Da book becomes a movie

Perhaps you've heard that a movie called "The Da Vinci Code" is making the rounds. The reviews aren't so hot, but that's beside the point. The movie allows people to get in a state of dudgeon -- high, low or mid-level -- whether they've seen it or not. Some are even getting cross-eyed over it. Of course, everybody knows the plot, since the world contains 40 million copies of the Dan Brown novel (that means it's fiction), which hatches the mother (and father) of all conspiracy theories -- Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and had a child, and the Vatican covered it up. Today, we present perspectives you won't find anywhere else.

The real story: It's an Opie Dei plot

Top-notch investigative work from thecrapspot.blogspot.com:

"My friend Bill has solved the Da Vinci code. It's very different from Dan Brown's conclusion and has nothing to do with the divinity of a certain savior. Da Vinci experts have been confused about the 'R.H. 1950,' which was often printed on Da Vinci works. Some historians thought it was a version of a copyright or patent. Not so. The 'R.H. 1950's point to Ron Howard, the famous actor who played Opie on 'The Andy Griffith Show.' It has been reported that 'Andy Griffith' creator Luke Chesterpot came up with 'Opie' after a run in with a member of the ultra-conservative Catholic group, Opus Dei. Apparently this Opus Dei dude wanted some spare change so he could call a guy in New York about a package in India.

"Luke wasn't having it, so he slapped the guy in the face. The Opus Dei guy then began punching himself over and over again. A crowd gathered to watch. Finally the guy collapses into a coma. I know a guy who knew a guy who had a dad whose best friend was at that fight. He confirmed everything. Because of this event, Luke decided that Ron's character would be named Opie. It was widely known that Ron hated the name. So when the opportunity came to bring the book to the big screen, Ron took the job to get even with Opus Dei. Unfortunately the secret cult was on a mission to stop him. Opus Dei contacted Tom Hanks and told him he must give his worst performance ever. If he failed to do this, they would make a big screen adaptation of 'Bosom Buddies.' Other key cast members got similar threats. According to reviews, Opus Dei succeeded."

Let's look on da bright side

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George Tyndale, Sunday Mercury, Birmingham, England:

"According to new research, two-thirds of the people who have read 'The Da Vinci Code' believe that Jesus fathered a child by Mary Magdalene. This means that his bloodline survives and that his descendants are probably getting excited about the World Cup. It's a notion that has disturbed church leaders, who have been mounting a campaign to debunk the thriller. Why are the likes of Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, getting so upset? If one in five adults has read it -- and two-thirds of them believe Jesus fathered a child -- that means at least 14 percent of the population believes in Jesus. For the Church that's a result, isn't it?"

A Latin lover's review

From Washington, D.C., blogger Delilah Boyd ("Have scissors. Will hire someone to use them.") ascrivenerslament.blogspot.com:

"I liked it. But then, I'm a big fan of histo-archetypal, psycho-linguistic symbols and people speaking Latin on cell phones. (The English subtitles were a bit distracting, of course.) I also enjoyed Ron Howard's homage to early 20th century film directors' depictions of historical re-creation (like the flashbacks in Karl Freund's 1932 film, 'The Mummy'). My hope for those who see this film: If even one person leaves the theater wondering about the Councils of Nicea, I will deem this film adaptation a success."

Seeing red

Among the many groups offended by the movie are albinos, The Associated Press reported. British actor Paul Bettany plays the evil monk Silas, an albino with red eyes who carries out bloody murders to secure the secret of the Holy Grail, a trove of lost Christian documents that could prove Jesus got hitched. Michael McGowan, who heads the National Organization for Albinism and Hypopigmentation, complained that "The Da Vinci Code" is the 68th movie since 1960 to feature an evil albino. People with albinism have little or no pigmentation in their skin, eyes and hair.

Albino actor Dennis Hurley fired back with a parody called "The Albino Code," a nine-minute flick that can be seen at AlbinoCode.com. He tried, with no success, to audition for the role, arguing that as a lifelong albino he had a leg up on Bettany and would show that not all albinos are monkish assassins. Upon being instructed in his parody to "kill two people and steal the sacred keystone," Hurley's "Wilas" deadpans, "You know my last job was at Food-Mart, right?"

Another parody

Leonardo Da Vinci will never be confused with Norman Rockwell, but they both have "code" movies. "The Rockwell Code" centers around a murder at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass., and former Mayberry deputy Barney Fife is to the script what Jesus Christ is to Da Vinci, Wireless Flash news reports. Producer Marc Dole says, "We researched real things about Rockwell's paintings that mean nothing and then slanted them." The artistic decision to make Fife a central plot point came about because "One of my friends does a real good Barney Fife impression." But while "The Rockwell Code" is fictional, Mr. Dole says it has had the effect of making people look at the artist's work a lot closer. Haven't we been hearing a variation on this being offered as a consolation prize for having to put up with "The Da Vinci Code"? The film is available at thenormanrockwellcode.com.

Big Chirac Attack

"The Da Vinci Code" entered the world at the Cannes Film Festival but the Cannes film that everyone in France is talking about is a Michael Moore-style expose of the French president, The Times (London) reported. "Being Jacques Chirac" is a 90-minute documentary detailing the president's sexual affairs, corruption scandals and political U-turns. His former chauffeur Jean-Claude Laumond, who is in the documentary, wrote a kiss-and-tell book in 2002. Mr. Chirac, he said, had an insatiable sexual appetite that earned him the nickname "Five Minutes, Shower Included."

See if you can crack this code

Sandi Toksvig, writing in The Daily Telegraph (London):

I n the midst of the current troubled
T imes, when you would think that
S o many political, sociological or
N ation-defining events are in the
O ffing, it is curious, even tragic,
T hat the world focuses on trivia.
E veryone it seems has got Da
V inci fever. Wishing to fit in and
E ver mindful of the desperate

N eed to keep my finger, even
A t a distance, on the pulse of
G eneral trends, I have decided to
O ffer this week's prose as an
O pen piece of code. Crack it and
D a reason why Da Vinci himself
B elieved Tom Hanks was destined to
O pen the mysterious world of
O pus Dei to everyone will become
K lear.

More crack code crackers

When Germany occupied Denmark during World War II, Danish physicist Niels Bohr managed to send a telegram to his friends in England. He explained that he was safe and concluded with the request to inform others "and Maud Ray, Kent." The recipients thought this had to be code and eventually it was deciphered as: "Make uranium day and night." In fact, Maud Ray was the name of Bohr's old English governess, who lived in Kent.

One more parody

Henry Beard wrote "The Dick Cheney Code," set around the Bush re-election in 2004. Like "Da Vinci," "The Dick Cheney Code" begins with a murder. Hemmings Dumont, descendant of Thomas Jefferson and slave Sally Hemmings, is shot with a poisoned dart in the Smithsonian Museum, where he is a curator. Dumont guards a secret passed down through generations: 18th-century parchments proving that George Washington signed a pact with the devil to win the Revolutionary War, that several of the founding fathers were gay and that the title to the Louisiana Purchase passed to the descendants of all American slaves in October 2003.

Dick Cheney is called away from one of his undisclosed locations, which include a suite of rooms carved behind the forehead of Teddy Roosevelt on Mount Rushmore, to ensure that the president is re-elected. Mr. Cheney tells his clandestine cabal of David Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger, Queen Elizabeth, Alan Greenspan and Rupert Murdoch that if the Dumont secret is discovered, 119 electoral votes become the property of the country's black population, and "if we lose any of those electoral votes, we're toast." Dumont's code, less intricate than the Da Vinci, relies on scrawled messages like "LOOK HERE FIRST." After that, the parallels dissolve into unabashed Republican-bashing.

A raised eyebrow

More from the funny Sandi Toksvig, comedian and radio presenter in England:

"I wonder what Leonardo would have thought of the latest brouhaha. Admittedly, the man was a genius, but, frankly, also a bit of a dabbler. It was rare that he finished one thing before cracking on to the next. If there is a Da Vinci code, then this man with mild attention deficit disorder would never have finished it. I have often thought that the reason the Mona Lisa has no eyebrows is that the artist got distracted and moved on to something else.

"If you visit the Louvre, you might want to take a close look at the Mona Lisa. It was stolen in 1911 by Vincenzo Peruggia, an Italian house-painter. He kept it with him in a hotel room for a year before it was returned. There is something delightfully French and laid-back about this story. Peruggia stole the painting on a Monday morning, but no one noticed until just after 12 on Tuesday. There are those who believe that the real work was never returned and the tiny portrait now hanging behind bulletproof glass is a fake. Perhaps Peruggia painted it by numbers, and if you add those numbers up it will reveal a code that ... dear God, I think I'm being infected."