So all I wanted was...

[onager]

...to flop down on Friday night with a halfway decent movie. Some History Geeks on another board were raving about a WWII movie that was made for less than $1 million. So I rented it and settled in.

Good beginning, excellent "look." Great story hook set around the massacre of American POWs during the Battle of the Bulge (the infamous Malmedy Massacre, for you other Geeks.)

THEN...up pops this line of dialogue about a soldier nicknamed "Deacon:" "He's from Arizona. He doesn't smoke or drink. DOESN'T EVEN DRINK COFFEE."

The Internal BS Meter began to tick loudly. That setting and those rules apply to the OTHER indigenous American sci-fi religion (besides $cientology).

Then, while desperately trying to escape the Germans, "Deacon" suddenly feels compelled to discuss theology with The Medic--a sterotypical Brooklyn guy who's...SURPRISE!...an atheist.

By now, the BS Meter is off the scale and the needle will shatter the glass any second.

Then the G.I.'s capture a German POW. Son of a gun! "Deacon" knows the guy! Wow! There goes the old Suspension Of Disbelief...

"I 'taught' his family when I was doing my MISSION in Germany before the war!"

The BS Meter explodes.

Yes, without once mentioning the word itself, this was thinly disguised Mormon propaganda.

You'll never guess what happens to the atheist at the end. :sarcasm:

I guess the title should have warned me: "Saints And Soldiers."

[NMMNG]

1. You should demand your money back

And give the people on that other board a good cyber lashing. The nerve they have passing that proselytising off as a history movie!

[onager]

2. I'm tempted! Here are a couple of others:

I guess the Mormons are doing an aggressive push into Hollywood-type movie making.

Beware of these stinkers too...

The Other Side of Heaven: unintentionally funny enough to watch for free, on cable, but I wouldn't spend money renting it.

"True" story of a Mormon missionary in Tonga during the Fifties. He makes the natives cover their nudity with cheap K-Mart T-shirts! (At least he didn't put them in skinny black neckties and white wash-n-wear dress shirts.)

The mother of the prettiest Tongan teen girl wants Big White Missionary to Make Boom-Boom with daughter to give her "whiter" grandchildren! (I'm not exaggerating much. It was THAT blatant.)

Obiligatory Miracle: the missionary WALKS after rats chew on his feet. Praise Jaysus...or maybe Joseph Smith.

Bonus Fun: go to imdb.com and count the number of 10-star rave reviews emanating from Utah.

The Work & The Glory: I just saw this for rent at the local Shlockbuster. The inspiring story of Joseph Smith. Wonder if they included his inspiring arrest for fraud, using some of the same elements he would later use in his new religion.

And not only the Mormons...

Luther: funded by the Lutherans. Joseph Fiennes does an ok job in the title role, but the movie COMPLETELY whitewashes Martin Luther. Absolutely no mention of his pathological anti-Semitism or bizarre ideas about women.

One good moment: Fiennes walks thru a burning and devastated German village, stepping over the corpses of men, women and children slaughtered in the name of religion.

The look on his face says: "Well, shit! I never meant for THIS to happen!"

[salvorhardin]

3. Sounds like

their scriptwriters are pulling their ideas from the same magic hat Joseph Smith used. They should get a new magic hat -- based on the awful plot synopses, this one's broken. Maybe that Harry Potter one would work. :-)