Wednesday, April 2, 2014

The Crime of Noah

Yes, I am talking about the movie directed by Darren Aronofsky....I am still trying to recover from my wounds the morning after (what an April Fool's joke that was!). Aronofsky should be charged with a crime against the masses....oh, I know it was just a movie, just entertainment...wait, that's just it, it was not entertaining in the least, it was just plain torture. Arrest the man (Aronfsky, not Noah).

Spoilers ahead! Please read anyway so you don't think you actually need to see this piece of crap.

Let's see, where can I start to dissect this piece of dung. Okay, let's start with the point that he is telling a Bible story. Yeah, so, under pressure Paramount decided to label the film "inspired" by the Bible story rather than being one, which ends up being accurate because Aronofsky not only took the artistic license to fill in the blanks (otherwise the movie would have been less than an hour - oh, that would have been a blessing) but he just plain out changed the story for reasons that really made no sense except he liked adding a really sick twist to the whole thing.

But, before I get into that, I just want to say this: what is wrong with telling a rich, faithful story? If you are going to tell a Biblical story, follow the Biblical story! And do so with great passion. You don't have to be a Christian or a Jew to appreciate a great story from that particular religious persuasion and even if you are a believer, you don't have to believe every detail (okay, you do if you are a die hard but that is a whole other issue) to appreciate the story and the sentiment. I just finished watching the Ramayana, the Indian epic that was over 80 episodes on YouTube (the Indian epic, The Mahabharata, is even longer) and I don't have to believe every supernatural event to enjoy immensely   the grand story and all the wisdom contained within. I am not a Christian, per se (okay, I am Hindu) and I have always found the story of Noah to be a bit peculiar and hard to understand, but I certainly can appreciate the faith of the man, to be in awe of his dedication to his God, that in the face of what had to be intense disbelief in his project and his sanity from both his family and any other human in the vicinity, he soldiered on for years, building his colossal boat.

Which brings me to my second point: what a massive amount of material for Aronofsky to work with but he didn't touch on any of that! Noah's family simply complied without question and he was so far from civilization that no one else questioned him. We really saw none of the despair Noah must have suffered through all those years leading up to the flood and really none of the despair while aboard the ark, nor none of the despair after he left the ark to start mankind over again (there were a few vague references to said despair but Aronofsky didn't waste time dealing with it). He was busy turning Noah into a psychopathic homicidal maniac who no longer follows God's (oh, excuse me, the "Creator's" will - we mustn't use the word "God" in this film because they didn't call him that back then....).

So, what drove Noah to want to kill off his granddaughters? Let me take you back through Aronfsky's convoluted illogical mess of a rewrite of the Biblical tale.

In the Bible, Noah enters into the ark with his wife and his three sons and their wives. In other words, four couples to keep renewing the earth and at least not require total incest to get things going again. But, Aronofsky decides to only let one older teenage son (the others appear to be young teenage and child) have a lady friend (Aronfsky's adopted daughter, so, maybe no biological incest, but incest just the same in my opinion - and any parent of an adopted child will tell you the thought of that child mating with one's biological child is gross). Actually, she is just his sister/girlfriend because they aren't actually married. And, Dad, sort of doesn't really think about them as having offspring because the girl is supposed to be barren. But, due to fairy magic, just when they are running toward the ark as the rain starts falling, the girl gets major horny and practically rapes bro in the woods.

The other teenage brother tries to bring a girl back to the ark - Ham, the bad boy - but Dad interferes during a human stampede and leaves the girl to get trampled on. Ham is mighty pissed because he figures he isn't going to get laid for eternity. Younger bro hasn't figured out yet he is going to be eunuch. I am not sure why adopted daughter can't screw them all, but I digress.

Anyhoo, somewhere about the time the doors close, Noah has some kind of mental meltdown and determines that humankind sucks so much, he will not allow his family to repopulate the earth. He is pretty sure all is good in that vain (I guess he can give up sex with wifey) but then he finds out his daughter is miraculously pregnant. Of course, he doesn't seem to think this is a sign from God, um...The Creator....so, he tells his family that if the young woman has a boy, she can keep it, but if it is a girl, he will kill it. Everyone is shocked and for nine months they all worry about the  sex of the baby. Now, let's not deal with logic here. If the girl got pregnant once, she can do it again, so instead of killing off all the babies, why not just knock off that girl? (And your still fertile wife while you are at it). But, no, we await the big day. The girl has two babies...two girl babies...so here comes Grandpa with a knife! And she stands there, waiting for him to stab the babies....where the hell is her brother/husband? Where are the other two boys? Where is her Mom? Oh, yeah, doing nothing. But, not to worry! At the last minute, Dad - again going his own way and not what he thinks is the Creator's (hah, got that right this time)...can't kill the girls because love overwhelmed his heart (eyeroll time).

And so the ark comes to dry land and the family disembarks. Now, instead of Noah's sons having sex with their wives, they stand around plotting how to screw sis-in-law or how many years they have to wait to do their nieces. Oh, wait, Ham saw his father naked and went wandering off to die in the wilderness alone, so only the youngest will get to bang the two babies (hopefully, when they at least can stand and speak).

There you have it. I didn't even get into the gigantic rock-angels who help build the ark and fight off the bad men and then returned to heaven having redeemed themselves. The worst of this whole movie is there wasn't a bit of spiritual wisdom shared. The television series, The Ramayana and The Mahabharata, both had very little action (and really cheesy war scenes with very early attempts at special effects) but, both series were fabulous because of the great scripts, incredible acting, the moral dilemmas, and the profound wisdom shared in each and every episode. Noah had nothing....absolutely nothing redeeming in the script (what script?), the characters, or the supposed spiritual message. The film was simply devoid of anything worthwhile...it wasn't a Bible story, it wasn't a sci-fi story, it wasn't a parable, it wasn't a story about ethics or morals, it just wasn't anything but a big, huge, soulless turd from Hollywood and I hope Aronofsky offers all moviegoers an apology for making that disaster...we deserve it.

Criminal Profiler Pat Brown

April 2, 2014

14 comments:

Dan O. said...

Good review Pat. Whatever its message was, sort of went beyond me. Instead, I just decided to enjoy the spectacle for what it was worth and I found myself happier with doing so.

Pat Brown said...

Dan, even if one ignores the perverted and lackluster religious message, the thiing just stunk! The characters were poorly developed, Noah was creepy, and I was simply bored to tears! I don't know what you found to like about it...I really don't!

guerra said...

Didn't see the film, read it was banned in several countries; I just figured it was because of some minor deviation from the biblical story, I never expected this.

Lol, "the girl gets a major horny" you do have a way with words Pat.

Anonymous said...

Is Ray Winstone allowed to swear in it?

Anonymous said...

I'd been reading U.S. film reviews and am wondering, whether you and they have been to the same feature ;-)

http://variety.com/2014/film/reviews/film-review-noah-1201130643/

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/noah-what-critics-are-saying-691680

Anonymous said...


On a different note: I just found one of the first UK reviews, which is much more in line with your thinking ;-)

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/noah-film-review-soggy-and-bombastic-9227576.html


Anonymous said...

You know Miss Brown, for a
criminal profiler, you're one
Hell of a movie critic!..lol
I swear I laughed more at this
than I have in ages about anything.

Are you really a Hindu? (I'm just
curious, I didn't know if you were
being humorous or serious.)

None of my business really if you
don't want to answer. I find a lot
of various religions interesting
from a historical perspective but
don't really adhere to any (per se)

Though I did greatly admire thomas
paines age of reason, and found it
ironic that after all the work he
put in for his cause he was pretty
much outcasted by his own country
and only had 2 people show up at
his funeral.

In the bible, there are many instances of tyranny, and other
incidents which by todays standards would make guys like
moses and others WAR CRIMINALS.
(like the senseless slaughter of
innocent women and children in
the book of numbers 31:17-18
where moses told his men to kill
off all women and children of the
midianites aside from the virgins
who were to be "kept alive for themselves.) Stoning people to
dath for various reasons like banging animals, being drunk, gay
etc.

I realize I probably suffer a bias
when it comes to religion, but what did it for me personally was
upon my brothers suicide an old
pastor friend of my family had the
NERVE the give a lecture on how suicides were hellbound, and said
we should pray nightly for my brothers Soul.

(my brother suffered a cerebral condition that contributed to his
suicidal ideations and was not even aware of what he was doing when he took his life.)

The battle between light and dark
(or whatever cliche' one chooses
to insert) is one of the oldest
concepts in history, and is an
appealing one at that..but (to
quote matt mccoughnahey from the
show true detective) if the only
reason people have for being good is the expectation of Divine reward..that person is a piece of
crap.

Whether or NOT there is a god (or group of gods) up there watching down on us all..doing good should be something one chooses simply because it is what they think is
right. (and of course even then its often a matter of perspective in many instances aside from the
most obvious of moral axioms.)

Many fundamentalist types tend to
assume that someone is incapable
of being morally upright, or doing
good if they do not belief in the
religion they subscribe to, and
(in my own view) this Ideal promotes it's own special brand of
tyranny.

Well, I apologize for ranting..
and THANK YOU for this wondrous
gem of aesthetic satire..it takes
a special type of person to be
able to make the tragedies of life
amusing in their Irony.

Jeremy.

Anonymous said...

Movie sounds like a CGI Dogville.

(may as well just watch Dogville: Russell Crowe - or anyone else- could never beat Nicole Kidman's performance)

BarbaraBee said...

Amen Pat!

Lesly said...

They started showing a trailer for it on NZ TV last week .... this is always a BAD SIGN and usually means that the film is a TURKEY!

I must say the snippets they showed put me off from ever venturing forth to spend my $20 in the cinema to see it!

Anonymous said...

Whoever told Emma Watson she could act?

Pat Brown said...

Jeremy,

Yes, I really am HIndu! (most aligned Kashmir Shaivism). One thing I feel very confident of is that life is a trip....literally and figuratively! My trip may be different than yours, may have a different purpose, may teach me different things, and have a different outcome...which does not make my trip (life) superior or inferior to yours. Hence, I have little right to comment on your "spiritual journey or progress" as being right or wrong, better or worse...it is simply yours. I can learn from your journey, you can learn from mine, and all humans contribute to each other in a very symbiotic relationship whether we realize it or not. We should all strive to make our journeys better for ourselves and others and we should appreciate the other travelers on the road.

Anonymous said...

I haven't seen the film - not interested in film adaptions to be honest - many seem to set out to deceive.

I see in your post Pat, that you reference hindu teachings - very interesting !....especially if pieced to other ancient teachings and their associated timelines put into place.

God without the "G" leaves OD add In and you get Odin or Woden or Votan there is connection, for those that join the dots.
Symbols on swords and shields and crosses can explain how the world works if one knows how to decipher...the exact workings have been told in stories metaphorically and link into the cycle of life.. aswell as the zodiac's importance.

Do we live in a Heliocentric or geocentric world or is there a second sun making it a combination of the two theories ..I know that what you are all told is Lies - some of us know the truth in a world of deceit.

who was ziusudra ? was he noah ? or was he a similar character from a previous cycle - read the Sumerians..look at the kings lists (432,000) years is 12 x 3,600 ...work out the significance of that easy piece of maths ..it tells you something very important, seek and ye shall find ....what happens on cycles?

Should all start heading for Agartha or maybe Valhalla or heaven...IN heaven as ON earth.
says the riddler

I wonder can we all fit in ...or will we perish whilst some are saved - would the truth cause a stampede and panic followed by evil deed to prevent the gates been breached.

O dear quandary.

Have the custodians of the planet we live ON allowed chaos to rule resulting in death and destruction for innocent life - while the few take shelter from withIN.

symbols are been used all the time and are all around us... they allow people in the know to talk with one another...without Mass Enlightenment ....the Morse code or sorry is that the Norse code has been cracked lol.

I have posted here on a case - you know the one I speak of Pat, there was a burgundy top with a white circle reported - a white circle and red background means something - read about the vamachara ....can you think of any other words that proceed Vam ...I have thrown out many dots to be joined to send people on a journey - it matters not to me what one thinks - I just hope that people listen and find love and peace - there will Only be one winner when the great judgement is made.

so much more I can give ..open your minds and seek the truth.

interesting link for looking at attached below...the truth Will only come to those that seek.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvpMJvv90BM

hope you see the relevance of the post Pat.

Just when they thought they had it all tied up lol - praise the saviour.

calm before the @:><@.

Kyle / Mojo.....the Om is getting loud.

Anonymous said...


43,200 correction to above post (apologies) ...multiply that by first 10 kings of Summeria.

one cycle of the zodiac.

I will leave it there for now.

Kyle / Mojo