Pleeeaaase! It's a movie for G.. sake.
Well it gets the movie some free media attention. UM....I'm curious, did Ron Howard put Bill Donahue up to it???
Director Ron Howard defends 'Angels & Demons' (Reuters) - Yahoo! Movies
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Director Ron Howard on Tuesday defended his film adaptation of " The Da Vinci Code" author Dan Brown 's "Angels & Demons" from criticism that it smears the Roman Catholic Church, heightening an ongoing battle over fictional depictions of the Vatican.
Howard, who also directed the 2006 movie adaptation of "The Da Vinci Code," posted a blog at The Huffington Post website saying that neither he nor his new movie "Angels & Demons," which debuts in May and stars Tom Hanks, are anti-Catholic.
"And let me be a little controversial: I believe Catholics, including most in the hierarchy of the Church , will enjoy the movie for what it is: an exciting mystery, set in the awe-inspiring beauty of Rome," Howard wrote.
Howard's post came in response to an opinion piece in the New York Daily News by Bill Donahue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, last week. Donahue accused Brown and Howard of "smearing the Catholic Church with fabulously bogus tales."
Last year, the Catholic Church refused to let "Angels & Demons" be filmed in churches in Rome because of the Vatican's outrage over "The Da Vinci Code."
Howard's drama "Frost/Nixon" was nominated for best picture at the Academy Awards this year, but lost to "Slumdog Millionaire." His other films include "A Beautiful Mind," which won the best picture Oscar and best directing Oscar for 2001, as well as 1995's "Apollo 13."
Brown this week announced that his follow-up novel to "The Da Vinci Code" will be released in September and is titled "The Lost Symbol."
Who's The Angel? Who's The Demon?
22 April 2009 2:39 AM, PDT | From Studio Briefing
A full-scale battle has been joined between producer-director Ron Howard
on one side and William Donohue, head of the Catholic League, the
largest Catholic lay organization in the U.S., with about 100,000
members. On Tuesday Howard accused Donohue of being on a
"mission" to smear him by portraying him and his upcoming movie,
Angels & Demons, as anti-Catholic without having actually seen
the movie. In a commentary posted on the liberal Huffington Post
blog, Howard wrote, "Let me be clear: neither I nor Angels &
Demons are anti-Catholic. And let me be a little controversial:
I believe Catholics, including most in the hierarchy of the Church,
will enjoy the movie for what it is: an exciting mystery." Responding
to Donohue's charges that the movie -- and the Dan Brown book on
which it was based -- are replete with "lies" about the Catholic
Church, Howard responded, "It would be a lie if we had ever
suggested our movie is anything other than a work of fiction," and
he acknowledged that he, like other classic filmmakers, had taken
"liberties with reality." He concluded: "I know faith is believing
without seeing (and a boycott would be disbelieving without seeing).
But I don't expect William Donohue to have faith in me, so I encourage
him to see Angels & Demons for himself." Donohue wasted no time
responding. "Howard must be delusional if he thinks Vatican officials
are going to like his propaganda -- they denied him the right to film
on their grounds." And he implied that either the Church or the
Catholic League may have planted a spy among the movie's crew.
"We know from a Canadian priest who hung out with Howard's
crew last summer in Rome (dressed in civilian clothes) just how
much they hate Catholicism." Donohue did not identify the priest,
nor did he indicate what the priest had learned about the crew's
views about the Church.
