Kronocide

Jonathan Miller is my new idol. He is knowledgeable enough to have real conversations with the philosophers and historians he talks to, and he is empathic enough and cares enough, about the subject matter and about the human condition in general, to make you want to pay attention to what he is saying.

The program may not convince anyone, but it's not propaganda, it's a documentary on the much neglected history of an idea: that there is no God. Or maybe the history of the absence of the notion that there is one? In either case, it's educational and entertaining.

If there should be any complaints, it's that there isn't enough of it. So make sure to not miss The Atheism Tapes, the 6-part follow-up to this series, which includes the full interviews with some of the prominent thinkers that appear here.

The program is of usual BBC quality, so expect a first-class TV production.

The movie is running right now in a little window right next to this one. I knew the comic quite well and I've followed Miller's work since the 80's, and I've been reading this board, so I pretty much knew what to expect. However, one thing I didn't expect was all the goddamned, never-ending babbling. Some of it is _extremely_ expeditionary... "And then I blah blah, and I thought blah blah blah, and therefore I will now blah blah blah, and I bet you never thought of this, blah blah blah blah frigging blah BLAH!" They make Blofeld look tongue-tied! It never ends! My eeeeaaaaaaarsssss!!!!! You know, hard men don't talk incessantly. Sort of a rule of thumb that you might pick up if you watch a Sergio Leone movie. (Bet Rodriguez has never watched a spaghetti western...) Oh well, anyway. Some of it looks cool, although I can't quite figure out if it actually looks cool, or if it's just me going, "hey! that's looks exactly like the comic!" It's not really the same thing. I'm glad they had the "-Haven't seen you around in a while. -I had to kill some cops"-frame, although they softened up the dialog. Go figure.

Mickey Rourke's talk over is the only one that works, mostly because his voice is so messed up you can't really tell if he's wincing or not. Owen's is a close second, and that's just because parts of his... part, works really good as comedy. I think it was even meant as comedy. Bruce Willis is so not pulling this off. You can tell he's got nothing but grapes on his mind when he reads the first part of the voice-over. I guess he's been in enough movies to recognize cheese when he sees it, even if he's no big thinker (and never claimed to be, hey, I like the guy).

Every now and then I get an "art movie" vibe. Then I quickly realize that it's because periodically, it's boring like an art movie. I really have liked the Owen part best so far, it had some funny bits and pieces.

All in all, I don't hate the movie. I can sort of chuckle along with Miller and Rodriguez frequently enough to make it worth the watch, and that's more than I can say for most films I see. But you know something? I watched the Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes Chain of Command I and II yesterday, and in that episode of a weekly TV series for young adults, during a few scenes where Picard is tortured by the "Cardassians," there is better acting, more plot, more substance, and more actual characters, than this movie has produced in toto. And that, at the end of the day, gotta mean something.

The difference between this movie and truly bad ones is that the actors are obviously having fun. As have been suggested below, they probably came up with most of their characters and lines themselves. This is where I first noticed Michael Richards, and we used to imitate his antiques all the time when I was a teenager. All the characters except Goldblum's are, well... totally insane. Goldblum's character is the anchor of the movie, providing a center for all the madness to spin around. It also has a big heart, and a ridiculously (and ridiculous) happy ending.

The movie reminds me of Weird Al's UHF, another no-budget comedic masterpiece, also featuring Michael Richards.