As The Golden Compass nears its release, the controversy I knew was coming is hitting a boiling point. The film is based on a great trilogy of books called His Dark Materials. The first entry in this series is The Golden Compass. In the final book, a being referred to as “The Authority," meant to represent a representation of God is destroyed. I could get into the debate regarding this film but I won’t, especially since my main man Brad did a stellar job sifting through all the hubbub.

Anyway, this is really just more of the same, isn’t it? We’ve been through this all before, you and I. The art is a sin. The art is an abomination. To see it is a sin, etc.. You know the score. In fact, let’s take a walk down memory lane and recall some of the last religious films to ruffle some feathers.

Dogma
One day, when I decide to really screw up the human gene pool and have kids and they ask me what God looks like, I’m going to sit them on my lap, blow the dust off of my copy of Jagged Little Pill (don’t make that face, you know you own it too), show them Alanis Morissette and break the news that God’s a Canadian. I’ve been mentally preparing myself for this moment for some time now. I might need a few more years, though.

When I went to see this I had to walk past a bunch of picket lines and people saying they felt sorry for me. I just felt sorry they had to carry those big signs in the sun all afternoon. When I left the theater, I don’t recall having sold my soul to the devil or anything so I may have made it out okay. I just wanted to buy a Buddy Christ.

The Da Vinci Code
You might have heard of this movie. It got some press. I think I’m the only person on this planet that will admit to enjoying this cherry-picking, half-mindless adventure. And really, all the hubbub did was open this movie to even greater box office heights. The Vatican got their garments up in a bunch over nothing if you ask me. Nobody even talks about this movie anymore.

The Passion of the Christ
Man this movie still polarizes people to no end. The debate that followed this flick never really went away because of Gibson’s best impression of a house going down in flames one night in Malibu. But I still defend his movie to no end, with the vigor and might of Aragorn at Helm’s Deep. I’m not what you would call “a believer,” but I admire this film for what it is.

Last Temptation of Christ
This is how you know you are going to a private school: your teachers start lecturing to you that you should not, definitely not see Martin Scorsese’s new film that depicts Jesus Christ struggling with temptation. Man, when this movie came out I wasn’t interested in Scorsese or controversy or any of that noise. I had enough on my plate with trying to decide what G.I. Joe I was going to buy every Saturday (using my four-dollars allowance to buy the three dollar and fifty cent action figures). But I knew all about the ruckus this movie caused. I was going to a Catholic school in the Bronx at the time and despite my teacher’s “hints” not to see the movie, my mother was adamant she take me. Of course, I had no interest in the movie. It looked boring as hell and I already saw Willem Dafoe play Jesus Christ in Platoon.

Priest
I still have pretty bad intentions for this movie because it really pissed me off. Not because of its depiction of a priest struggling with his homosexual feelings… but because I was in high school (again, Catholic) at the time and there was a class field trip planned for Disney the year this came out. Yeah, well that baby was canceled because us Christians were boycotting the Mouse House, parent company to Miramax which was distributing the film and my chances to ride Space Mountain was caught in the crosshairs. I think Miramax eventually sold the film to Lionsgate but by then it was too late. A boy was made sad.

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Dre writes three times a week for Film.com. Email him!

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