Movie RX
Dr. Benjamin prescribes movies that help and heal through his own experiences or the experiences of others.
Movie RX
Dogma (1999) ft. Sam of Killing 15 Minutes
What if a movie could make you laugh while seriously challenging your beliefs about faith and existence? Join us on MovieRx as we welcome Sam, a researcher and writer for the Killing 15 Minutes podcast, to explore the 1999 film "Dogma" by Kevin Smith. Together, we unpack how this irreverent yet thought-provoking movie left an indelible mark on us during our formative years.
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Thank you, hello, and welcome to MovieRx, where I prescribe entertainment, one movie at a time. I am your host, dr Benjamin PhD. What does the Ph, the PhD, stand for? Protecting Heaven's Doors, jk? I don't do that, that's not my job. Well, I got a smile out of Jen anyway, all right. Today I have the researcher and writer for the Killing 15 Minutes podcast. I have the researcher and writer for the Killing 15 Minutes podcast. It's a true crime podcast that you can find on most platforms, if not all.
Speaker 1:Live from New York State. It's Sam. Welcome, sam. Hi, dr Ben, good to have you on, and this was kind of an interesting movie you brought for me. I wasn't actually anticipating on doing a Kevin Smith movie so quick, but I'm okay with it. I really am. You picked a good one. I watched this movie for the first time shortly after it began, after I began questioning my faith as a, as a youngster kind of around 15 or 16 years old, I like as a kid. I feel like everyone kind of believes in God as a young person because they have God to explain all of those things that they don't understand. So when I got into my, into my middle teen years, I started to kind of explore a little bit and and that's kind of where this sort of started to step in for me. So I I saw it pretty close to right after it came out on on video. On video Wasn't even DVD, I know.
Speaker 1:I know Basic movie info. On this one we got the view a skew masterpiece, released in 1999, written and directed by Kevin Smith. Is it too much to say? Can I call him the great Kevin Smith Cause like really he is. He's like my favorite, like I don't know.
Speaker 1:He's one of my favorite directors, yeah, and writers, I'll call him, you know written and directed by the great kevin smith. Uh, stars ben affleck, matt damon, linda florentino, among others. Considering that the day he died I called in sick to work, I feel like I have to mention that george carlin is in this movie. Yeah, probably one of the most influential people on my life aside from my own father. Uh, george carlin was kind of a big deal for me so I loved that he was in this movie. The imdb description on this movie uh, an abortion clinic clinic worker with a special heritage is called upon to save the existence of humanity from being negated by two renegade angels trying to exploit. I guess it's okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that description does not work, for how good that movie is.
Speaker 1:It's not as spectacular as the movie is. No, I mean it's fairly accurate, though. I mean, yeah, I guess I can go along with that. It's okay, jamie, it's okay. It's not bad, it's okay. So this is the part where I move into kind of the initial movie impression. Mostly this is where I kind of talk about technical stuff and I'll go ahead and go first on that. On cinematography, I kind of felt like it is what it is Good old 90s action filming. Every movie in the 90s was kind of filmed in the same way, just like this one was. Music was great and I mean it's kind of hard to go wrong when you've got Howard Shore writing and directing the London Philharmonic. So I mean that's great. The story was a perfect blend of what I thought to be thought-provoking, intricate and, of course, weed, dick and fart jokes Kind of. How did you feel about the movie just in general?
Speaker 2:In general, I always thought that it makes you think about stuff Mm-hmm, and the fact that they did practical stunts made it even better.
Speaker 1:Yes, come on alan rickman and wings yeah, that was awesome, and really I think that he was kind of an angel in in so many different ways. Anyway, um, I think alan rickman will always be the sheriff of nottingham. To me, though, my favorite line from that movie was he told looxley that he was going to cut his heart out with a spoon and his cousin was like why a spoon, cousin? Why not a knife or an axe? And he's like because it's Dario Tweet, it'll hurt more. But this guy's voice is great and, of course, if God is going to have a voice, it's going to sound like Alan Rickman.
Speaker 2:Completely agree. Or Morgan Friedman.
Speaker 1:Or Morgan. Oh yeah, Morgan Friedman is another good one, A really fun God. I think might sound like Sam Jackson. Yeah, he probably does swear a lot Well if he's, if, if he looks down on on on the world as it is today. Probably I would. Now the characters I've got got. I've got my characters kind of bunched here a little bit, the only one that I I, the only two that I have by themselves. The first one is bethany. She kind of stands alone on her own.
Speaker 2:Tell me kind of how you felt about bethany as a character bethany seemed whiny in the beginning, always, you know, being down I, I think Janine's Galafero's character Liz said it best where she mourned her faith.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, her best friend at the abortion clinic, yeah, yeah, and you know that's she did. She did kind of seem just a little bit on the emo side before emo was a thing and yeah, it really did seem to kind of circle around her faith because she said, you know, she, she would go to church and when she was a kid she felt that, you know, she felt alive and all of those things, and then now she doesn't feel anything and and yeah. So I mean, I think that she kind of hit it right on the head when she kind of described how, how Bethany feels about her faith now. Um, not that she doubts it, like and and I think that's something that's kind of important to to point out is that it's not because Bethany has lost faith. She still has it, she still goes to church, she still prays and and and all of that. It's just that she doesn't feel the connection anymore that's the best way of putting it, yeah now the.
Speaker 1:The next set of of people I got is the prophets, the apostle and the muse. Uh, the prophets, I love that jay and silent bob were the prophets, because I do, I love that they were that important the characters of Jane, silent Bob are always they're always this, this somewhat pivotal point in a movie that they're in, like in in Mallrats it was they were. They allowed for, you know, for the, for the story to continue in a way that, uh, that was thought provoking and everything, by interrupting the show and getting the people backstage high and all that stuff. In this one, I mean, they really were the protectors, I mean they were the gatekeepers for Bethany. They made sure that she was safe in whatever way it took, while also trying to get into her pants the whole time.
Speaker 2:This is true. They do make some great jokes with that.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, I think one of my favorite images from the movie is when they're on the bridge after they killed her car and they were just kind of going back and forth and then she goes nobody is fucking me. It was just a really good line.
Speaker 2:It was a great lineino.
Speaker 1:She delivered it perfectly in florentino, just delivered it with, with, on a silver platter. It was perfect and great. And and that was shortly before they met the apostle uh, the 13th apostle played by uh, played by by chris rock, of all people, um, what do you think of chris rock as as the apostle? What do you think of that character?
Speaker 2:I got introduced to chris rock as an early teen and in his comedy he's always been edgy. So him as a 13th apostle who was taken out of the bible because he was black.
Speaker 1:It's funny as hell to me be black was. It was still kind of fringe thinking in the late nineties, but I I feel like that it is more widely accepted than it was at that time. Um, and I think that was that might have been part of the point that Kevin Smith had having a 13th black apostle. It was left out simply because he was a black man. He did talk about how Jesus was black. Yeah yeah, they just neglected.
Speaker 2:And then Jay goes. So does that mean Bethany's part black?
Speaker 1:Right, it cracks me up and it makes me laugh so hard. I, I love the, I love the. The jay and silent bob element in in kevin smith's movies, them added together with chris rock being the intelligent guy that corrects the two of them when they're, when they're just being stupid, is is just perfect, perfect. Although it's really only Jay that he picks on Like he. He seems to be on a level with silent Bob and you can kind of tell when he, when, when silent Bob gives him that coat and he's all like you know his shit's going to be rubbing up on the inside of your coat and everything. He's all like well, whatever, you know, just brush it off. And then he's like you know, he, they, they just have this moment where they're like looking at each other and they're like yeah, yeah, we get it. You know this guy's a pain in the ass, but we're OK, you know, just so. Yeah, that was really good.
Speaker 1:And then of that trio were, I guess, quadrio, maybe the Muse. The Muse comes in in a strip club of all places. Serendipity, what do you? What do you think of the muse?
Speaker 2:as she puts it, it's not hard to to have men give money to strippers right it's easy to have them, you know, be inspired to give more money, but it's harder to keep those ideas to yourself.
Speaker 1:That was kind of her. Her whole hangup was, you know, she was where a lot of those ideas came from, but she never got any of the credit. One smart person to combat Jay was not enough, so they needed a second one. So they brought in the muse, now the. The next one, the angels. Now the, the next one, the angels.
Speaker 1:The angels are uh many in this, uh, and I'm I'm kind of including Asriel in in that as well, cause you know demons, angels kind of thing. The first ones we meet, uh, bartleby and Loki, two disenfranchised angels that have been cast to earth, uh, worst of all, wisconsin. I don't hate Wisconsin, but cast off to Wisconsin and they're told that they're uh, that they're going to be there for eternity and they're not allowed back into heaven. And then they get this anonymous tip off on how to get there and they don't think about the consequences, but instead they want to get back into their old jobs, especially Loki with the fire and brimstone. That's taking it back to quite a bit of the Old Testament there and just kind of making it. There's two guys that are very old school that are in the modern world. They understand the modern world because they've lived through to that point, but they've still got these old world ideas. How do you feel about the two main angels in this?
Speaker 2:before we even start getting into the, the metatron and and all of that I think the play that they have on each other with, you know, barter blee and loki barter bees is the one who's smart air quotes smarter than loki loki's the brawn where barter beasley brains. And then you got ben affleck and matt damon playing off each other and they just work those guys have always worked.
Speaker 1:Uh, I mean, and I'm still not so sure did. Did you ever watch?
Speaker 1:uh, um, jaylen's jane silent bob strike back I've seen parts of it well, there's a there's a portion where they where they're filming goodwill hunting too, and they're in between filming scenes and uh, and matt damon is explaining uh to ben affleck you know how you have to do the art film, and then you have to do the money making film, you know the blockbuster, so that you can, you know, continue paying bills and stuff, and then you have to do the I I owe a guy film, and then they look at the camera. So it's like I sometimes I wondered was was dogma? Was dogma one of those movies where, where they owed Kevin Smith, but at the same time, like before this movie, um, you know, uh, I.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you know anything about Matt Damon's early career, but it was rough. He was constantly getting getting uh roles that he was picked for. He'd get undermined by uh, by Leo DiCaprio and and like all kinds of guys that he was slated to take those roles, and they'd just ultimately give it to somebody else with a bigger name. And then he got Goodwill hunting and then this, and it's like he had the blockbuster, those roles, and they'd just ultimately give it to somebody else with a bigger name, and then he got Good Will Hunting and then this, and it's like he had the blockbuster. So what was this? Was this the art film? Well, it definitely wasn't the art film, so it had to be. It had to be a guy film. Now we talked about Alan Rickman a little bit as the Metatron, as a Seraphim angel. He taught us a lot about angels and I feel like that was almost kind of his purpose. We find out that they're eunuchs, that they also can't drink, that really sucks for them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no joke, no-transcript know that they were actually like wearing them or even, if they were, if they could move when they were doing it. So it's like super practical old school, very rudimentary special effects, but yet I don't care. Like it wasn't't. It wasn't great, but it was was what it needed to be, and I don't know just the whole idea of alan rickman being a. It almost looked like he was flexing when he when he got his wings to go up, it was great he was the only one that didn't make it look like he was in pain yeah, he didn't look like he was.
Speaker 1:You know, I mean he had he'd have a like an awkward stance sometimes, but other than that it was. Now let's see what all do we have for angels? We had bartleby loki we had, and then as real, yeah, uh, which the holy bartender thing, just that completely did it for me. Like I tried to take him seriously as a devil the whole time and then the holy bartender joke came through and I was like, okay, I can't even take this, this character seriously anymore. It was, it was great, I don't know. I just I had a hard time for most of the movie trying to place what exactly his purpose was. What do you think? What do you think asriel's purpose in the movie was?
Speaker 2:he was the one driving the plot. If he didn't want, if he couldn't because he couldn't stand being in hell he wanted everything to not exist anymore right I?
Speaker 1:I would figure that that'd be a place that demons would want to be, though, but I mean, I guess if he just didn't want to work anymore, you know what better way to ensure that you don't have to work than to get rid of all existence, I suppose.
Speaker 2:Well, he was a fallen, fallen angel, so technically he knew what it was like to be in paradise.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right, that's right, he was. And then the only other, the only other angel, I think that was mentioned was the morning star, and he wasn't in the movie at all. He was just, yeah, just mentioned, I think in passing. Now the last character I had on here was, uh, god, and throughout most of the movie God was kind of a weird character to talk about, because the men would all refer to God as he and Bethany would refer to God as she. So that was. That was a little bit different for that time.
Speaker 1:I think that that was probably another thing that was to create a talking point. Would God have a gender? And if God did have a gender, would not? Would it not be something that he or she could choose anyway, the purpose of having God show up as Alanis Morissette at the end of the movie? I feel like a little bit of a narrative in there that I think we'll touch on in a little bit. Jumping into our collective points of interest here, I kind of just started off with yours. I put yours in first and then kind of put mine in afterwards. The first one you have is the Walrus and the Carpenter. Tell me why you put that one in there.
Speaker 2:Because nobody thinks. Kevin Smith nailed it with how you could analyze a simple poem and make it about religion, right, walrus being one of the Eastern religions Sorry, yeah, one of the Eastern religions where it could be Hindu or Buddha, religions where it could be hindu or buddha. And then you got the you know the carpenter, which is jesus christ, who has raised the carpenter's son, and they have the oysters that follow them everywhere and they sit down and shuck them yes, uh, they consume their flock, yes, rather than gather them.
Speaker 1:That, I think, was probably the first time in a movie that I'd ever seen, that I'd ever seen an argument like that made, putting the idea of, of organized religion into a negative light, because I don't really recall that happening much in movies before. Uh, I mean, the closest ones that I can really think of is and I don't even know that it was before it was end of days, but even then there wasn't really any arguments. It was just, you know, the devil says that God has an unfair advantage, kind of thing, whereas this one kind of gave you, gave you a little bit of a story that was more thought provoking, you know, to make you think like, do they consume? Oh, they were both 1999. Yeah, so, yeah, both of those movies were in 1999, but again, end of days didn't really. They didn't really address it.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I don't know, I think I think that was kind of the first time I'd ever seen that and I do like that, the, uh, the little narrative that he kind of put in there. I also love that he was using it to make a nun question her religion, uh, and then, immediately after, bartleby kind of gets on his case about. You know God exists. You have met him and have talked to him and you are convincing people that God doesn't exist, like I don't know. That's to me.
Speaker 2:That was just interesting.
Speaker 1:Right, it's, it's fun. Your next one. I really did. I really did like this part in the movie too. Maybe you'll remember the narrative a little bit better than I do. The glass gets bigger, but the liquid stays the same.
Speaker 2:Tell me about that. Okay, liz says it when they're sitting in the abortion clinic and they're talking about faith. As a child, your glass is small and the liquid doesn't change. But as you grow up, the bigger the glass is, the more you need the more liquid to fill it. But seeing that from a point of view of somebody else who is you know, they make the comment that Liz is Jewish, right, and you know that somebody else you know who has a faith, believing in, I would say, the same God. So you know, having that, having that same faith, would make sense.
Speaker 1:Right. I think that that can be kind of true for a lot of things, even aside from religion. As children, the glass is small. Making us happy is so much simpler as children, surprising us is so much simpler. It takes smaller things to to bring about those kinds of feelings and those good things and and whatever. And as we grow up, as we become adults, it takes a lot more of those things in order for us to be in a good place, in order for us to be happy and and things like that.
Speaker 1:And in the context of religion, as a kid, it's really easy for religion to move you, but as you experience life and the hardships that come with life, I think that that makes it harder. It makes it harder for religion to fill your cup, so to speak, with all of the horrible things that you see around you and the negative things that you deal with every day and things like that. So yeah, that is, that is a very astute observation with the cup gets bigger, but the but the liquid stays the same, particularly in the context of religion. I don't really know that there's that there are levels of belief like you believe or you don't. You know, I don't know that there's really much more that you can do than believing completely, and if that only fills your cup halfway, you know, then you have to find other worldly ways to continue filling your cup. I also like your point of interest here. I'm super interested to hear what you have to say about the crisis of faith people feel every day. Tell me about that.
Speaker 2:Well, everybody feels, you know, faith in a person, in yourself or I don't know. I have faith in my car to make sure I get somewhere.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So you can have a crisis of faith where you're trying to find happiness and you know the movie, movie goes on. A crisis of faith is religion-based, but she was also having a crisis of faith of herself I didn't.
Speaker 1:I didn't even put it in the context of bethany herself I just did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I didn't even put it there until you until you just mentioned it. Good job, yeah, dab no's, that's really interesting. The, the.
Speaker 1:I think that sometimes faith can be uh easily taken advantage of, not just in in the context of religion, but uh in the context of anything. The other example that you had your faith in your car. I put on uh hundreds, if not thousands, of miles of every every week on my car doing my job. I need to find some wood here to knock on. I going to or coming home from a visit, uh while carrying children. I have not had a breakdown because I have the faith in my car to do that.
Speaker 1:I think that it would be shook if, if you know, that were to happen once, then suddenly I would, I would be worried about it all the time. Uh, I think, and I think that that would be, that would be kind of akin to a crisis of faith. You know, in a very worldly sort of way, and there's a lot of ways that you can apply that to uh, to interactions with religion. Now this one, this one I wanted to hear your thoughts on because I wasn't I wasn't quite sure I got it the imagery with the clothing.
Speaker 2:Well, what I noticed? And then I got bored and went to check it on IMBD and the angels all wear hoodies.
Speaker 1:They do, they do. All wear hoodies.
Speaker 2:They all wear overcoats too, but so does Bob.
Speaker 1:Bob wears an overcoat, fat man in an overcoat, didn't even I, didn't even recognize that with their halos.
Speaker 2:And I'm not sure why bob gets his. You know it is bob, he has his trench coat, so right but it does make for the imagery does. Is bob going to be an angel?
Speaker 1:in the context of just about any of the movies where jay and silent bob are in it. Bob really is kind of the angel of the two between jay and silent bob, because a lot of the time he's the one he's the uh, like I don't know if you remember the uh, the episode with that I did with derrick about um, about clerks, but it's like he's often the one that comes in with the most profound line of the movie, uh, the one that makes you stop and think. Often the one that comes in with the most profound line of the movie, the one that makes you stop and think and the one that really kind of is something that you can cut out of the movie as its own little message. And oddly enough, I think I took way way more meaning out of that in this movie than I think was intended in this movie than I think was intended. But in this movie Silent Bob's one line that he has in the movie is simply thanks, oh he says no ticket Right, no train.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay. So, aside from no ticket, aside from no ticket like his, his thought provoking thing was simply thanks.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:He told, was it? Oh, I'm trying to remember if it was Metatron or God. He said thank you, just thanks. And again, like, as I watched that, I was just like, oh man, if the message in that was simply just thank you and, and who knows, maybe it could have been a, that could have very simply been Kevin Smith on on screen for his own movie, telling you know, telling the people who watch his movies, Thank you. Yeah, because that does seem like the kind of dude that he is.
Speaker 1:The no ticket thing I lose it every time. Every time I watch that movie throws the guys off the train and then he just turns around and no ticket. Oh man, it's so good, I love it now. And that kind of. That kind of brings me to the, to the first of of the talking points that I put in. I'm finding myself wanting to do this a little bit more in in the past few episodes, but I just kind of want to talk about, uh like, tell me about some of your favorite scenes and characters in the movie, like just some of the ones that come to mind every time you think about the movie and stuff like that. What are some of your favorite scenes?
Speaker 2:well, my favorite of all time is when chris rock falls from the sky because jay looks up and goes big titty women, big titty women, don't fall from the sky.
Speaker 1:Yes, it worked on stammer and they both, everybody looks up. Yes, it worked once, damn it. Everybody walks up.
Speaker 2:Like it's going to happen.
Speaker 1:Why not me? Why not me? Yeah, no, I really do like that. The first one that I always think of is also a Chris Rock thing. It's just a few minutes after that part in the movie. It's when they're in the bar and the demon comes out of the toilet and everybody's freaking out and uh, and the muse is like, you know, it's an excremental and it's a what a shit demon Like. Every time I think of this movie, that is. That is the first thing that comes to mind, and then after that would be the no ticket thing. But yeah, I think that's probably one of my favorites. What's another one of yours?
Speaker 2:The other one happens to be Jason Lee, just before he gets hit with the golf club when he goes. But I'm a fucking demon, right, I'm sorry right after he gets hit with the golf club.
Speaker 1:Yep, right, I'm sorry. Right after he gets hit with the golf club. Yep, and then and then, uh, they're talking about how, how he's probably the kind of cardinal that would be douchey enough to uh to bless his clubs before, before a round of golf to make his game better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's awesome, of course it's george carlin.
Speaker 1:Right, although if anybody who listens to George Carlin's stand-up knows that that man does not like golf, I think what was it that he says? You ever watch golf? It's like watching flies. Fuck, like on TV, yeah, kind of yeah, that's awesome. The other one for me for years, for years and years, and years, and years and years, I've been trying to find more meaning out of this portion, this little tiny scene of the movie and it's one of my favorites and it's at the very, very, very end, when Bethany goes and asks Alanis Morissette, as God, why are we here? And she just simply goes right and pokes her in the nose and then walks away. And it's like I, for years I am, I am to this day every time I watch that movie. I am trying to find deeper meaning in in that whole, that whole thing why is she, why she does and how? That's an answer to why are we here? Um, and I still can't find it. So do you have any insight on that?
Speaker 1:I can't either yeah, I don't know, but one of these days I'm going to find it and then I'm going to make a whole new episode just about that.
Speaker 1:So yeah, be ready for that. And now, with some of the the talking points that I had taken down, I had put down the new Mary Bethany, how she's different from the original idea of Mary with respect to modern femininity and other religious narratives. I don't really know that I have an answer for it, because I mean she is different in some ways. The doubt is one of them. I mean not even so much doubt as much as the you know the glass half full sort of thing. We don't really get any sort of personality out of the Mary that's in the Bible, but suddenly we're given on screen a representation of Mary in a modern setting and suddenly she's a person that has different morals and ethics than I think what we would expect out of a Mary that we read about as kids in the Bible and things like that. I don't know what are your thoughts on her being kind of the new Mary?
Speaker 2:I never thought about it as being the new Mary, but it wouldn't make total sense because she couldn't get pregnant by a man. She was able to, you know. She had now the ability to be what she wanted, right Like. This was always God's plan. This was always going to happen, no matter what.
Speaker 1:Right plan. This was always going to happen, no matter what right. Part of the reason why she was having such a hard time with her faith was because her husband had left her and her husband left her because she couldn't have kids. Like I mean, she very clearly on multiple occasions showed that that was something that was she was very bitter about and and again. It didn't make her question god's existence, but it sure made him, made her kind of angry at God for that, maybe not even angry, but wanting an answer, you know. And then right there, like you know, when she goes in and frees God from the John Doe's body.
Speaker 2:John Doe Jersey.
Speaker 1:Yep, john Doe Jersey. When she frees God from, from that body, then then she, she, uh, she herself is now pregnant. She gets to have what she wanted, uh, and she doesn't even have to have all the bullshit of a man to go with it. So it's like she gets the best of both worlds there here at the end. I have got, uh, I've got two more, uh. How does God being a woman change God's relationship with humanity? Did you see any, any sort of a thing that that kind of suggested that if God were a woman, god's relationship with humanity, did you see any sort of a thing that kind of suggested that if God were a woman, that it would change the way that humanity would view or interact with God?
Speaker 2:Maybe, maybe, depending on how toxic you are. Yeah, if you can't see that there's a possibility that there is no God has no gender Right, that you know trying to put this where it doesn't sound like I'm an asshole Right.
Speaker 1:I think that some of the characters almost they were almost gentler about the idea of God. When god was a woman, it went from. God is not the vengeful god damning god, the um, fire and brimstone god, an angel of death yeah, god, god, was instead nurturing and caring.
Speaker 1:I mean, there were flowers everywhere and and and everything was was clean and all of that stuff. And it was like, without saying that it's like because of the, the typical gender roles, uh, as things go, that you know that the world would be a cleaner place and a prettier place and it would smell nicer and things like that. But I think that there would be much more nurture with God being viewed as a woman rather than, uh, rather than the, the fear that you're supposed to have with God being a man. So, yeah, I think that's kind of where I was kind of sitting with that personally.
Speaker 1:The last one I had on here was a conversation between Rufus and Bethany. They were talking about beliefs versus ideas. Rufus was kind of telling her how belief is something that can't change. Ideas can change over time. So, rather than letting God and religion and those kind of things be a belief, let it be an idea, because an idea can serve its purpose while also changing when it needs to. I don't feel that it's unfair to say that. I think that religion is very reluctant to change over time. If it was used more of as an idea, that I think it would have an easier time doing that, and I think a lot of that has to do with organized religion versus personal faith, or at least that's kind of how I view it. Do you remember that conversation, the beliefs and ideas conversation that they had? What did you think of that?
Speaker 2:I always thought it was kind of like building your own religion, taking things from different religions that you like and building on that and that's the idea you follow, right.
Speaker 1:So it makes you much more spiritual, you make it much more spiritualist, but you're still building right it's funny because that that kind of speaks a little bit to my my active ingredient on it. But uh, um, but yeah, no, like the, the various different things from, uh, from a lot of different religions, like this movie was kind of around the time that I was doing a lot of soul searching, going into other religions and and doing a lot of research and things like that, after this movie had come out, that I had lived a period of soul searching, going into other religions and and doing a lot of research and things like that, after this movie had come out, I had lived a period of time as a, as a pagan. I had. I had lived some, lived some time trying to be Jewish, but I had I really had a hard time giving up the bacon. I'm just saying there were some things that that I had kind of learned from each and every one of those religions that I had explored, rather than picking and choosing from each one, I did kind of learned from each and every one of those religions that I had explored, rather than picking and choosing from each one.
Speaker 1:I did kind of the opposite and I looked for the commonalities, the things that were similar between all of them and I think that really kind of that idea the belief versus an idea thing I feel like that's almost Kevin Smith bringing up for the first time. Something that's really popular right now is people doing what they call deconstructing their faith. This was almost like a really early way to encourage that deconstructing your faith and then kind of putting it back together in a way that really helps you. So with that I had almost kind of taken, you know, from the commonalities of all the religions and kind of turned it into a little bit like a like the golden rule sort of thing, where what's common with all religions is to be a good person. I don't know, that's just kind of what I took from all of the soul searching and I and I feel like that's very much kind of where where the direction was going with the beliefs versus ideas conversation that he had with Bethany. I don't know what do you think.
Speaker 2:I think you nailed the hammer on the head with the nail.
Speaker 1:So here we are. We are right here at the precipice of the active ingredient, so I always let the guest go first on the active ingredient, so I'll let you take the microphone, go ahead.
Speaker 2:So for me, the active ingredient was the comedy and how everybody was able to make fun of themselves without making fun of themselves.
Speaker 1:Right, almost, like they were able to see the satire in their own actions and the way that they are, without, without being self-destructive, being being kind to themselves, while also uh, while also being able to make a joke about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I could definitely see that for me now, like when I watch this movie. Now, this movie is just a fun watch for me, uh and, and that's because the medicine in this movie for me was when I watched it the first time, when I was a teenager. The medicine that this movie had was at a time when I was spiritually lost and curious. The messages of inconsistency between the church, or what I call religion, and belief, or what I call faith, the inconsistencies that this pointed out between them, was kind of instrumental in my finding my way to agnosticism. Not in the traditional way. I'm an agnostic in a more modern form, where I'm open to the idea of a God, but I trust what I know over what I believe. I'm not afraid to say that, because I feel like if I were to just say that I believe, what I'm saying is that I'm not sure. When somebody asks you you know what time the party is I believe it's at 7 pm you don't know. But you believe that believing is not knowing. And to say that I know something that I don't, not only is that being dishonest to myself and whoever it is that I'm talking to, but it's also dishonest to any God that I would profess to know I'm holding myself to a standard of honesty that is not conducive for what most people would consider to be faith. Now, this movie helped me realize that any religion of today is a bastardized version of what I think they were meant to be.
Speaker 1:Jesus' message was simple Be good to one another, help one another when you can, and all God's creations are sacred and should be treated as such. In short, the message is to be a good person, like many of the religions of the world. Now, if I do those things, if I'm a good person by being good to those around me and help others when I can and treat all of nature with respect, then what loving God would turn me away at the gates of paradise just over semantics of what his name is? And that's kind of what I, that's kind of what this movie gave me in my teenage years. So, yeah, that was kind of the active ingredient for me. Thank you, sam. It was awesome having you on and it's really cool to interact in a real way with you. Know somebody that I listened to while I'm driving around and I mean, granted, I can only listen to you on about half of the drive, because the other half of the drive I typically have kids with me and when AJ goes on some of those rants I can't have.
Speaker 1:I can't have kids listening to that because he cracks me up, but but yeah, go ahead and go ahead and plug your show for me.
Speaker 2:All right, we're killing 15 minutes. We're on all major platforms except YouTube.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:We do a a yeah. For whatever reason, the rss feed won't load to youtube oh, okay but we do true crime to get you in 15 to 20 minutes so you can get a true crime fix and that time and not have to worry about being bogged down by tons of details.
Speaker 1:Right. So it's more like this is an idea of what's going on in this story Serious killers and crude crime and stuff like that but if you want to know more detail then you go look and find it. But it's almost like a guide so that you know if you even want to bother.
Speaker 2:We did a long version of a couple of our shows. Yeah, to have it be like Peter Sutcliffe for a whole hour and a half.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And 15 minutes and one of our friends was listening to it. She loves Killing 15, but she couldn't get into overkilling because it was too much details.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, well, I mean, sometimes, sometimes you, you like, maybe I'm just the only person that does it, but it's like sometimes I like hearing about something that I don't know anything about and then being like oh, I'm going to write that down because I don't know anything about it, so that I can go home and look it up and then you know, and then I can, I can read more about it and learn, because sometimes that's the best way that I learn. But no, I really enjoy your guys' stuff. It's, it cracks me up.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. I like hearing that.
Speaker 1:Now, if you have a movie that's been medicine for you and you'd like to be on the show, you can email me at contact at movie-rxcom, or you can also leave a voicemail or text me at 402-519-5790 if anxiety is keeping you from coming on the show. You can write me a couple of paragraphs about a movie and I can read them on air. Remember, this movie is not intended to treat, cure or prevent any disease, and we'll see you at the next appointment. We'll see you next time. Thank you you.