New Film: Genesis Code

Charley Honey of the Grand Rapids Press has a column out about a new film called The Genesis Code, by Jerry Zandstra, which examines the battleground of faith and science. He writes:

Zandstra took a course from [Howard] Van Till at Calvin, where he said his literal creationist views were “blown up.” In time, he came to appreciate science’s contributions to understanding a God-created world.

He stayed curious about that while serving as a pastor in the Christian Reformed Church and as former director for the conservative Acton Institute. His unlikely path toward moviemaking started at an Acton lecture a few years back. A Hollywood financier in the audience approached him about a new project and later connected him with producer-director Michael Leighton. Zandstra was skeptical.

“I said, ‘In my mind, you guys all live in one giant hot tub. Every six months, you crawl out of your primordial slime and make a movie I don’t want my kids to see,’” recalled Zandstra, who has three children.

As Zandstra comments, though, it looks like most Christian films were made "in someone's back yard." Having seen enough of those, I can understand his trepidation. But Honey continues:

Not so “The Genesis Code,” which features slick production and big names, including Ernest Borgnine, Fred Thompson and Louise Fletcher, who played Nurse Ratched in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” Lesser-known actors Kelsey Sanders and Logan Bartholomew play, respectively, the Christian college-student journalist Kerry writing about skeptical star hockey player Blake.

This, then would be the other bookend to Creation, the film about Darwin from last year. I hope that it is well-handled.

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Thoughts from Kansas: Creation vs. Expelled at the Box Office

Josh Rosenau has been tracking the box office numbers of Creation against those of Expelled! His take:

Darwin biopic Creation premiered in seven movie theaters across the country last weekend, earning $53,073, an average of $7,582. That's not a lot of money, but at roughly $10/ticket, this works out to 760 viewers per theater, a solid showing. I know the theater I saw it at was full for their 7 pm showing.

Compare that to creationist schlockumentary Expelled: No Intelligence…, released two springs ago. Part of its promotional strategy was a big opening weekend; coordinating with the owners of Regal movie theaters, they opened in 1,052 theaters, earning $2,970,848, or $2,824 per theater (roughly 280 viewers).

By my math, Creation did more than 3 times better than Expelled, and with a much smaller promotional budget. Which makes sense: it's a much better movie.

But be sure to read the comments.

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A Tepid Review of Creation

Betsy Sharkey of the LA Times has a somewhat lukewarm review of Creation, the new film with Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly. She writes:

The precocious and much-loved Annie Darwin (a very promising young Martha West) died at 10 after going through treatment for a fever that frankly seems reminiscent of water-boarding, but then it was the 1800s. Charles, who already had bouts of an undiagnosed illness that looks a lot like depression, was sent into a very deep tailspin by Annie's death.

Before long, Charles and an afterlife Annie are having lots of philosophical conversations as he worries that his thesis will kill the notion of God and other thorny issues, particularly since wife Emma is especially devout.

Soon you realize that Annie's death has sent the director into a tailspin of his own. With his allegiance divided between father and daughter, it becomes increasingly difficult to know whom the film really belongs to.

Ms. Sharkey suggests that this angst becomes an overbearing presence in the film and that the science gets left on the cutting room floor. Creation ended up at 59% on the Tomatometer. I still have not had a chance to see it.

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Hollywood Reporter Review of Creation

The Hollywood Reporter has a favorable review of the movie Creation, the story of Charles Darwin and his relationships with his wife and children and the struggle in writing On the Origins of Species. Ray Bennett writes:

Thanks to the writing, pacing and Bettany's nuanced performance, it is one of the best delineations of intellectual and emotional struggle seen on film in many a year. The actor's scenes with Annie and Emma have an extraordinary tenderness that grips the heart just as Darwin's scientific dilemma engages the brain. West is unaffected and winning as the girl, and Connelly, with a perfect English accent, shows the wife's anguish as well as her undying loyalty.

Sure wish I could see it.

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Dawkins: Creationism Mostly a US Problem

The Irish Times has a short story on Richard Dawkins. Dawkins gave a speech in Dublin, at the RDS Concert Hall. Genevieve Carbery writes:

Dawkins said that while creationism was still largely an American problem, we needed to take stock of what was going on in the United States.

On this side of the Atlantic, Dawkins said that an influx of a very large Muslim population was difficult for scientists because Muslims believe that every single word of the Koran is true.

It may very well be that Islamic creationism will prove to be a more potent enemy than Christian fundamentalist creationism.

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Creation Not Coming to the United States

This could only happen in the U.S. The film Creation, starring Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly has not been picked up by distributors in this country because of its subject matter. I was looking forward to seeing the film. Now, I might not get the chance! The article in the Telegraph hints at why this has happened:

Movieguide.org, an influential site which reviews films from a Christian perspective, described Darwin as the father of eugenics and denounced him as "a racist, a bigot and an 1800s naturalist whose legacy is mass murder". His "half-baked theory" directly influenced Adolf Hitler and led to "atrocities, crimes against humanity, cloning and genetic engineering", the site stated.

There is so much nonsense packed into that one paragraph that I doubt I will ever look at the site again. If their judgement and research is that bad about a film like this, I doubt it would be good about other films.

To say that the film makers were surprised is an understatement:

Jeremy Thomas, the Oscar-winning producer of Creation, said he was astonished that such attitudes exist 150 years after On The Origin of Species was published.

"That's what we're up against. In 2009. It's amazing," he said.

"The film has no distributor in America. It has got a deal everywhere else in the world but in the US, and it's because of what the film is about. People have been saying this is the best film they've seen all year, yet nobody in the US has picked it up.

And I doubt anyone will. What a shame.

UPDATE: John Scalzi doesn't think its the creationists that are keeping the film from coming to the U.S. He writes:

Alternately, and leaving aside any discussion of the actual quality of the film, it may be that a quiet story about the difficult relationship between an increasingly agnostic 19th Century British scientist and his increasingly devout wife, thrown into sharp relief by the death of their beloved 10-year-old daughter, performed by mid-list stars, is not exactly the sort of film that’s going to draw in a huge winter holiday crowd, regardless of whether that scientist happens to be Darwin or not, and that these facts are rather more pertinent, from a potential distributor’s point of view.

I don't buy it. Miramax thrives on such films and they have a huge market in this country. Currently in production or advertised are all kinds of film about dissolving relationships and general dysfunction. Furthermore, Lars von Trier's new film Anti-Christ, a movie about a husband and wife who lose a young son and try to get their lives back together, is getting extensive airplay, partly due to its extremely graphic sex scenes between the leads.

Along the way, Scalzi makes a somewhat cynical comment on the perceived sensibilities of the U.S. theatre-going public:

Maybe if Charles Darwin were played by Will Smith, was a gun-toting robot sent back from the future to learn how to love, and to kill the crap out of the alien baby eaters cleverly disguised as Galapagos tortoises, and then some way were contrived for Jennifer Connelly to expose her breasts to RoboDarwin two-thirds of the way through the film, and there were explosions and lasers and stunt men flying 150 feet into the air, then we might be talking wide-release from a modern major studio.

I still don't buy it.

Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds.

A Newer, Sexier Charles Darwin

According to the Guardian, the new trailer from the film Creation is a tad racy. Anna Pickard writes that:

There are so many plusses to the idea of Creation: The Movie. For a start, it brings Darwin to life as a fully-rounded person. More than that, by getting Paul Bettany to play him, Darwin is also very sexy. And making Darwin sexy is, for a generation who are used to thinking of him as old and with a ginormous beard, a very exciting step.

But then, there's also the opportunity to plug into both sides of a social, academic and religious argument that gets more and more heated by the day. Could they have made a perfect trailer that would attract both sides of the argument to see the film?

Sounds like a movie to see.


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Creation Opens Toronto Film Festival

According to Jane Stevenson of the Toronto Sun, the movie about Charles Darwin and His Wife, Emma, called Creation, will open the Toronto Film Festival. The store notes that Organizer, Cameron Bailey stated:

"We fell in love with one film that we found to be moving, beautifully crafted, and full of ideas that may be 150 years old but have never been more current. We love it when our films get people talking and this one promises to do just that.

"It's especially interesting to watch real-life couple Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly play husband and wife here."

Creation, described as "part ghost story, part psychological thriller, part heart-wrenching love story," is directed by Jon Amiel (The Core, Entrapment, The Man Who Knew Too Little) and comes on the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth.

I will admit that my trepidation at seeing this film is a bit higher than normal because Christianity is rarely portrayed correctly in cinema (even Christian-based cinema). On the other hand, I am much more inclined to see this film that I was Expelled, which I knew was going to be agenda-driven. We shall see. And ever since I saw Jennifer Connelly in Dark City, I have been a fan.



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