The Story So Far: The Golden Compass and The Bishops

For anyone who is new to this situation, which I have been watching with some bemusement since The Golden Compass debuted last week, here's the scoop.

First...
... the USCCB (a.k.a. Catholic Bishops) prints a "rave review" of The Golden Compass. Which I actually don't have a problem with as long as they also note the moral complexity, ambiguity, and problems inherent in the movie (which they didn't ... yep, it's Brokeback Mountain all over again ...).

Then ...
... New Line sees the review, does a "chop shop" on the wording, rearranging it to make it really strong and puts out an ad.


Next ...
... many pithy and ironic comments are made by many observant bloggers (go team!), et al and the ad is pulled.

Meanwhile ...
... much complaining and questioning is done to the USCCB by practically everybody reading their movie review.

(A Word from the Fringe)
A side commentary: I am not sure who is reading those reviews ... I haven't for years as they are not usually even decent movie reviews. Certainly there is not what I would call good moral guidance often available which is what I would expect from Catholic bishops. If I have a question on that front I turn to either Decent Films where Steven Greydanus is primo or to Christianity Today reviews (an evangelical publication ... I think ... which is doing the job that the bishops should be doing).

Back to the story ...
... so now the USCCB has pulled the review altogether.

Without comment.

Which is a comment in itself.

For more info and links ...
... this story is all over the place, but I enjoy this story by Christian movie critic Jeffrey Overstreet because he has the outsider's point of view. He's also got a link to the Google cache of the original USCCB movie review if you want to take a look.