• Bible Films Blog

    Looking at film interpretations of the stories in the Bible - past, present and future, as well as preparation for a future work on Straub/Huillet's Moses und Aron and a few bits and pieces on biblical studies.


    Name:
    Matt Page

    Location:
    U.K.












    Friday, January 11, 2008

    The Ten - Review

    Years of playing in a rugby club have left me pretty thick skinned. After a decade of changing room banter, I'm pretty much unflappable when it comes to being offended. Which leaves me in a difficult position when reviewing David Wain's The Ten, because it didn't really offend me, even though I can't help feeling it probably should have. Unless you're similarly unoffendable, I have to advise you steer clear of this. Certainly it goes too far for the majority of Christians, and I'm amazed that it's escaped the ire of some of the volatile sections of the Christian press.

    None of which will overly concern Wain and his ensemble cast. Their aim is clearly for envelope-pushing, taboo-breaking, bawdy comedy, and, it has to be said, they are rather good at it. Perhaps it's because the film's surrealism makes everything so absurd, or because beneath the silliness of it all its satire is occasionally wickedly effective. Some people might think that I should probably give this film a bad review just on principle, yet that would be neither honest nor fair and it certainly wouldn't be accurate.

    The Ten is effectively a shortened version of Kieslowski's Dekalog for fans of American, gross-out humour. Like Kieslowski's film, the ten short films which comprise The Ten sometimes map to more than one commandment, and do not always support their conclusion. The characters from the various stories crop up in smaller roles in other segments, whilst Paul Rudd's host character acts as a kind of "watcher" providing a continuous presence throughout the film.In contrast to Kieslowski's film, however, the film is more about entertainment than serious moral exploration. That's not to say moral exploration is entirely absent. Indeed the opening skit's take on the fickleness of celebrity culture is spot on, and will, no doubt, ring true for one or two members of the cast. Stephen Montgomery is forced to spend the rest of his days living in the ground after a tragic sky diving accident, but unexpectedly becomes a star, grabbing headlines, interviews, a cult fan base and even his own sitcom. Eventually, though he becomes self obsessed, falls foul of the law and is caught in media scandal. It's far from co-incidental that his girlfriend is played by Winona Ryder, whose character also features in the "Thou shalt not steal" episode.

    It's perhaps the second section which has the most potential to offend. A woman (Gloria) travels to Mexico and gains a sexual awakening at the hands of a local carpenter named Jesus. He appears to be normal until one day he suddenly dashes off across the water to grab her some flowers. Astonished, Gloria questions him and he eventually reveals that he is the real Jesus, but that he's not quite got around to bringing about Armaggeddon because it's such a lot of work.

    Other sections tread slightly safer, though no less eccentric ground: two neighbours engage in a ridiculous attempt to outdo each other by buying a huge number of CAT scan machines, a woman runs off with a ventriloquist's dummy, and a surgeon is jailed after leaving a pair of scissors inside his victim "as a goof". That said, other segments of the film do return to more risky territory such as the story which reunites us with surgeon in jail. There he is struggling to decide which of his two fellow inmates should get to be the one who rapes him. It's both utterly appalling and yet also brilliantly written.

    What's impressive about The Ten is the way in which it manages to alternate the style of the various segments without losing the flow of the film as a whole. One section is partially animated, another is partially subtitled, some are parody, others merely absurd. It even manages to develop the linking sections into its own narrative where Woody Allen films such as Annie Hall are not only discussed, but also evoked.But Wain reserves the best segment until last, with his take on keeping the Sabbath holy (something I suspect is deliberate as this commandment usually appears at number 4). In a plot resembling the Simpsons episode where Homer skips going to church, Oliver feigns illness in order to grab himself a relaxed Sunday morning. Somehow he ends up spending the morning naked, and he finds the experience so surprisingly liberating that the following week he invites his friend, who later invites his own friends starting a movement which grows and grows. It's done so well that it well and truly skewers all those male bonding movies like Fight Club and The Full Monty, whilst simultaneously providing a suitably amusing finale.

    In many ways The Ten's surreal humour, and its controversial take on a religious subject, make it something of a successor to Life of Brian. And like that film it is actually funny - although it takes a little while to get used to its unique brand of humour. Whilst it's hard to imagine that The Ten will ever become as popular inside the church as Life of Brian has, there is certainly some common ground.

    Ultimately, then, The Ten is the kind of film that I could recommend to almost no-one, but that, nevertheless, I have to admit I enjoyed. Which leaves me wondering whether my own conscience has given up the ghost, and permitted the rest of me to have a great time at the wake.

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    Tuesday, December 04, 2007

    The Ten Coming to DVD

    I was disappointed not to see David Wain's The Ten this summer, particularly as there have been two other movies released this year that also dealt with material from the Book of Exodus (the others being the animated version of The Ten Commandments and Penny Woolcock's Exodus).

    However, looks like it's finally due to come out on DVD on the 15th January 2008 (although only in the US). The film's official website lists the following extras:
    * Audio commentary with David Wain, Ken Marino and Paul Rudd — plus soothing jazz and David’s parents!
    * Alternate-Take and Deleted-Scene Vignettes – over 50 minutes!
    * Bonus Interview
    * Wainy Days Episode One as seen on MyDamnChannel.com
    * Exclusive (and outrageous) Ring tones and Wallpaper
    * Plus some wild surprises!

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    Monday, July 09, 2007

    The Ten - Updated Website and Poster

    The official website for The Ten has been given a new look. There are a few new photos, including at least one that suggests that the film might push things a little too far. That said, there's enough in all the promo material to suggest it won't so I guess I'll have to wait until I've seen it. I'm still hoping that the film has something really good to offer (other than laughs for some at the offence of others).

    There's also a new poster for the film (right) which contains the film's new tagline "If He'd meant the commandments literally He'd have written them in stone."

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    Thursday, June 07, 2007

    New, Unrated Trailer for The Ten

    There's a new trailer for The Ten available on the official website. I should probably warn you, however, that anyone who is easily offended might not want to watch it. It certainly won't be passed as a PG if, and when, it gets rated. That said it's a good piece of work. There are a few funny lines and the camera work, cinematography etc. all look way above par for an indie comedy. The original teaser trailer can be downloaded from YouTube.

    There's also an brief photo piece on the cast and crew from March's Premiere, and brief references to it in a longer Premiere interview with Wain, Rudd and Marino. Finally there's an interview with director David Wain in this month's Mean Magazine. You have to buy the actual magazine to read it, but there is a collection of "intimate" photos available from the website.

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    Friday, March 09, 2007

    Teaser Trailer for The Ten

    Things are progressing apace with David Wain's Dekalog spoof The Ten. The teaser trailer is now available to view on YouTube and MySpace. It's unusual trailer for a comedy film in that it doesn't really have any jokes (most comedy trailers these days save you the price of admission by giving away all the best jokes). In fact, were it not for this shot of Winona Ryder with a ventriloquist's dummy you might not even get that this is a comedy at all.

    One moment I particularly liked is the shot of the birds which combines the Egyptian plagues with a touch of Hitchcockian menace. And, for a comedy trailer, viewed on YouTube, the photography looks impressive as well.

    In other news, the release date is now set, it seems, at 3rd August, but the film will be showing at a number of film festivals beforehand kicking off with a screening plus questions session in Texas. Given the likely hostility to the film in that area, they certainly don't seem to be flinching from their earlier position that as someone is bound to get upset they may as well just get on with it. Anyway the festival dates are:
    South By Southwest, Austin - March 10 & 11 (Meet David Wain, Paul Rudd & Ken Marino)
    Cleveland Film Festival - March 24 & 25 (David Wain in person)
    AFI Dallas - March 31 (Ken Marino in person)
    Philadelphia Film Festival - April 5 (David Wain in person)
    Sonoma Valley Film Festival - April 11-15
    Sarasota Film Festival - April 13-22
    Independent Film Festival of Boston- April 25-30
    Indianapolis Film Festival - April 25-May 4
    Berkshire Int'l Film Fest - May 17
    Nantucket Film Festival - June 13-17

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    Tuesday, January 30, 2007

    The Ten: First Reviews and a Release Date

    David Wain's Ten Commandments spoof The Ten has been playing at Sundance Film Festival over the last couple of weeks, and the first few reviews are now in.

    Fastest to the draw, as ever, are Variety where the reviewer is keen to stress the film's bad taste, (something, it seems, he generally enjoyed).
    Only Christians with a very liberal sense of humor are likely to enjoy The Ten. Even lay viewers will need to be tolerant of gags as envelope-pushing as anything in Borat.

    That said, The Ten doesn't go out of its way to blaspheme or otherwise poke fun at religion; it's simply that nothing is sacred, and the tastelessness is almost always funny first and nasty second -- which is more than can be said for most mainstream comedies.
    The review also adds that Paul Rudd's character hosts the other sections, before starring in the final one himself. It also gives a fair bit of detail for each of the vignettes, which as they are on average less than 10 minutes each, may not leave much else for us to discover for ourselves (which some people like and some people don't). It's a common approach though. Scott Weinberg at Cinematical goes one further giving a one to ten rundown of each episode. He's less keen on the film overall, though.
    Basically I'd call The Ten a "glass half full" experience. While some of the skits yield precisely zero in the laughs department (far as I'm concerned, anyway), a few of 'em hit me square in the funny bone and had me chuckling like a dork...Obviously not a mainstream-style comedy that'll appeal to a wide audience of braying knuckleheads (like, say, Meet the Fockers), The Ten feels a little like a "cult flick" waiting to happen.
    Lastly, there are two reviews on the film at Ain't it Cool. The first includes a (blurred) picture of David Wain and some of the cast (including Rudd) and is fairly positive, but seems lukewarm in comparison with the second which actually uses the word "hilarious" four times in its single paragraph.

    In other news, Yahoo has the news that THINKFilm has picked up the American distribution rights, and it looks likes this will reach cinemas this summer (2007).

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    Monday, December 04, 2006

    The Ten to play at Sundance

    David Wain's Decologue comedy film The Ten has brushed up it's official website and also announced that it is due to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on the 19th January. This is a much sooner release date than I had expected, and makes me wonder when it will go on general release.

    FWIW the programme blurb for the film adds one thing I wasn't aware of, namely that it is "presented by a narrator who faces his own moral challenges".

    There's still precious little info about this film, even on David Wain's personal website. Hopefully there will be a lot more in the next month or so.

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    Thursday, October 05, 2006

    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),
    [snip]
    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.

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    Wednesday, September 06, 2006

    The Ten: Update, Interviews and Website.

    According to various reports The Ten is currently filming in New York. The original soundbites gave the impression that the film was going to be a spoof of The Ten Commandments, whereas now it sound like it will be a bawdy version of Dekalog, only compressed down to a couple of hours…and in English.

    There’s been a couple of recent interviews, one with Winona Ryder, one of the film’s stars, and one with director David Wain. Wain was interviewed by the Winona Ryder News Channel, where his comments include this excerpt:
    Basically, it’s ten stories, each inspired by one of the Ten Commandments. Characters overlap and interweave... As it happens, our film has a very pro-Ten Commandments message - the characters that break God’s law pay the price. And none of the stories are about religion.
    Then Winona herself was interviewed in “Entertainment Weekly”, and Wain’s personal website features it in JPEG form
    The movie is obviously satirical and dirty, but it’s not mean. It actually does teach the Ten Commandments… just in a very ridiculous, funny way. I’m in a few segments. In one, I fall in love with a reporter, we go on our honeymoon, and go to a ventriloquist show. I fall in love with the dummy and we run away together…That vignette is for “Thou Shalt Not Steal,” which is great. [Laughs] I was keeping my fingers crossed for that one!
    Firstly, it seems that although this is the type of movie that will probably draw criticism from certain quarters, it will ultimately uphold the importance of the Ten Commandments. By contrast, Kieslowski is distinctly ambivalent on the worthiness of some of the commandments in the Dekalog. Perhaps the only other passing similarity with Kieslowski’s films is that certain episodes will cover more than one commandment. For example, Ryder’s dummy vignette sounds like it fits both “Thou shalt not Steal”, but also “Thou Shalt not Commit Adultery”. It’s also interesting that she openly refers to her shoplifting incident, and, although it’s apparently coincidental, I wonder what attitude it reflects on her part.

    There’s also now an official website for the film which is fairly basic at the moment, just containing a list of stars and little else (no photos or publicity pictures), but it’ll be worth keeping an eye on for updates.

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    Friday, August 04, 2006

    Coming Attractions Round Up

    There's various bits and pieces going on with some of the bible films that are currently in production (to use that term loosely), none of which justify a whole post, but are worth picking up on.

    The Nativity Story
    Not much new for The Nativity Story, but there has been this article from Preview Family Movie Review where a couple of high profile Christians are already endorsing this film for biblical accuracy, and artistic merit before it's even been finished. Perhaps they have seen extensive shots from the film and read some version of the script, but I don't see how these people can say these things with any integrity when the movie is such a long way from completion. Surely they know disclaimers such as "from what I have seen" mean very little when they preface such extravagant praise (and when they can of course be cut out a a later date)?

    Color of the Cross
    Color of the Cross
    has had its website updated (and lost the quote from Bible Films Blog!), and is giving a release date of 27th October. So the Q&A that I discussed a while back is gone, but there are cast and crew biographies, and several more stills from the film. There also appears to be something by actor/director Jean Claude La Marre, but I can't get it to play.

    Gospel According to John
    Things are moving apace with The Gospel According to John. The board has made a donor declaration (if they don't get enough they'll contact you and ask you where you want to give it to instead). There's also two MP3 interviews with Bruce Marchiano about the project.

    One Night With the King
    The official website is now saying it's going to reach cinemas on the 13th October 2006. That's later than the last date that was given of September '06, and is 2 years after the date they had originally planned for (October 2004), but it is specific enough to make me hope that it might really happen this time.

    The Ten
    The Ten
    is shaping up for a 2007 release. There's not much on the City Lights website, but the IMDB now has an extensive cast list. David Wain will direct.

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    Monday, June 05, 2006

    Spoof Feature Film of The Ten Commandments in the works

    UPDATES here

    This is probably old news by now, but Jeffrey Overstreet blogged about a forthcoming parody of The Ten Commandments, to be called The Ten. The original story came from Variety. You have to subscribe to get the full story, but the interesting part is quoted below:
    City Lights Pictures and MEGA Films have teamed to finance and produce "The Ten," a comedy spoofing the Ten Commandments, to be directed by David Wain ("Wet Hot America Summer").

    Pic, written by Wain and Ken Marino, will star Paul Rudd, Amanda Peet, Jessica Alba, Ken Marino, Justin Theroux and Adam Brody.

    Jonathan Stern will produce with Morris Levy for MEGA along with Marino, Rudd and Wain. City Lights CEO Danny Fisher and Michael Almog will exec produce, Michael Califra will co-exec produce and Marcus Lansdell will associate produce.

    Filming will begin in July, primarily in New York
    I know very little about most of the film's actors. Amanda Peet was chilling in her small role in Changing Lanes, Alba did what she had to do, I guess, in Sin City (my review). I probably know the most about Paul Rudd, who is best known to me as Mike in "Friends", but was recently very funny opposite Will Ferrell in Anchorman. The fact that his name comes first suggests that he will take the Moses part, which can only be a good thing as far as this film goes.

    That said, I'm not optimistic that this will be a good film. In fact, I suspect that there will be fewer laughs in the entire thing than there was in 2 minutes of the spoof trailer Ten Things I Hate About Commandments. Furthermore, there has already been a spoof Moses film - shameless Life of Brian~ cash in Wholly Moses (1980). Even Dudley Moore and Richard Pryor's immense comic talents couldn't save that from being an unmitigated disaster.

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