I do take movies seriously. I LOVE the movies!!! (You'd die if you knew how many times I've seen some movies!) People need to quit being so critical. Why were movies created/invented? To entertain. Who cares if the movie was "realistic" or not. Did it entertain you? Wat is fun to watch? Did it make you laugh? Did it make you cry? If so, then it achieved its purpose and it should be considered successful.... Read More

Yeah, that may be a naive point of view, but it works for me. Personally, I absolutely loved "Baptists at our Barbeque." Of course it was silly. It was supposed to be. It poked fun at what an odd people we Mormons are. It was great. It made me laugh out loud. My family loved it too. Why was it stupid? Just because it wasn't realistic? Bah!!! Same thing with "Best Two Years." It wasn't entirely realistic either --but it was fun and it entertained. It served its purpose....

....and why do so many people diss on "The Book of Mormon Movie?" Good grief people!!!! It was the first movie of its kind. It didn't have Hollywood billions behind it. It was a good movie using all the available resources that were available. How do we know if it was or was not realistic? Has ANYONE alive today been personal witness to any of the ... Read Moreevents depicted in the movie? Who are we to say it was poorly depicted?

Finally, just a few comments on Mormons being embarassed by Mormon movies. In a way, I think I can possibly agree with that, but it makes me wonder who the intended audience of these movies is. The way I see it, Mormons are the principle viewers of Mormon movies. We already know how silly (sometimes) our beliefs are and our way of life and living and talking, etc. If we can't laugh at ourselves, we're in a pretty sad state. Why is it OK to laugh at "Redneck" jokes and "Your momma" jokes, etc. but we can't laugh at "Mormon" jokes? Chances are pretty good that if non-mormons are watching Mormon movies, it's because they already know a little bit about Mormons to begin with, or else they have friends/family who are Mormons. It seems to me that it might actually be a good and positive thing for non-mormons to see some of the silliness in our movies. If they see something depicted that we can laugh about or even question about, imagine: they might actually seek out a Mormon to question about something they saw in a movie. What a great missionary tool, don't ya think?