"And while Chris Rock has grown into a brilliant comedian, he should never again be asked to say a line in a movie that he didn't write himself. "

Dogma left me feeling really uncomfortable. And it wasn't about blasphemy or sex or violence or a female God. It was the painful conclusion that Kevin Smith is not a good director. He is a strong writer and an even stronger creator of ideas. But the ideas that Smith had on this one were sabotaged in one part, by his inability to effectively bring to life much of what he put on the page and in the second part, by his lack of perspective as the man pruning his own garden. The best version of what Smith put on film would probably be about 90 minutes. He could have done the whole thing most effectively, starting on the screenplay level, in 60. What we have is 2 hours and five minutes of some good moments, some dead moments and a lot of characters telling us the dogmatic exposition, a lot of Ben and Matt goofing on each other and a lot of Kevin Smith trying to say absolutely everything he wants to say regardless of whether it's still entertaining.

In a clever opening on-screen letter to viewers, Smith asks that we don't take this "trifle of a movie" too seriously. He was probably kidding. But he was right. One of the biggest disappointments of this film is, indeed, that it is so tame. Maybe I'm a jaded, old organized religion basher, but saying that religion has been bent into a reflection of the human condition, mostly for worse, is not exactly shocking. The specific twists in this film tend to feel like jokes, not deep or rich insights. As often as not, the joke is precisely the same. White men wrote the Bible, so Jesus' ethnicity was re-written, God's sex was (and is, apparently, always, though Smith seems to waffle on this one) re-written and loopholes were added and somehow, God has to abide by them (???). Yet, as an audience, we are supposed to really be amused by jokes based on sex, violence and excrement. Are those the jokes of multi-cultural insight? This is the one area where I feel a bit like an old fart. (Old = not funny. Fart = funny.) I'm perfectly willing to laugh at a crap joke, but the walking crap monster seems like something that was too sophisticated for "Fat Albert & The Cosby Kids". I'm willing to laugh at a muse challenged to make a living after changing professions, but is being a stripper the only way to inspire men and make a living? If there is humor in being God's hitman, aren't there some very real questions, other than the personal inconvenience of fallen angels, about who that hitman chooses to kill?

So, why am I unhappy with my feelings about this movie? Well, I'd love to be on the Kevin Smith bandwagon. I really enjoyed his Daredevil comic book series that I bought when taking my 10-year-old nephew to the comic book store and hid from him because he isn't ready for it. I know this man is smart and thoughtful. I really appreciate his choice to tackle this material. But this is not an exceptional movie. It is an overlong, overcute mess. And I don't want to be on the Kevin Smith basher list. I just wish he was a more skilled director. The same is true of Robert Rodriguez. The bigger the budget Rodriguez has for his movies, the less he seems to get. I have no problem with him being a "strap the camera on my back and let's go" kind of director. In fact, I've been hoping that Sam Raimi would go back to being that, since he's another one who seems to have moved out of his range lately.

I left the theater really depressed by this whole phenomena. I bought Alan Rickman as the Voice of God before I walked into the theater. You have to give me more than that. If Alanis Morrisette is what a teen might see as God, cool. But does a God who can't communicate seem to be anything more than a pretty meaningless attention-grabbing "wouldn't that be cool" gag, really? And while Chris Rock has grown into a brilliant comedian, he should never again be asked to say a line in a movie that he didn't write himself. `Nuff said.

After Dogma, I decided to go and sacrifice myself on the altar of publicity, set up on the fourth floor of the festival's headquarters. As I've written, I've avoided Publicistville, focusing on being a critic this week. But hey, you gotta do what you gotta do. There is something wonderful about talking to great talent. One of the seductions of this job is to just talk to everyone. It certainly makes the job of the publicist easier. You would be surprised how many press days at this festival are set before the first press screening. Anyway, tomorrow's schedule now included Bill Forsyth and Soren Kragh-Jacobsen, who directed Mifune, one of my multi-fest favorites. And I got to see old friends and new. Everytime I find myself telling the absolute truth to publicists about what I don't want to do, I kind of expect the hand of God to come down and electrocute me and I end up experiencing quite the opposite. I have the unusual position of a kind of absolute freedom in my work. When some try to pigeonhole me into "you cover (add film job) most," I'm probably interested in someone else. I hated The Astronaut's Wife, but I felt terrible having to cancel a chat with Clea Duvall when Yahoo! had a (very rare) technical problem. She is talented. Thus, she is interesting. I don't want to smile and pretend. I want to be passionate about interviews and everything else I do. And one begins to wonder about whether the system of counting mentions over counting quality of thought is anything other than destructive to the idea of creating art of any kind. Sigh. Lecture over. You may now go on to my comments on The Jaundiced Eye. Uh...been there, watched that. Sorry. This is a well-made documentary, but does another false molestation accusation documentary add to our communal conscienceness? Mind you, if you do a Holocaust doc, you had better be bringing something new to the table to get approval from me. Same here. If you can't beat the McMartin Pre-School horror show or be telling your story to remind us that people think things have changed but haven't or be telling a story with a twist that I couldn't tell you was coming before entering the darkened square, don't ask me for an opinion, because you won't like it.

Next!

You come all the way to Toronto, Ontario to show your movie and the projectionist manages to get it slightly out of focus for more than one reel. Ouch. That was the first distraction while watching Bill Forsythe's sequel to Gregory's Girl called Gregory's Two Girls. (Well, not the first. The first was the images of silent comedians on the theater curtain and my thought that it should be Elvis Presley and Lou Costello's instead of Abbott & Costello because I wonder how many people would get the "Elvis & Costello" joke. But that was just me being weird.)

The third distraction was the return of Gregory's Girl star John Gordon Sinclair. I spent the entire movie trying to make some sort of visual connection between the teen actor I remember and the 30-something I was watching in this movie. I know it's the same guy, but I couldn't make the connection for the life of me. Likewise, the Dougray Scott who was in Ever After, just shot Mission: Impossible 2 and who is about to appear in The X-Men didn't look like the guy I've seen. He looks more like the Dougray Scott I've seen than Sinclair looks like the Sinclair I saw so long ago, but okay, I have to get over it. (Scott did remind me, however, of the Dragoon Captain in Princess Mononoke.)