"And he ran through the streets shouting 'Eureka!'

...which means, 'I'm naked!' - Amy DeC, age twelve-ish.

So, I flew back to San Francisco early this morning (so early that it feels like it was yesterday). I've got a bad cold, and I'd woken up at an ungodly hour, and I'd taken some Ny-Quil with the hope that it would help me sleep on the plane, so I wasn't much in the mood for anything at all. It was one of those ginormous United flights with the little television in the seat, so when they announced that one of the options for the in-flight movie would be "The DaVinci Code," I thought to myself, "well, I guess I'll be watching Animal Planet."

On reconsidering the situation, however, it seemed like an ideal opportunity to review the movie without giving Mr. Brown any of my papist custom-- which is to say, it was free, and it seemed unfair to make fun of something that I hadn't seen. Furthermore: opportunities for witty blogging! What was there to lose?

Well. I can now make fun of the first twenty minutes, because that's as far as I got. If you want more, I'd recommend (of course) Got Medieval's several articles thereon.

(Scene One)
Apparently, French men do not need to speak French, even amongst themselves. It is sufficient to speak with a French accent.

Stephan K. complained that Silas doesn't look sufficiently albino, but my complaint is that, (gathering information from my friendship with the aforementioned Stephan), I consider it highly unlikely that someone with albinism would be able to aim a gun with such accuracy.

(Scene Two)
a) Symbology?

b)I guess that once you're tenured at Harvard, you can give lectures at conference without new evidence or conclusions. Nobody will notice (because you're tenured at Harvard), and attractive yuppie women will flock to your booksignings (see Scene Four)

(Scene Three)
Opus Dei monk? Even if you go in for all of the sacred feminine hoo-ha, you should at least get your facts right. Opus Dei doesn't have monks, this is why people think they're weird. Continuing the film's goal of preventing the French language from ever being spoken on screen, he speaks conversational Latin, which for some reason, makes me giggle.

I skipped the self-flagellation part, so the only think I'll say about that is that I still think "The Crypto-Flagellants of Thuringia"** would be a great name for a band.

(Scene Four)
What are all of these people doing at an academic book-signing? Maybe it's because the academic looks just like Tom Hanks...

(Scene Five)
Is that a Bishop with a private jet?

(Scene Six)
Aha! French! But what is this? "It's a Fibonacci sequence!" Well, let's give the star cryptographer a cookie.

(Scene Seven)
Doesn't it break something like six hundred rules of protocol to have a woman working on the murder and desecration of her own grandfather? (N.B. These rules are also extremely flexible in such shows as "Law and Order," "CSI," and my own favorite, "The X-Files.")

...and that was when I couldn't stand it anymore. My apologies.




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* I love Animal Planet, and the Food Network.
** Phrase from a Prof. Caroline Bynum lecture.