Deviant Chic Ode

Saw The Da Vinci Code with Dean yesterday afternoon at Columbia City Cinema, a new movie house located in a restored old theater in the Columbia City neighborhood near our house. I have not read the book, so have no idea how it compares. But I enjoyed the movie, especially all the codes and anagrams and word-play that were part of the plot. But it's really not much more than a good made-for-TV movie. And a really good one, at that. My favorite character was the Grail history expert played by Ian McKellan: a great mix of erudite academic, gay sophisticate (with his conniving male butler), dirty old man and double crosser. My second favorite was the albino monk, though it was a little hard to watch his Opus Dei-fueled self-flagellation and scratchy thigh bracelet. Ow! Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou make an interesting couple in the lead roles, but jeez . . . could there have been less romantic tension between them? And the lukewarm hug at the end? I mean, if Jesus was human and had a child with Mary Magdalene; couldn't his heir at least get jiggy with a professor?