Critics say the film is crap. The people say its insulting to God. Its banned, and then its not. We have not had such a circus over a new movie release for quite some time now. I almost missed all the hoopla.

Thank you Mr. Ron Howard. Thank you for waking the sleeping masses. Why do we see all these protest over a film that no one has seen yet? Its everyones chance to get his or her 15 minutes of fame I guess. It did bring about an interesting sound byte by the Director of The Da Vinci Code at the press conference at Cannes though. He said to all the people that were protesting the release of the film Dont watch it! I think thats reverse psychology at its best. He went on to say that those who think that they might be offended by the movie should wait tell they meet someone who has actually seen the film and then discuss the matter and decide whether to watch it or not.

For heavens sake, its a work of fiction. Let it be. You wont turn to dust if you watch it or be condemned to eternal damnation for that matter. The Da Vinci Code movie is just like any other mainstream commercial cinema on the planet, the main objective it to make money. All this extra good or bad publicity only helps it along on that path. But who will explain this to the scores of faithful that call for a ban on it. These people are too wrapped up in sentiment.

The one other interesting point to note from all of this was that Ron Howard also reminded everyone that this was a movie and not a documentary. Thats another crucial mistake that people seem to be also making. Somewhere under the arc lights of todays sharp marketing campaigns that are attached to mega budget productions the line between reality and fiction often blurs. In the process of trying to sell the movie we see it to be packaged as something that really took place. The advertising and marketing people have skills so well honed now that they can almost create any reality that they want. You could say that in many ways its the victim of its own success.

Lets not forget that the movie is based on a bestseller. The books are still on the shelves and selling at hyper speed. If the book is still around why ban the movie?