1999 Directed by Kevin Smith
The latest battle in the eternal war between Good and Evil has come to New Jersey in the late, late 20th Century. Angels, demons, apostles and prophets (of a sort) walk among the cynics and innocents of America and duke it out for the fate of humankind.
Ben Affleck Matt Damon Linda Fiorentino Jason Mewes Chris Rock Alan Rickman Jason Lee Salma Hayek Kevin Smith Alanis Morissette Bud Cort George Carlin Brian O'Halloran Janeane Garofalo Walt Flanagan Scott Mosier Dwight Ewell Nancy Bach Barret Hackney Jared Pfennigwerth Kitao Sakurai Betty Aberlin Jeff Anderson Mark Joy Nancy Mosser Guinevere Turner Ethan Suplee Bryan Johnson
Jay and Silent Bob 4 - Dogma
drinking game: take a shot each time ben affleck resists his urge to kiss matt damon
Good Will Hunting meets angels and demons.
"You people. If there isn't a movie about it, it's not worth knowing, is it?"
If you went back to 1999 I don't think anyone would believe you if you told them this was Kevin Smith making a more clever and restrained film. Who would have thought that Smith, the comic book-loving pothead would want to make a religious commentary comedy set in the View Askewniverse.
Dogma is a dialogue-heavy road movie where Matt Damon and Ben Affleck play two murderous fallen angels that discover a loophole in Catholic Dogma that could help them get back to heaven. The cast of characters is great as we get George Carlin, Chris Rock, Salma Hayek,…
A very hilarious and fun film from Kevin Smith. From what I've seen this is easily my favorite Kevin Smith film. The cast was amazing and I had a blast watching all of them! This film is so unique and original, I loved it. Dogma is simply fantastic!
Thank you Dogma for breaking my Kevin Smith curse, the lingering fear that I would never come to greatly enjoy a work by him because of his idiosyncratic writing and humor, one that falls firmly into a camp that I can appreciate on paper but revile at in practice. All without actually sacrificing his sensibilities so, all-in-all I really commend this film.
Anyways, the movie itself is extremely ambitious for Smith, a veritable cross-country biblical epic that skewers modern religious, well, dogma, through its re-appropriation of religious figures: in this case fallen angels who seek to re-enter heaven through a ritual loophole that raises all sorts of questions on the minutiae of theology. The implications of their success essentially nullifies…
“Were they sent to Hell?”
“Worse: Wisconsin.”
Fuck Harvey Weinstein.
On that note, fuck Harvey Weinstein for not giving Kevin Smith the rights to this masterpiece. This deserves to be preserved and not $100 on eBay.
I liked this a whole lot more on this rewatch than I did my first viewing. When I first watched it, I didn't see it as the entirely entertaining, often pretty hilarious and relatively clever comedy from Kevin Smith that I do now. I didn't care much about religion in general - not that I really do nowadays, either - but I understood much more of it now then I did back in the day. Dogma has a great cast going for it, as well as a very interesting (and, of course, controversial) subject matter that is made worthwhile in checking out due to Smith's signature silliness running amuck throughout it's story.
Fun fact: my aunt Marie Elena is included…
One of the things that most people seem to overlook when discussing Kevin Smith is how brilliant a writer he is. He courts a fair amount of controversy with the profanity in his films, but it's usually just how a lot of his protagonists really talk, so that social realism (especially in the likes of Clerks) seems to speak to his generation of film-goer. His View-Askewniverse sets him out as an independent director who rarely conforms to suit others, and that's the reason why I like his stuff so much.
Dogma is the shit. A film so cleverly constructed and so funny that I can't imagine how anyone took it seriously. Yep, I'm talking about you, The Catholic Church, a…
Dogma is simultaneously really dumb and a little smart. It certainly isn't theologically rigorous, but it is an imaginative take on Christianity, transposed to a broader myth-inflected story structure and Kevin Smith's well-known vulgar wit. The film is very crude, but the brilliant dialogue shines through. These characters have strong personalities and Dogma is just an enjoyable, funny movie. The mockery of Christianity and very specific elements of doctrine seems personal and reveals a few insights on the nature of belief, faith, and free will. Though these things are examined in a simple, street philosophy manner, without anything pretentious. As a filmmaker Smith is a poor craftsman, and the bigger scope of Dogma exposes that he has no sense of…
I know I've just watched this like 3 weeks ago, but I simply can't watch a movie series and skip one of its movies.
