But I do hate that Tom Hanks. Did you see Terminal? Ugh! Puke!

For once, I'm siding with a God's Representative On Earth (Warden of Heaven?) in their effort to suppress Hollywood Crap Productions.

Also, a "flask of antimatter"? Do you get these at Home Depot or something?

Also also, we need a Darth Vader icon.

> who seem unable to distinguish fact from cinematic fiction.

Or even completely made up guff by the Church from completely made up guff from Dan Brown

...designed to test for scientists when the revolution comes. If you can read it and never flinch once then you're definitely not a scientist. I gave up on the thing as I started to look like I had a nervous tic.

was solely a festering pit of evil. I shall revise my opinion forthwith. Dan Brown's status in my pantheon of annoying oxygen and paper thieves, however, shall remain undisturbed

"Of course, it may be that the organisation responsible for some of the greatest works of art and literature in Western civilisation simply thinks Brown's books and the films based on them are a bit crap"

They are incredibly formulaic as stories and very simply structured. The only thing exceptional about them apart is the sheer amount of real world details given in them, hiding how shallow it actually is, and giving them a credability that most other works of fiction don't have.

"The Da Vinci Coeds", a ruthless and unscrupulous professor has his way with female undergraduates unable to distinguish the profound from the bogus. Opening in theatres worldwide July!

... "Ron Howard accuses Pope of scuppering Dan Brown movie" and not "Ron Howard realises he's made another shitbag of a film based on Dan Brown's OTHER ridiculous entry for his junior school's creative writing competition"...?

Curious.

SO if God is all powerfull why does he allow Jim Carry movies?

Angles and daemons - a voyage from trigonometry into causal determinism (or thermodynamics - much like dan brown I'll start writing and see where it goes).

IanF: "I have to wonder why Ron Howard feels he has a (god-given?) right to film in any building he chooses."

I got the impression he felt he had the right because he'd previously been given permission, which was subsequently revoked due to Vatican influence. Making a feature film isn't like making a video for YouTube, you don't just roll up to a church with a crew of thirty and a few million euros worth of kit and ask "Mind if we shoot a couple of scenes here?" These things are generally planned several weeks (if not months) in advance, so to have your film permit revoked just days before you'd planned to film can throw a serious kink in your schedule. Not to mention the rewrites and replanning involved in shooting replacement scenes in places where you do have permission.

4 Ron Howard:

"When you come to film in Rome, the official statement to you is that the Vatican has no influence".

And when you come to New York you are probably told that the Mob has no influence.

And when you come to Hollywood you are probably told that the various luminaries of the silver screen have no influence.

The real problem would seem to be that when you come to Rome, the luminaries of Hollywood's Silver Screen have no influence. You should have networked more when you were in New York.

:o)

AC, you didn't dare so I googled it for you. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1280507/

Just as his film is hitting the cinema, not back when it was being filmed and the (alleged) problems occurred.

sounds better than the alterntive sell me a ticket

just like Hitler did in WWII, oh wait.

Wasn't 'Angels and Demons' written BEFORE 'The Da Vinci Code'? Which means Dan Brown was still developing his powers as an author, so it's unlikely we'll see the later novel's 'extraordinary' prose, 'astonishing' plot and 'thrilling' character development.

But I reckon it will still read like he had the wikipedia guide to Rome open in front of him.

At a wild guess:

'Langdon walked across St. Peter's Square, distinguished from the territory of Italy only by a white line along the limit of the square, where it touches Piazza Pio XII. St. Peter's Square is reached through the Via della Conciliazione which runs from the Tiber River to St. Peter's. This grand approach was constructed by Benito Mussolini after the conclusion of the Lateran Treaty.

'It was only then, as he perused the menu in a family-owned trattatoria that he saw the reflected image of the lesbian assassin nun wielding the cold fusion assault rifle.'*

Word to Ron Howard and Tom Hanks - you gave us 'Apollo 13' for crissakes - why are you making this shite???

* If anyone has a couple of million burning a hole in their pocket I am willing to write the rest of my screenplay - complete with the lesbian assassin nun, the cold fusion assault rifle, prominent placement of the product of your choice (Coca Cola, Pepsi, the Shroud of Turin you name it, I'll cram it in between the roof-top car chase and the CGI sidekick), Dolph Lundgren and/or Jean Claude van Damme in a dirty green vest as the mitteleuropean action hero who dies a gory death at the hands of the Provisional wing of the Salvation Army, and a huge, deeply satisfying climactic explosion which will have me venerated by hearing specialists for years to come. Think Michael Bay without the taste and restraint but with gothic chanting on the soundtrack.

I made the gross mistake of

(a) reading Digital Fortress (in my defence, I was on holiday, and it was the only book available after having exhausted my books and moved on to the girlfried's)

but worse (b) reading it after having just completed Neal Stephenson's masterpeice 'Cryptonomicon' - a book about cryptography from an author who knows what he's talking about. If any further proof of Dan Brown's ignorance of all matters relating to computers and cryptography, 'Cryptonomicon' is it.

Neal Stephenson = genius

Dan Brown = pratt (though rich pratt, which is possibly more annoying, making squillions of dollars from atrocious fiction)

It's not obvious from this story, but googling indicates the permits were not revoked - they were never issued in the first place.

What a snooty article!

"The only thing exceptional about them apart is the sheer amount of real world details given in them", It's unfortunate that all the "detail" he puts into his books is a load of crap. He can't get anything correct.

1. Anyone who thinks the Vatican has no influence on Rome is an idiot. ROMAN Catholic Church should have been the first clue.

2. Anyone who thought the Vatican (or Roman officials) would allow filming in their churches for this book is an idiot. They have every right to deny the filming. The timing seems questionable, but then we don't have all the information, either. I wouldn't trust either side (the Vatican or the filmmaker) to speak the entire truth.

3. "Angels and Demons" was Dan Brown's FIRST book, written BEFORE Da Vinci Code. If you're going to comment about them, at least get the chronology correct.

4. I personally like Dan Brown's books for the most part, but then I read them for their entertainment value with no preconceived notions or ideas. Different people, different tastes. I had a hell of a time getting through Neuromancer, having to give it two attempts because I found the writing style extremely difficult to read.

5. Anyone reading ANY fiction book, or watching ANY movie or television show expecting it to be technically accurate is an idiot. Yes, those of us in the computer industry know that CSI, 24, etc are completely ridiculous from an IT perspective. And I would venture a guess that it's the same for everything -- that medical shows are completely unrealistic in the medical work, that the cop and lawyer shows are completely unrealistic from a law standpoint, etc. Sit down and realize that they're written for ENTERTAINMENT, not to be graded on their technical accuracy. The writers do what they do to make the show/movie/book more interesting to the general public. Whenever you feel yourself getting all worked up because what the characters are saying or doing isn't technically accurate, remind yourself of one very important thing -- IT'S FICTION.

Having said that, I'll venture a guess and say that this movie, like most movies based on books or video games, will suck. Speaking of which, anyone who hasn't seen Max Payne (the movie) yet -- don't. What a pathetic waste of time.

I believe his proper title is actually Darth Ratzinger.

It's already been scuppered. Have you seen the book? Should get an award for most inane plot ever.

On a different note, please could someone tell me why my Mac wants to replace scuppering with Scuppernong?