'Dogma' is smart, articulate, wildly irreverent

By ELEANOR O'SULLIVAN

MOVIE WRITER

So far, so good. Critics as powerful as Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times and Janet Maslin of The New York Times are praising Kevin Smith's upcoming film, "Dogma."

Ebert, writing about the film's first public screening last Friday at the Cannes Film Festival, said "there was much laughter and no visible outrage."

Ebert said the controversial film is being distributed personally by Harvey and Bob Weinstein, the brothers who produced it for Miramax, a Disney subsidiary. Ebert says they paid Disney $12 million for the film; Maslin reported they paid $14 million.

Maslin called "Dogma" "smart and articulate" and "wildly irreverent, with characters who try to make sense of faith just as his (Smith's) 'Chasing Amy' characters tried to sort out love and sexual identity."

Maslin also said the film is "the rare pop entertainment with a lot on its mind, even if a meandering second half and a few gratuitous gross-outs dilute its effect."

Ebert writes that he, like Smith, also attended Catholic schools, and that "the dialogue in the movie was like a homecoming for me." He says the film contains scenes in which "fallen angels take out victims with machine guns, and, Christ is mugged in human form after returning to Earth to play Skee-Ball."

Smith told Ebert he attends church every Sunday. Ebert revealed that Smith is married and that his wife, Jennifer, is expecting their first child in about five weeks.

"Calling 'Dogma' anti-Catholic, Mr. Smith said, is like calling me anti-New Jersey," he told Maslin.

Smith ("Clerks," "Mallrats") grew up in Highlands, and lived in Red Bank for several years. He reportedly recently bought a home in Oceanport.

A spokesman for Miramax Films said she was unsure when the film was opening, but "I think sometime in the fall."

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