Director accuses Vatican

Not much hype compared to its predecessor, this movie from the book with the same title, I say that Dan Brown has lost his appeal, not only to the readers, but to the moviegoers as well. As with much noise and commotion, when the sound has faded, and the air is cleared, everything settles into their proper places… we then see the clear and real picture.

I saw the The Da Vinci Code movie, and I can't call it a movie. It was a crap, at the least. It was simply like a literal translation of the book. Maybe it really is. Think so?

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ANGELS & DEMONS

ROME — Director Ron Howard claimed on Sunday that the Vatican interfered with efforts to get permits to shoot certain scenes of his Angels & Demons religious thriller in Rome — a charge the Vatican said was purely a publicity stunt.

Angels & Demons combines an ancient secret brotherhood called the Illuminati, a papal conclave and a high-tech weapon threatening to destroy the Vatican.

Howard said he hadn't sought cooperation from the Vatican based on the opposition he encountered filming The Da Vinci Code, another Brown novel that angered many Catholic leaders.

But he said the Vatican nevertheless exerted influence regarding his filming permits, and he was told it would not be possible even to shoot scenes in Rome that had churches in the background.

"When you come to film in Rome, the official statement to you is that the Vatican has no influence," he said. "Everything progressed very smoothly, but unofficially a couple of days before we were to start filming in several of our locations, it was explained to us through back channels and so forth that the Vatican had exerted some influence."

Angels & Demons features Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, played by Tom Hanks. In the film, the Vatican turns to Langdon after the Illuminati kidnap four cardinals considered front-runners to be the next pope, and threaten to kill one, every hour and then explode a bomb in the Vatican.

Last summer, Rome's diocese confirmed it had barred producers from filming inside two churches because the movie didn't conform to the church's views. AP

From TODAY, Plus – Tuesday, 05-May-2009

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