Today’s ‘Review Tuesday’. I’m Jewish, so the New Testament’s not my book. But the Old Testament is. Apparently the Authorised King James Version is the Church of England’s 17th century translation of both testaments [1]. And apparently it contains the phrase ‘And it came to pass’ 452 times in its 31,102 verses (i.e. 1.45%) [2]. In darling Meg’s Spoiler Alert comment [3] on my 19 October ‘Review Tuesday’ review of Ghost Town starring Ricky Gervais [4], she confirmed my prediction that Gervais plays a similar role in his subsequent film: the 2009 comedy The Invention of Lying [TIOL] – which he co-wrote and co-directed . Last Friday evening Sweetheart Vivienne, Dieter and I watch TIOL [5, 6] – and darling Meg was correct: ‘It came to pass’. TIOL’s a US romantic comedy with a paranormal bent. It’s set in a modern US town where everyone’s 100% truthful because lies are unknown. Then Mark (Gervais’s character) begins lying, which causes his life to take a dramatic upturn. And he even gets the girl Anna (Jennifer Garner) even though Mark’s a short fat guy likely to sire short fat kids. TIOL features the ever predictable and entertaining Gervais; also several fine actors in minor roles – including Rob Lowe, Tina Fey, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Jeffrey Tambor [7]. It’s good fun with a serious subtext. But I can’t tell you a lie: it’s only worth three stars. However it sure beats reading the King James Version. For me anyway. Ho hum.
1 comment:
It is truly outrageous how many Christians insist on preaching from the Old Testament, when the whole point was this individual Jesus put a whole new twist on the traditional Jewish version, turning out something called Christianity, which seems to be very hard to practise,but about which many seem to pontificate.
Post a Comment