Heretic (2024 Film)

[CommanderSouth]

An effectively ExMo family member saw this movie, and came away more convinced of their exit.  After hearing the rough claims, it ironically feels like it will bolster my belief.

From what I've heard, the missionaries are almost like a framing device to allow the generic attack on Abrahamic faith, or "one true faith" in general.

Normal claims of "control" and whatnot.

I'm interesting in seeing it because now I'll just imagine Evil Hugh Grant as the accuser inside of me   

I want to come back and flesh this post out at lunch, but also wanted to plant a flag for this now!

[LDSGator]

The majority of my friends are horror geeks (not an insult, I’m one as well) and we might go see it as group. It’ll be my second movie seen in theaters in under a month.
 

Before 2024, I had gone to the movies once in 15 years.   

[Phoenix_person]

I don't think it's going to reaffirm my stance on the LDS church, but it looks interesting. From the trailers I've seen, it seems this same story could be told using a variety of different faiths as an anchor for the victims, but they were proselytizing, so....

[LDSGator]

2 minutes ago, Phoenix_person said:

I don't think it's going to reaffirm my stance on the LDS church, but it looks interesting. From the trailers I've seen, it seems this same story could be told using a variety of different faiths as an anchor for the victims, but they were proselytizing, so....

It won’t affect my testimony either, and that’s a good point. 
 

As the church evolves and grows it’s bound to be inserted more into popular culture. 

[CommanderSouth]

One of the arguments I'm hearing the film makes is against iterative religion.  That in revelation being progressive, the newer invalidates the older, and that invalidates the whole.  The way my family member took this was to ask, "What is the WoW is changed to allow coffee?"  My response was, "What if it was?"  They asked, "Then what was the point?"  and further, since it had changed, it didn't matter.  My argument to this line of thinking is that, it may not have mattered, per se.  It may indeed not matter at all if I drink coffee.  I honestly don't think it does.  But the point is the relationship, the relationship I have with God is real, and I believe he asked ME not to drink coffee, so if -I- do it, it is wrong, because I'm being unfaithful.

That's the thing, you can try to use that as a lever to drive the idea out too far and say, well then, NOTHING matters.  But that, is false.  It's reductio ad absurdum as the youth say.  The fact is, SOMETHING matters, because SOMETHING is real.  My covenant is real.

Right now, I stand by the argument that, "the church" or "the gospel" or whatever, is the clearest way I know to express my love for God.  So to me, it's going to be VERY hard to dismantle that.  My foundation is now deeper than the church, it's deeper than the Book of Mormon.  I think those things are true, I think they represent reality.  They square with my life experience.  But even if the reality I understand ends up changing to better match thing as they really are, I welcome it. People, even the church, imperfectly progressing towards that doesn't make me throw the baby out with the bath.

The stuff in the middle isn't wrong because something else is more right.  Barbie Pink is Pink is Redish is Red is color...  Just because things iterate, they don't invalidate, they deepen.  Just because one expression is less clear, doesn't mean it's wrong.

[CommanderSouth]

I think the worldview I would say I've developed is simple:
Agency, Growth, and Relationships.

I think everything else is appendage to it.  That being said, I think the fullest expression of these is, the, "most correct of any church on Earth" or, "the only true and living church" if you prefer.  Though I will always be careful, don't abstract too far, but don't dive too deep. Ironically, in proving contraries is the truth made manifest.

Hold on, but loosely  

Edited November 4, 2024 by CommanderSouth

[CommanderSouth]

I say all of this not to advocate for bringing everything down to that lowest denominator, just that, even with that BEING my lowest, and believing the truth is some formulation of that, the church is still the best way to say what we know so far.

[zil2]

If you haven't read this article on Deseret News, you may wish to.

[LDSGator]

12 minutes ago, zil2 said:

If you haven't read this article on Deseret News, you may wish to.

“Think about the number of horror movies focused on Catholic priests and/or exorcism, she said.”

that’s true, but in the classics like the Exorcist the priests are the good guys, (spoilers ahead) one even giving up his life for the little girl.

I’m going to wait to see it before I say it’s good or bad, damaging to the church or not.  

[CommanderSouth]

12 minutes ago, zil2 said:

If you haven't read this article on Deseret News, you may wish to.

I didn't necessarily expect much unique to the church, the arguments to be strawmen, and the use of the Sisters as a framing device, which is fine with me.  My family member felt more compelled by the arguments made, I see them as a misrepresentation, but honestly, that's typical. Though I'm not digging the garments, the first thing my Mom did when I visited after being endowed was grab my garments under my shoulder, so it's actually topical to me, even though it's invasive...

[Carborendum]

1 hour ago, CommanderSouth said:

the first thing my Mom did when I visited after being endowed was grab my garments under my shoulder

That woman's gots issues.

[LDSGator]

27 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

That woman's gots issues.

Yeah, no one should go there. It could work in a fictional movie to create an emotional moment, but in reality-yuk. 
 

 

[CommanderSouth]

7 minutes ago, LDSGator said:

Yeah, no one should go there. It could work in a fictional movie to create an emotional moment, but in reality-yuk. 
 

 

Eh, perhaps, but her curiosity got the best of her, and I don't even remember what we said to each other.  I probably told her I'd find her a church picture if she REALLY wanted to know.  I took it more as "gross but lol, calm down".  Honestly it was out of character.

[LDSGator]

6 minutes ago, CommanderSouth said:

Eh, perhaps, but her curiosity got the best of her, and I don't even remember what we said to each other.  I probably told her I'd find her a church picture if she REALLY wanted to know.  I took it more as "gross but lol, calm down".  Honestly it was out of character.

Understand totally. I mean no offense to you or your mum. 

[CommanderSouth]

5 minutes ago, LDSGator said:

Understand totally. I mean no offense to you or your mum. 

I figured, but I wanted to make sure I defended her   

Just think of Arnold yelling "I'm not a pehvet, I just want tha turbo man doll" or in this case SHE isn't the "pehvet"

[Ironhold]

I'm an entertainment writer IRL, and I've had to talk with editorial about this movie. 

They accept that even though I'll be seeing it so that I can answer questions about it, there's a conflict of interest in my reviewing it and so as long as I provide something as a replacement they'll be fine with it. 

[LDSGator]

17 minutes ago, Ironhold said:

I'm an entertainment writer IRL, and I've had to talk with editorial about this movie. 

They accept that even though I'll be seeing it so that I can answer questions about it, there's a conflict of interest in my reviewing it and so as long as I provide something as a replacement they'll be fine with it. 

I admire your integrity for telling your editors about your conflict of interest 

[Ironhold]

28 minutes ago, LDSGator said:

I admire your integrity for telling your editors about your conflict of interest 

It's only the second time since I started in October of 2013 where I had to have this kind of talk with editorial. 

The first time was with the movie "Truth", which the trailer made clear was going to be an apologia for Mary Mapes' actions during what would become the Killian Documents Controversy - 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killian_documents_controversy

I was one of the "pajama-wearing keyboard warriors" as we were so besmirched who was online back in 2004 making noise and demanding answers regarding what was going on, whether the documents were real, and if not how it was that CBS News allowed the story to go to air. 

[LDSGator]

2 minutes ago, Ironhold said:

It's only the second time since I started in October of 2013 where I had to have this kind of talk with editorial. 

The first time was with the movie "Truth", which the trailer made clear was going to be an apologia for Mary Mapes' actions during what would become the Killian Documents Controversy - 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killian_documents_controversy

I was one of the "pajama-wearing keyboard warriors" as we were so besmirched who was online back in 2004 making noise and demanding answers regarding what was going on, whether the documents were real, and if not how it was that CBS News allowed the story to go to air. 

I remember that story. They took down Dan Rather, who will go to his grave thinking he was the true victim in the story. 

[Ironhold]

On 11/4/2024 at 4:48 PM, LDSGator said:

I remember that story. They took down Dan Rather, who will go to his grave thinking he was the true victim in the story. 

If Mapes had reached out to Killian's secretary, she would have learned enough to know that there were questions about chain-of-custody. Basically, Killian hand-wrote his memos, the secretary was the one who typed anything that needed to be typed, and she didn't have access to the kind of high-end typewriter needed to be able to put in the superscripts the documents shown to Mapes had. Thus, if Killian was the author of those memos, it means he would have sent them to an unknown third party to type up, someone who did have access to one of those high-end typewriters. 

This alone would have been enough to where a wise editor would have nixed the story. 

Mapes instead chose to rush everything to air, and a documents expert was live-blogging his take-down of the documents as he watched the episode. 

[LDSGator]

40 minutes ago, Ironhold said:

If Mapes had reached out to Killian's secretary, she would have learned enough to know that there were questions about chain-of-custody. Basically, Killian hand-wrote his memos, the secretary was the one who typed anything that needed to be typed, and she didn't have access to the kind of high-end typewriter needed to be able to put in the superscripts the documents shown to Mapes had. Thus, if Killian was the author of those memos, it means he would have sent them to an unknown third party to type up, someone who did have access to one of those high-end typewriters. 

This alone would have been enough to where a wise editor would have nixed the story. 

Mapes instead chose to rush everything to air, and a documents expert was live-blogging his take-down of the documents as he watched the episode. 

I heard Mapes was on that “story” for 10 years. That’s not an investigation, that’s OCD. There are marriages that don’t last that long. 

[Ironhold]

1 hour ago, LDSGator said:

I heard Mapes was on that “story” for 10 years. That’s not an investigation, that’s OCD. There are marriages that don’t last that long. 

The trailer for the film depicted a scene in which Mapes breaks down crying because she was being "punished for asking questions". 

That's been Mapes' narrative since the incident, and the narrative of her friends and a whole host of others. 

The fact that she utterly fell down on the job never enters the equation unless people force it in place, and even then a lot of these individuals will do their best to deny reality. 

[Ironhold]

OK. Change of plans. 

My flagship newspaper does a Saturday morning sports tabloid during football season. I'm the one tasked with circulating it throughout town this year, and so on nights we have a football game I try to be home from the theater by 7 PM so that I can be asleep by 10:30 PM as I have to be up at 4 AM to get it done. 

The local multiplex has scheduled Heretic this Friday so that the first screening won't have me back home until about 8 PM, which is far later than I'd like. 

So I'll see a regular movie this weekend, get that reviewed, and then try to catch Heretic on either Monday or Tuesday.

Still rather puzzles me that the film is premised on the villain - who I would imagine is the author's mouthpiece - going on a tirade about how he knows oh so much about religion yet the author didn't know that missionaries aren't supposed to enter houses where the only occupant is a member of the opposite sex. I'm thinking this means that the author isn't as wise as they think they are and that any competent apologist should be able to dismantle the film. 

[zil2]

18 minutes ago, Ironhold said:

yet the author didn't know that missionaries aren't supposed to enter houses where the only occupant is a member of the opposite sex.

The villain tells them that his wife is at home, in some other room.

[Ironhold]

Saw it.

Basically, it's the kind of thing that a UC Berkeley philosophy major would come up with after a night of illicit substances. 

It's got anti-Mormon, anti-Christian, and anti-capitalist sentiment all thrown into a blender. Even though it's the exact same things we've all faced for decades now, whoever wrote the movie thought they were producing something absolutely incredible and unique.