SEND A MESSAGE TO HOLLYWOOD - BUY A TICKET!

Do your part to hasten cultural renewal. Skip Daredevil next weekend, and go see God's and Generals instead.

People outside of "the industry" do not appreciate how much importance is attached to a movie's opening weekend. Religious people tend to stay away from a new release until a few weekends have gone by...or, much more devastatingly to our hopes of changing the film industry, to wait for things to come out on video. No. No. No.

Whomever wins opening weekend rules the world. Everything about the future release schedule, television and ancillary distribution is tied to the performance of a film on opening weekend. Please go see Gods and Generals this weekend in support of a wonderful, worthy project made by one of our own.

Gods and Generals is the greatest Civil War movie ever made, but, as with any great work of art, it is also much more. Writer/Director Ron Maxwell is a devout Christian, who not only gives us a meticulous historical piece, but also a "genuine source of theology", borrowing language from the Pope's 1999 Letter to Artists. The overriding theme here has to do with the nature of patriotism, and the interplay of patriotism and conscience. It is a movie which contrasts two views of the Will of God. Are we supposed to be agents of God's Will, or are we waiting on God's Will to be manifest, in His time?

I wrote a long article on the film for Liguorian. If Catholic Exchange doesn't run it soon, I'll reprint it here.

Meanwhile. GO SEE GODS AND GENERALS ON FEBRUARY 21. OR ELSE ON THE 22ND. OR ELSE THE 23RD. GO.