Hey folks, Harry Here. Just got this one in from Godard in Philly, and he liked the film a good bit more than our man Perkins. And his points about this being a loosely edited film and how important it is to note that when dealing with a COMEDY are very very very important. Below his review is the earlier review, so here ya go...
I've been in Philly for two weeks now, and I've just been blessed with both e-mail at work and a screening of Dogma. Makes me not miss New York quite as much.
The review you posted was pretty complete, though I disagree about the length. The only part that really dragged was Jason Lee's long diatribe in a bar near the end (though he does get a good line in: "Oh no, I've seen way too many Bond movies to give away ALL the details of my plan.") The problem with audiences seeing rough cuts is that the timing on each edit is not right, so the film seems to lurch. But the dialogue is up to snuff, and Smith's ideas on religion are as smart and revelatory as his knowledge of jealous men in Chasing Amy.
Dogma is probably best viewed as a religious epic, ala Ben-Hur, but with a fictional bible story instead of an adapted one. It's blasphemous in parts, sure, but Kevin is probably gonna go to heaven after making this film. He seems to be aligned with Robert Bresson (french filmmaker) in his belief in divine grace. A true catholic no doubt!
I think Alanis makes a good god, at least for this movie. If Kevin wants to portray God as a hippie chick, she does the job real well (and she provides great comic relief for what is essentially a cameo).
The crowd really cheered when Jay and Silent Bob appeared (heck, they kind of cheered when they were foreshadowed). Miramax really found the target audience for the screening.
I'm very excited to see Dogma again when it's released; if the FX are good, then the film might end up being more moving. (I was moved by the ideas, but the flatness of the rough cut kept me from getting involved).
And yes, Kevin Smith still has a distinct lack of visual style that, somehow, looks like a Kevin Smith film.
Godard
Alright folks here we go, this is the first test screening that I've received a review from. There were rumors that a screening would occur up in New Jersey a few weeks back, but... I didn't hear a peep out of that screening.
Ok, this is an advance advance screening. As far as I know it's the first time it's been screened for an audience, and it's still a VERY VERY VERY LONG TIME till it is released. This didn't have the final music or sound or color correction or special effects or the credits. This is not the final edit, and one of the reasons for this screening was to get feedback from an audience about what did and did not work.
Perkins here, is a bit like Emperor Joseph II in AMADEUS, "Just cut out a few notes and it'll be perfect" Actually Perkins wants a few entire movements cut out, and since I haven't seen the film, or read the script (I decided I didn't want to spoil it for myself) I am not really in a position to decide. But note this is just one person's opinion on a work in progress. He gets a bit harsh at times, but hopefully I'll be getting more responses from others that attended the screening and I can tell you what other people thought of this advance print. Here you go...
Perkins here, is a bit like Emperor Joseph II in AMADEUS, "Just cut out a few notes and it'll be perfect" Actually Perkins wants a few entire movements cut out, and since I haven't seen the film, or read the script (I decided I didn't want to spoil it for myself) I am not really in a position to decide. But note this is just one person's opinion on a work in progress. He gets a bit harsh at times, but hopefully I'll be getting more responses from others that attended the screening and I can tell you what other people thought of this advance print. Here you go...
I was one of about 400-500 people to attend a screening of a work print (no final music, sound, color correction, credits, or effects) of Kevin Smith's latest, DOGMA last night. I had the opportunity to read an early draft of the script about 18 months ago and very much enjoyed it, so I was thrilled to get a chance to see the finished product.
Until it started, that is.
I won't linger on matters of the story or plot, since I think a majority of the people who check out your site already know the bare-bones story. What I will try to focus on are the film's good and bad points--at least at this stage of the game (I have heard it will screen at Cannes, but have no idea if it is close to being ready that soon).
Good Points:
Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, as the fallen angels Bartleby and Loki, respectively, are very good, and have a good rapport on-screen. Alan Rickman, who plays Metatron (the mouthpiece of God's voice), is excellent (although he looks really, really old--his makeup person did a horrible job). Linda Fiorantino is OK, although I thought she seemed older than the character she was playing (who was supposed to be 33). Jay and Silent Bob are actually good as more or less main characters in this, although there were way too many "reaction shots" of Bob making faces, etc. and these quickly became tedious.
Of course, Alanis Morrisette (spelling?) is God in this, and is in the film for all of 5 minutes (thankfully). Maybe I'm just cynical, but I think this bit of casting will look really dated in 2-3 years... Luckily, she does not speak (she does do a headstand, though). It just felt like a bit of "okay, so if we put Alanis in, we'll get 12-18 year-old girls to come see the film..." casting idea. I like the idea of a younger, feminine manifestation of God (who in the film is joking and playful), and I confess I'm at a loss to suggest who else Kevin Smith should have gotten, but Alanis, I think, will prove to be a poor choice...
Chris Rock is good--although he gets a little grating in this when he tries to be serious. Jason Lee is pretty good, I thought, as the demon who is the mastermind behind the plot of the film.
Enough about the cast. Some other good points: there's some genuinely funny lines, and I think that it takes both a satirical and serious look at what it means to have faith and believe in God. I can see where pompous Catholics are gonna be up in arms over certain things, but if they blow off the film, they'd miss very serious (and well-thought out) discussions about the nature of beliefs and organized religion and mankind's creation of the construct of evil. If that sounds philosophical, it's probably because the movie really is in many respects a serious, philosophical attempt to question WHY we believe in God and WHY we choose to believe in God in the ways we do...
BAD POINTS
Here is the biggest, most glaring problem of the whole film: IT IS TOO DAMN LONG ! The print we saw (without opening or closing credits) was 2 1/2 hours long. Truth be told, it felt to me like 3 hours. Now I'm in no way against long movies, but I do believe in the general philosophy that comedies should generally be between 90-110 minutes. Any longer and you lose momentum, and boy did this movie lose momentum.
Actually, an even bigger problem facing Mr. Smith and his editor now is that there is no obvious things to cut. I mean, I could suggest two very quickly (the boardroom sequence where Loki goes on a killing spree and the whole "Fat Albert" sequence that--if you read the script or followed the rumors, you know what I'm talking about), but the problem is that the movie is so dependent upon characters explaining what is happening/going to happen that cutting whole sequences or scenes isn't really possible to get down the length. For example, while the boardroom killing spree scene could, I think, somewhat easily be cut (BTW, Kevin, it isn't nearly as funny or biting as you think it is), the "Fat Albert" Scene is problematic because the scene introduces an important character (Serendipity), and because the whole character's introduction is worked into precisely the part I'd cut entirely. Then that scene is followed by a painfully long sequence where Serendipity explains certain plot points to Bethany (Linda Fiorantino), which just seemed to go on and on and on and on...
See, the main problem I realized, now that I've both read the script and seen a work print of the film, is that too much of the film is characters getting introduced (different demons, angels, muses, apostles, etc.) and then EXPLAINING who they are, what they're doing, their life history, etc... It just TOO MUCH TALKING. The thing is, though, that to understand the story you really do need to know everything the characters say--because much of it comes into play later on in the film. This is the fundamental problem of the movie, and also why I don't see how they can reasonably cut 30-40 minutes (which is what I would shoot for) from the print I saw last night. There's just too much story that would be lost by cutting that much.
However, I think the film also reveals an important thing about Smith's writing--his dialogue is good and, generally speaking, he creates good characters, but he lets them talk way too much without DOING anything. He seems almost incapable of developing a story visually or advancing the plot without using dialogue to do it. That's not just the sign of a poorly crafted script, it is the sign of a director who doesn't know what he's doing.
Along those lines, from a directing standpoint, the film is fairly flat in it's appearance (yes I know the film will be color corrected--that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about how dead the space within the frame looks throughout the movie. There's just no dynamic to any shots.). Also, in several scenes, Smith uses close-ups of characters to such an extreme that I almost forgot the characters spatial relation to each other. For example, in an early scene Metatron is trying to convince Bethany to take up the "crusade" which then becomes the focus of the film. In a scene at a restaurant, Bethany is shot using one lens in a close-to-medium shot, whereas Metatron is shot using a different lens and almost exclusively in close-up. The effect is rather jarring from an aesthetic point of view, and I doubt any seasoned director or cinematographer would have allowed such a thing to happen. I'm telling you, it made me appreciate just how hard directors and DP's work to make the things they do look invisible to audiences. There is an art to directing, and Smith hasn't got it.
I hate to be so negative in this review, because I really did LOVE the script. I loved CLERKS, I loved CHASING AMY, and I'm even ridiculed by my friends for defending MALLRATS as a good, if flawed, film. But after seeing DOGMA, I can only say that maybe Smith needs to take a step back and learn his craft (both writing and directing) a little better before trying to do another ambitious film like this one.
Note to Kevin Smith: don't listen to Bob Weinstein or your fans telling you you're a genius. Look at other films and then look at yours. You have a way to go before you become a polished writer/director. You have the talent. You just have to learn the craft better. You have a great film in you someday. This just isn't the one.
Harry, I can't keep track of all your spies' names, so if this hasn't been used before, you can call me
Perkins
