Tom's Recommended Film of the Week

Dogma

In honor of the Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to American, and I really wonder how you can call it a visit to "American" when he is only setting foot in New York city and Washington D.C., I watched one of my favorite comedies this week. Dogma is probably independent film maverick Kevin Smith’s most highly regarded film. It may also be his most widely watched and perhaps even his most fervently despised as well.

Certainly Dogma offers some of the best acting you will ever see from Ben Affleck, working with partner Matt Damon to form one of the most innovative and startlingly offbeat comedy teams ever put to film. The rest of the cast, including Alan Rickman, Jason Lee, Linda Fiorentino, Jason Mewes, Chris Rock, Salma Hayek and Smith himself, obviously had a great deal of fun making Dogma. You can see this in the film and confirm it if you watch the extra’s on the double disc set.

Dogma is right up there on par with Monty Python and the Holy Grail or perhaps even Life of Brian, when it comes to a battle of the greatest jib-jabs at the organization of religion. It’s not for the faint of heart, there's plenty foul language and if you can’t take some serious fun poking, or stand to take a good strong look at your own churches doctrines, rules and "I don’t know why! Just do it!" attitudes, then you may not enjoy this film. But if you don’t take these things all that seriously, have some faith, beliefs and ideas of your own and can contend with some pointed humor, give Dogma a try.