"...Code" causes Christian crack-up

I don't care to read the "DaVinci Code" (pop-lit is not my bag), but I am intrigued by the movie. It has a good cast (how can anyone not love Audrey Tatou? And Ian McKellan? Fuggetaboutit.), a good director and, based on the trailers to be the kind of popcorn film that Hollywood has forgoten how to make. But what seals the deal for me is that the film (which puts forward the crazy notion that Jesus Christ-wait for it-may not have actually risen from the dead three days after being nailed to a post) is causing conniptions among right-wing religious nuts.

"Christians are under no obligation to pay for what Hollywood dishes out, especially a movie that slanders Jesus Christ and the church," said Robert H. Knight, director of the Culture and Family Institute, an affiliate of Concerned Women for America, a conservative Christian group based in Washington.

"I don't have to see 'The Devil in Miss Jones' to know it's pornography, and I don't have to see 'The Da Vinci Code' to know that it's blasphemous," said Mr. Knight, who plans to join religious leaders from groups like Human Life International and Movieguide in Washington on May 17 to announce boycott plans.

(I love this line: "Christians have not been this worked up about a movie since Martin Scorsese's Jesus stepped down off the crucifix in "The Last Temptation of Christ" in 1988.")

What can you say about a subgroup who packs the house to see their Saviour get whaled on in great, blood-splattered detail ("The Passion of the Christ") but get insulted by a popcorn thriller starring the All-American Tom fucking Hanks? get your priorities straight, people.