More News on The Ten

There are a couple of new pieces of information on forthcoming comedy The Ten (produced by and starring Paul Rudd). First up distributors City Lights Pictures, have a Executive Summary PDF featuring pictures of all the stars. There's no real new information, but is more interesting than the film's official website at the moment

Secondly, Film Stew has a decent article, which includes a couple of interesting pieces of information. Firstly, as FilmChat) has already noted

Shot entirely on location in New York, save for a Mexico City vignette involving a certain Jesus (Justin Theroux),
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in which he - as Jesus - picks up an American tourist (Gretchen Mol) and has a romantic fling, all to set up a resounding punch line that neither Rudd or Stern will reveal

I'm hesitant to jump into condemning this before I've seen it, after all this could all take place in a fantasy sequence in someone's head. Nevertheless, I'm fairly confident that certain groups won't wait to see the context of this scene before flaming it. It sounds very much that this is, of course, neither the Jesus of history, nor the Christ of Faith, but the increasingly familiar Jesus of 21st century post-Christian pop-culture. It probably says something about the significance of the real Jesus that there still appears to be mileage in this after both South Park and YouTube have given it such a thorough working over. Anyway, it will be, ahem, interesting, to see how this works out.

with vignettes like the one inspired by Thou Shall Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Wife. In that one, Marino himself plays Dr. Richie, a convicted murderer who finds himself thrown into prison with a convict, Big Buster, who instantly declares Marino his wife. That is, until another new inmate (Daily Show correspondent Rob Corrdry) takes a liking to Marino's Richie and covets him as his own wife. Envision a preposterously sappy romance, but set among three men in the slammer.

I guess this will probably notch the rating up a bit! I'm glad they used the words "sappy romance" as otherwise this section could be quite grim. It's worth noting how, again, this episode could also fit in with one or two others (such as "Thou Shalt not Commit Adultery").

Finally not sure what to make of this:

Shot in July and early August, The Ten features 75 speaking parts, about 20 of which are of the substantial variety. It is Rudd's first time out as a producer, and both he and Stern are ready for the conservative blog attacks when theatrical release finally rolls around. "It's a loose interpretation," Rudd insists, "but whenever you're doing anything about the Ten Commandments, there are going to be people who are going to be upset."

Part of me says "true, I can see why it's worth just ignoring them and doing it how you want to". On the other hand though, that's what Mel Gibson tried to do, and I certainly wish he had listened a little harder to his critics. The idea behind this premise sounds amusing, and a potentially worthy subject for a comedy, but, if the Jesus scene plays as it sounds, then it seems more like going out of your way to deliberately offend people (both Christians and Muslims) when there's no real need. As I say, I hope the final product shows my fears to be unfounded. Time will tell.