From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V2 #266 Reply-To: aml-list Sender: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk aml-list-digest Sunday, February 22 2004 Volume 02 : Number 266 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 15:12:07 -0700 From: Eric D. Snider Subject: [AML] COX, Latter Days (review) Review of "Latter Days" Eric D. Snider The curse of gay cinema so far has been its mistaken impression that tired, worn-out movie plots will suddenly become interesting if you put gay characters in them. The romantic comedy and romantic drama have most frequently been given this makeover, and the ones that have been successful are the ones that have produced likable characters, strong dialogue and engaging storylines -- the qualifications for ALL good movies, you'll notice, not just gay ones. "Latter Days" takes the curse several steps further. It uses old romantic-drama devices -- couple meets under false pretenses, e.g., one of them is on a bet, a dare, etc. -- adds some gay cinema cliches -- gay man hits on straight guy, who eventually realizes he's gay -- and then thinks all it has to do to make this paint-by-numbers mishmash unique is throw in some religion -- the "straight" guy is a Mormon missionary. The writer/director is C. Jay Cox (writer of "Sweet Home Alabama"), himself a former Mormon and missionary. If "Latter Days" actually examined the dichotomy between religion and homosexuality, or the struggle that gay men with religious backgrounds face in coming to terms with their orientation, then it would have something. But Cox has no interest in examining the Mormon church. He only wants to rail against it. The church and its adherents in this movie are villains, bullies and homophobes, set up not as characters or plot devices, but merely as straw men to be knocked down. Set in Los Angeles, the film centers on Christian (Wesley A. Ramsey), a shallow party boy who spends his evenings waiting tables at a swanky restaurant and his nights engaging in one meaningless fling after another. Then a quartet of missionaries moves into his apartment complex, and he is smitten with one of them, Aaron Davis (Steve Sandvoss), fresh off the plane from Pocatello, Idaho. After a conversation with his three snarky co-workers, a bet is settled upon: $50 apiece says he can't get Aaron to have sex with him. Christian, who prides himself on being able to sleep with anyone, takes the challenge. The best way to get to know missionaries is to claim interest in their message, so Christian sets up an appointment for him and his hag Julie (Rebekah Jordan) to meet with Aaron and his companion Ryder (Josh Gordon-Levitt). During this discussion, we learn that Ryder is a raging, vicious homophobe, in addition to being insensitive generally, giving his character a grand total of one dimension. (In fact, all of the staunchly homophobic characters in the film are jerks in other regards, too.) Still, Aaron and Christian are able to strike up a sincere, albeit awkward friendship of sorts, due to Aaron pretty much never being with his companion (a violation of the No. 1 basic missionary rule, though this fact is not addressed). They come very close to kissing in a sequence that came straight from a porn script, in which Christian cuts his leg, faints from the blood, and then must be helped into his apartment and examined -- sans pants -- by good Samaritan Aaron. The situation is so contrived and absurd that I assumed Christian was faking it all as a means of getting Aaron into his house so he could seduce him. Sadly, he wasn't faking it, and the movie really expected us to take it seriously. A kiss eventually does occur, of course, and of course Aaron's three fellow missionaries walk in as it happens (because of course he wasn't WITH them, like he was supposed to be), and of course all hell breaks loose. Aaron is sent home from his mission, leading to the sort of scene that usually occurs at the END of romantic films -- it's even set at an airport -- but which here occurs at the 55-minute mark. This is the film's sole innovation, showing the aftermath of the yes-I'm-in-love-with-you, happily-ever-after climax. In Aaron's case, the story is far from over when he admits his love for Christian. He has his parents to deal with, conservative Mormons who do not approve of homosexuality even in general terms. Following a night of steaminess with Christian during a layover (as it were) in Salt Lake City, Aaron is excommunicated from the church -- his dad is his stake president, too, making it doubly awkward -- and sent reeling by his mother's adamant rejection of him. The lead performances by Sandvoss and Ramsey are good enough, with Sandvoss believable as a clean-cut, slightly dorky Idahoan and Ramsey equally convincing as a superficial man-whore. Nothing about their relationship is especially creative -- they bond by quoting lines from old movies while doing their laundry! -- but the two have a certain charm about them, and the film's target audience of gay men will certainly enjoy their hotel-room scene. Mary Kay Place is good in a terrible role, that of Aaron's dreadful mother. Their major scene together, while unfortunately realistic, gives the film a maudlin, melodramatic quality that it didn't need. Jacqueline Bisset turns up as the owner of the restaurant Christian works in, and while she is generally a radiant screen presence, her scene of weeping outside a hospital -- and being comforted by Aaron -- is singularly bad. In general, the writing is mediocre and the characters stereotypical - -- of COURSE Christian has a sassy gay black friend who says bitchy things all the time -- but there are occasional bursts of comedy and insight. Now, since I am a Mormon, it is impossible for me not to notice the many incongruities and mistakes Cox perpetrates in depicting missionary work and the church in general. He has managed to make the church look even more intolerant than it is by offering a distorted view of it - a view that most audience members will take at face value, being unfamiliar with the facts. The scene of Aaron's excommunication is most telling. As per real life, it consists of Aaron sitting in a room with his stake president and the high council, 12 men called to help govern the affairs of the church in that geographic area. But here the room is dimly lit, with Aaron sitting alone several feet away from the end of the table, with no one to speak in his defense or even provide moral support. His father tells him he is being excommunicated for "the sin of homosexuality," whereupon all the stern-faced, unsympathetic men file out of the room without a word to him. In real life, Aaron wouldn't have been sent home from his mission just for kissing another man, and there certainly wouldn't have been excommunication proceedings. He'd have been transferred to another area, counseled with and watched closely. But accepting his being sent home, and accepting the subsequent night with Christian, the disciplinary meeting still wouldn't have gone this way. The room would be brightly lit, for one thing, as such meetings are held in ordinary conference rooms, and Aaron would be seated cordially at the end of the table, not thrust to the center of the room like Sharon Stone in the interrogation scene of "Basic Instinct." He would have at least his bishop seated next to him to lend support. And if he were excommunicated (rather than a lesser punishment, which is far more likely) for one night of gay sex, it would be for his ACTIONS, not for "the sin of homosexuality." The church does not teach that homosexuality itself is a sin, but rather the practice of it. If people were excommunicated simply for having the URGE to do things, the church would have no members left. Do the missionaries in the film ever talk or act like real missionaries? Yeah, once or twice. Ryder says "flip" a lot, which is a Mormon slang term, and the other two missionaries in their apartment engage in a lot of playful fighting and flatulence. But those details are vastly outnumbered by the details that are completely wrong, like Ryder's declaration, upon being asked by Christian about the church's stance on gays, that "God hates homos." (I did laugh, though, at Aaron's attempt to defuse the situation: "And the French!") Cox is allowed some poetic license, of course; he never claimed he was making a documentary. But I have to question his motives. As a former church member, Cox knows how missionaries really talk and act, and he knows how the church really operates. He is skewing the facts either A) because doing so helps his story progress, or B) because he wants viewers to dislike the church as much as he does. I hope it is option A, as that only makes him a bad filmmaker -- good filmmakers use the facts of the world as they actually are to tell their stories, and don't resort to making stuff up -- while option B would make him something worse. Intentionally distorting the facts so your opponent looks more evil than he is smells like propaganda -- which, again, is Cox's right as a filmmaker, but which makes him seem like a guy with an ax to grind, not a guy with a story to tell. To the gay Mormons, semi-Mormons and ex-Mormons who have eagerly awaited this film to see if it would show what it's like to be secretly gay while serving a mission, I hate to disappoint you, but it barely even tries. There is one very nice moment when Aaron almost kisses Christian for the first time but instead rests his head on his chest, showing a weariness and resignation, and a desire for understanding. And that is it. The subject of Aaron's shameful secret, his struggle between his religious beliefs and his feelings, is hardly noted thereafter. He does not seem to have a problem ultimately giving up the church, a fact which runs directly contrary to the experience of all the gay Mormons who endure great torment in deciding which path to follow. If Aaron ever believed strongly in the church in the first place, it is not indicated, making me wonder why religion got dragged into this at all. Once again, I can't help but think Cox invited the church to his party not to see how it would interact with others, but so he could pour pig's blood on it. - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 18:47:25 -0700 From: Thom Duncan Subject: Re: [AML] Angels in America Jacob Proffitt wrote: >>-----Original Message----- >>From: ThomasDuncan01@comcast.net >> >>I contend that he did get them right. In what way? Because the >>people he creates in the play are all human. And, last I checked, >>Mormons are human. No two Mormons speak the same way, use the same >>lingo, talk about the Church the same way. >>New York Mormons think differently about the church than do Utah >>Mormons. I knew a Mormon lady once who absolutely loved the temple >>but had never heard of Joseph Smith having had a vision. Had she been > > >>in a play, a lot of Mormons would have said, "How can she be Mormon >>and not know about Jospeh Smith?" We are not as homogenized a people >>as we think we are. > > > That's kind of a useless standard, don't you think? I mean, by that > reasoning--by letting anything pass as Mormon that claims to be > Mormon, anything at all--you've made the distinction meaningless. > Where do you draw the line, then? I contend that you don't, and that any literature that shows us as smarter, more righteous, more certain of eternity, less worried about the future, is not a true representation of who we are. We ARE like everyone else. We are not smarter, we are not healthier, our marriages aren't happier, we are not wealthier, poorer, homophobic, than any other people alive. Catholic parents thrill at their sons becoming priests, we thrill when our children go on missions. The Bar Mitzvah of a Jewish young man is as important to their culture as a young man becoming a deacon is to ours. If Larry Flint began referring to himself as > Mormon, do you welcome him with open arms to our society? Saddam > Hussein? (that'd be an interesting twist--Muslims get Michael Jackson, > we get Saddam?) And even if *you* consider them valid representations > of Mormon characters, I guarantee that the majority of LDS audiences > won't, and they won't identify with them. Of course the majority won't, but that's the point. The majority don't know these kinds of Mormons exist either because they don't want to or they are truly ignorant. Years ago, I stood on my front porch in Northeast Orem talking with a professor of Abnormal Psychology at BYU. He told me, "Thom, within walking distance of where we are now standing, I could take you to visit families, many of whom you would know, who are suffering through the most venal of sexual sins, things that if I were to detail for you, would make you sick. Jack Weyland and others have done a marvelous job of showing us people who are like the people we would like to become. I think we need more Mormon artists who show Mormons the way they really are, warts and all. So I guess my real question > is, what's the value of having a term of distinction like "Mormon" if > it puts off all but a small percentage of your audience? It's a > barrier to communication and an unnecessary one. The minority of Mormons who don't fit the ideal need a voice, too. Thom Duncan - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 18:58:45 -0700 From: Thom Duncan Subject: Re: [AML] Angels in America D. Michael Martindale wrote: > He didn't get the Mormons right in the way he needed to for his work. I guess, then, that on this matter, we will have to agree to disagree. I found his Mormon characters to be spot on. Thom Duncan - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 18:08:56 -0800 From: Jeff Needle Subject: Re: [AML] THAYER, The Conversion of Jeff Williams (review) At 08:20 AM 2/16/2004, you wrote: >On Thu, 12 Feb 2004 21:38:25 GMT "Jeffrey Needle" > writes: > > > And I suppose there's some irony in a Jeff from San Diego (me) > > reviewing a book about a Jeff from San Diego. I promise we are not > > the same person. > >Hmm. I was born and raised in San Diego. > >J(effrey) Scott Bronson Egads! It's an epidemic! - ---------------- Jeff Needle jeff.needle@general.com jeffneedle@tns.net - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 20:25:08 -0700 From: "Nan P. McCulloch" Subject: Re: [AML] New to the list and I'd like to share this. I loved the video. Congratulations on a great job. The astronaut Don Lind is a friend of mine. There is a chapter in the book _Don Lind, Mormon Astronaut_ written by his wife Kathleen called "The Eagle Has Landed." The song is beautiful. Good work all around. Thanks for sharing. Nan McCulloch Draper, UT - ----- Original Message ----- From: "Per Malm" To: Sent: Saturday, February 14, 2004 10:01 PM Subject: [AML] New to the list and I'd like to share this. > Hello Everybody! > > I just joined this list a few weeks ago. I've been lurking and reading > with interest. This doesn't really have anything to do with mormons > other than the fact that I, a mormon filmmaker, produced this and it > seems to be getting a lot of praise in some circles. > > I have just completed a music video for the pro-space song "Hope Eyrie" > which was just released in December on the CD "To Touch The Stars." This > is a fan edit that uses a lot of NASA footage mixed with some footage > I've shot. You can view it at: > http://www.prometheus-music.com/thestars.html > The link to the video is about 2/3 way down the page and is about 4 meg > to download. I hope you enjoy it. > > The producer at Prometheus Music has mentioned that various people, > including folks associated with NASA, are interested in using it in > their programming. That is still pending though. > > On a more personal note, this is the first time that so many "important" > > people have been so touched by something I've produced and it still > hasn't all sunk in. I am still in the stage of "this can't really be > happening to me." > > Per Malm > > > > > -- > AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature > > - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 08:06:40 -0800 From: Jeff Needle Subject: [AML] Review of new book There is a new gothic romance novel being promoted on the Meridian website. The url is http://www.ldsmag.com/books/040217final.html One part of the review interested me: "Just when I thought I'd seen a sample of almost every fiction genre (except horror for obvious reasons) on the LDS fiction scene, C. Paul Andersen has come up with a Gothic Romance with his Final Act." I had thought that books like "Lost Boys" by Scott Card came pretty close to being an LDS horror novel. Is there a legitimate entry in this genre -- LDS horror? - ---------------- Jeff Needle jeff.needle@general.com jeffneedle@tns.net - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 13:58:31 -0700 From: "Eric Samuelsen" Subject: RE: [AML] (DesNews) Hicks on R rating Here's what's amazing about this: everyone's talking about this as though getting an R rating is A BAD THING. It's not. It just means that the film isn't appropriate for children. It's about war and it's violent, so get a sitter. The R rating has no bearing, none whatsoever, on whether or not adults should go see it. =20 Of course, in our wacky culture, that previous statement is nonsense. Some general authority used 'R-rating' as shorthand for 'inappropriate entertainment' 20 years ago, and we've been stuck ever since. It's become, like, a matter of faith and testimony. But the R rating doesn't have anything to do with the choices grownups make about their own entertainment. The rating system is idiotic, of course, but if it serves any purpose whatsoever, it's to tell parents that such and such a movie isn't appropriate for their children. I have a ten year old daughter, and there are lots of films I see that I don't let her see. I also have a car I drive that I don't let her drive.=20 What's amazing about this is that the R rating is probably right. It's probably not an appropriate film for children. Neither, in my mind, was Lord of the Rings. Great flick; I love it like I love life itself. Too scary for little kids. Shoulda been R. Wasn't. Why? Box office woulda dropped. So we have an utterly meaningless PG-13 category that includes every film on this planet, except Kill Bill. And a good film that may lose audience. For no good reason. Now, the real test of faith is Passion. Mel Gibson's Passion flick. I told my students today, in class, that at a fireside last week, President Hinckley had said that this was the one R rated film LDS folks could, and should, see. That is not, in fact, true, but I love starting rumors. Let me know if it gets back to you. Eric Samuelsen - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 02:52:44 +0000 From: "Andrew Hall" Subject: [AML] God's Army II Here is the text of a KSL story about Richard Dutcher working on God's Army II. http://tv.ksl.com/index.php?nid=5&sid=75378 Andrew Hall - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 02:59:56 +0000 From: "Andrew Hall" Subject: [AML] Re: 2003 Mormon Literature bibliography Thanks for the corrections. Thom Duncan asked: Are you sure about the title of Gordon Jump's play (Open the Door)? I was in SoCal in 1973 and there was an LDS musical called Open Any Door but it wasn't written by Mike and Gordon. Gordon was in a show that Mike directed, called Threads of Glory. Andrew: I don't know where I got that information, it is in my running Mormon Lit bibliography that I keep, and it could very well be wrong. From: Tammy Daybell Carol Thayne's real name is Carol Warburton, but she is a different Carol Warburton than the author of "Before the Dawn." That is why Covenant had her publish as Carol Thayne. Andrew: Yep, sorry, I messed that up. And sorry to Margaret Young for messing up the title of her book. Andrew Hall - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 03:24:47 +0000 From: "Andrew Hall" Subject: [AML] Re: CARD, Alvin Maker Series Good comments, everyone. I enjoyed Crystal City, I thought it was better than the last two, but yeah, not as good as the first three. I got caught up in the plot, but now that you mention it the characters are not as interesting as in those first books. I agree to a point about Card fizzling out in his series. While Xenocide was every bit as good as Speaker For the Dead, the final volume, Children of the Mind, was totally forgetable. As for the Homecoming series, I thought the quality was about the same throughout, not his best stuff, but pretty good. It was weird how the whole thrust of the expedition seemed to die out, but there was enough interesting things in the final volume that I couldn't complain. As for the inter-book stories in the Legends anthologies, yes there are two. The first, Grinning Man, is Alvin and Arthur meeting Danial Boone or Davey Crockett, I forget. It is a fun story, but does not have anything essential to the general story. The more recent one, "Yazoo Queen", in Lengends II, on the other hand, is a prequel to Crystal City, telling the story of meeting Jim Bowie and Abe Lincoln on the boat. I agreee, it is very weird and unfair to include this stuff, which plays such a big part in the subsequent novel, in the anthology. Oh, by the way, is the foolish man who is Abe Lincoln's friend based on a real historical person? Someone asked what I am doing these days. I finished the PhD in December, and am staying at home with the kids while Jenifer teaches at the University of North Texas. I have some job applications pending, but I probably will not start teaching anywhere full-time until the 2005-06 school year. I will teach a couple of adjunct classes this year. I am enjoying the full time dad stuff much more than I thought I would. We try to speak Japanese most of the time at home, so the kids will keep it up, and I spend an hour working on practicing Japanese writing with my five-year old son every morning. Andrew Hall Denton, TX - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 13:40:00 -0700 From: "Eric Samuelsen" Subject: RE: [AML] Angels in America I've argued this before, but once more into the breech: I'd say anyone that says they're a Mormon is one. What if Larry Flynt were to go around saying he's now a Mormon. I'd want to ask him what he bases that on, but sure, I'd be happy to call him brother. We'd have our first porn distributor. Was Ted Bundy Mormon? Well, he was baptized. So if he continued to make that claim, why not? Wacko polygamist groups? Sure, they're Mormon. I just like to argue for 'Mormon' comprising as big a tent as possible. Does this water-down our definition? No, but it does expand it. Eric Samuelsen - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 14:52:04 -0700 From: "J. Scott Bronson" Subject: Re: [AML] Young and Gray I just realized that this went to Margaret's address instead of AML. I'm sure she's trying to figure out why I would be so impersonal in a private communication. Sorry, Margaret, but this is meant for the whole world. (As if the whole world would care.) scott - --------- Forwarded message ---------- From: J. Scott Bronson To: margaret_young@byu.edu Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 09:57:07 -0700 Subject: Re: [AML] Young and Gray On Thu, 12 Feb 2004 16:15:12 -0700 Margaret Young writes: > But let me change the thread a little. I love the word Eric uses in > his post: nuanced. > > I want to examine the word from a different angle--the idea of being > nuanced ARTISTS > ALL of my work reflects an aspect of my life and my faith. > It suggests that I, like any good character, am "nuanced." > I struggle with many issues in Mormonism, but I celebrate my faith > too. .... And frankly, I wouldn't want to be limited to one way of > writing, or even one audience. I think this is a keen (and key) observation. I remember how absolutely stunned I was that Harlan Ellison, who gut-punched the wind right out of me with "The Whimper of Whipped Dogs," was the same man who gently wrung me dry with "Jeffty is Five." Scott Card wrote "Kingsmeat" AND "The Porcelain Salamander." And Margaret (as she said in her post but I snipped it) wrote _House Without Walls_ and "God On Donahue." I think it's terribly important for artists to explore all the rooms in their castles. Awhile back BYU's Museum of Art had a Norman Rockwell show going. We all know what he's famous for. And yet, there was the very brooding pencil or charcoal sketch of a sailor on a dock and the very naked and bold irony of the painting of the small african-american girl walking to school with a military escort, the word, "nigger" srawled on the wall behind her head. And Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuess) had all that anti-nazi work from the forties. Artists, I believe, need to know themselves in order to create truly powerful works. And I think, probably, those very powerful works are created in the discovery of who we are. After all, it is a process that goes on and on. J. Scott Bronson "People do not love better by reaching for perfection, they approach perfection by loving better." - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 16:50:33 -0700 From: "Eric Samuelsen" Subject: RE: [AML] Book in a Week FWIW Although I decided not to formally participate in this Book-in-a-week thang, I decided that I like the idea. I don't really write fiction, mostly, though I'm getting into it some. But I thought I could write a full-length play in a week. And so I tried. Started with absolutely no ideas whatsoever. I thought maybe I should start with characters, and you can't get more generic than John, so one of 'em was named that, and this girl I knew in high school, who I was madly in love with and never had the nerve to talk to was named Eva, so there you go, John and Eva. They started talking. I knew absolutely nothing about them, except their names. Then John mentioned to Eva how good the sex they'd just had together had been, and I realized that they had just had sexual relations. Suddenly, they started reminiscing, and I realized that they had only just hooked up at their twentieth high school reunion. John was very amazed by something, and I realized that what amazed him was that he, nervous loser doofus that he'd been in high school, was in bed with one of the popular pretty girls who never gave him the time of day twenty years previously. And then John said some really jerky things to Eva, and she didn't really respond in kind, but I knew she was ticked off at him, and at herself some too. Hey, conflict. And meanwhile, this other guy started edging his way into my mind. At first I thought he was a congressman, but then I realized that he's gay, openly so, and probably not all that viable a political candidate in today's climate, so I made him chief of staff to a congressman. And another guy blustered his way into view, a profane, horrible person, the kind of guy who used to beat me up in junior high. And he started talking to the gay political guy, and I realized, he felt awful about what he'd done twenty years before. Suddenly, I began to think about high school, and the kids I knew in high school. And it occurred to me that a very large number of people I knew back then were now dead. And I'm not that old, and that sorta freaked me out. I mentioned it to my characters, and it freaked them out too. And so the play started to be about death, some. And as the characters talked, they were way TOO freaked out. And I realized something awful was in the background, needing to be brought out. Anyway, four days later, I had a completed, full-length play. I call it Aftermath. What a neat exercise. Start with absolutely nothing, get two people talking together, and see what happens. And I love this play, even though it's really really R rated, and I sent off twenty copies today to various contests and agents and all. So there's a lot to be said for it. Write fast. Get the draft DOWN. And then tinker. Eric Samuelsen - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 01:48:39 -0700 From: Eric D. Snider Subject: Re: [AML] (DesNews) Hicks on R rating I agree with what Eric Samuelsen says about "Saints and Soldiers" and the R rating generally, and now I want to add a little. "Saints and Soldiers," as an R-rated movie, makes me think, "Gee, that's kind of a weak R." If it had been PG-13, I would have thought, "Gosh, that's sort of a strong PG-13." It's right on the border. I don't think kids should see it, and teenagers probably shouldn't without their parents' guidance, but I can't imagine teenagers wanting to go see it on their own anyway. So they're going to cut a couple of little parts and hopefully get a PG-13 rating, because they figure it's box office poison otherwise. I think that's a mistake. It's only box office poison if they're marketing it as a "Mormon film," which they shouldn't do. Why? Because ONLY MORMONS see "Mormon films," and as a result, no "Mormon film" can make more than a couple million dollars, because there simply aren't enough movie-going Mormons who live in the areas where the movies are shown to go around. On the other hand, if they'd market it as a regular ol' war movie -- and a very good one, with excellent reviews -- it could make $10 million, easily, maybe more. Viewers wouldn't consider it a Mormon movie, and reviewers wouldn't note it as one. (The word "Mormon" nor any of its synonyms is never used. A non-Mormon viewer could easily take the character in question for a Jehovah's Witness or any fundamentalist Christian.) It could make tons of money, even if not a single Mormon ever went to see it. But here's the thing: Even with an R rating, plenty of Mormons would still go see it, as long as it wasn't marketed as a Mormon film. Let's not kid ourselves: Mormons go to see R-rated movies. Literally 95 percent of Utah Valley is Mormon. And the R-rated movies that are popular elsewhere in the country are just as popular here. The theaters that showed "Last Samurai" and "Matrix Reloaded" and "Bad Boys II" here were just about as crowded as the ones everywhere else. That may not translate to the less "big" R-rated movies; maybe Mormons don't feel quite as compelled to see something rated R that's not too big on the cultural radar anyway. But for the big-buzz movies? For sure. I saw "Kill Bill" at a Provo cinema the day after it opened, in the biggest of the plex's 16 theaters, and there wasn't an empty seat to be found. (I cite that as merely one example.) But I would bet money that if an LDS-made film came around that was rated R, Mormons wouldn't see it. I bet at least subconsciously, the attitude is, "Hollywood can make R-rated movies, and we'll go see them. But our fellow saints shouldn't be doing it, so we're not going to support that." So that's another reason I wish they'd leave "Saints and Soldiers" with an R rating, so I could test my theory. Anyway, it's a great movie, and everyone ought to see it when it's released, regardless of its rating. The violence is not what I'd call abundant or pervasive, and it's never gratuitous. It's also a well-acted, extremely well-produced film. Eric D. Snider - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ End of aml-list-digest V2 #266 ******************************