Gone Tonight, Coming Back Monday

For purposes of this blog I am going to be out of commission from tonight until Monday. I'm sure I'll have some stories from this weekend to tell, though. You see, we're going to East Texas, to a lake house with the Texas flag painted on the roof. If I survive, I will let you know how it went. If I don't survive, tell yourselves and those around you that I love you, my blog readers. I couldn't have done all this without you. Well, that's not true. But you made it all worth it.

My wife and I saw Dogma last night. The key to seeing that movie is constantly resisting the urge to take it seriously. If you can do that, you can laugh a little at an average (and too-long) comedy that at least manages to ask some interesting questions about God. If you can't resist that urge, you start thinking "Hey, that's not true!" or "Hey, that's stupid!" Just put your brain on freezelock and roll with it. Better yet, pretend you're Jay or Silent Bob.

The good thing about Dogma is Kevin Smith actually made a real story with all these metaphysical ideas inside it, as opposed to making a metaphysical idea movie with a lame story crammed in (I'm looking at you, What the (Bleep) Do We Know and Waking Life). I appreciated that. If it were half an hour shorter, it would have gotten 3 overpriced popcorns. As it is, I give it 2-and-a-half out of 5.