Every Atheist Needs: Dogma

Snootchie Bootchies Heathens! I trust you had a fantastic weekend, and you’re not too sore on this fine Monday morning. Today, I wanted to share with you my favourite Kevin Smith movie, Dogma. If you haven’t heard of this move, you should probably just hand in your atheist card and redo heathen orientation now. For shame.

Dogma is not so much a movie as it is an assault on Catholicism that is so brutally hilarious, that even the Pope would have no choice but to pull the ol’ Popemobile over and laugh. This is a kleenex-worthy movie for two reasons: you’re gonna cry from laughing so hard, and those of you who enjoy a nice set of maracas, Salma Hayek does a strip tease to Michael Jackson’s Candy Girl. So, maybe two boxes of kleenex… and some lotion.

For those of us who prefer pectorals and pokey things, there’s a massive cast of delicious heathen boys like Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and Jason Lee who is lickably un-Earl-like. Of course, there’s also plenty Jay & Silent Bob. Booong!

Aside from all the eye candy though, this movie is the perfect commentary on Catholicism. Excellent points are made, the dialogue is so entertaining and the entire movie is full of perfectly crafted lines such as:

The whole book’s gender-biased. A woman’s responsible for original sin. A woman cuts Samson’s coif of power. A woman asks for the head of John the Baptist. Read that book again sometime. Women are painted as bigger antagonists than the Egyptians and Romans combined. It stinks.

You mean those dickheads with the signs and the pictures of dead babies? Shit no! Me and Silent Bob are pro-choice. A woman’s body is her own goddamn business!

Bethany: You knew Christ? Rufus: Knew him? Shit, nigga owes me 12 bucks!

And of course, my favourite quote:

Loki deconverts a nun

The absolute best thing about this movie though, is my late homeboy George Carlin playing Cardinal Glick. If you’re any sort of atheist, you know that George had nothing good to say about organized religion, so seeing him dressed up as, and acting the part of a Catholic Cardinal, is poetically hilarious:

The story itself is way over the top, only adding to the funny-factor. Jesus’ great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grand-niece must follow Jay & Silent Bob to New Jersey to stop two fallen Angels, Loki & Bartleby, from crossing the threshold of a Catholic church and thus negating all existence. Along the way she meets Rufus, the 13th apostle who’s not in the Bible because he’s black, Serendipity, a muse, and Azrael, a former muse who was banished to Hell.

Of course, we also get to meet God, who is played by the least likely, washed up, Canadian pop star ever. I’ll let that be a surprise.

This is a movie you won’t just love watching, but you’ll want to own and watch over and over. This generally applies to all Kevin Smith movies, but this one is beyond just my favourite. It’s near comedy perfection, utterly flawless dialogue and one of the most brilliant commentaries on organized religion, ever.

Go check it out: Dogma.

#movies