Thought police on a roll

It's obvious Barbara Nicolosi was never in Regnum Christi, because there she would have learned not to undermine the momentum of Legion-backed projects. The Legion wants Bella to succeed, and so all contrary thoughts must be silenced. Barbara had the audacity to pan the movie, and so now the RC lackeys must pan her -- personally if necessary. Pile on, amigos. The Kingdom depends on Bella!

According to their emails: -Yahoo (#1 web portal in the world): Bella is #1 highest rated by the people. (Gee, I wonder how that happened...)

And then word travels in this wise: 10,000 tickets to BELLA have been purchased by GOYA FOODS for your use this weekend! This is a free gift from Goya Foods to New York. (All showings Saturday/Sunday. Manhattan only. See Times/Locations below. First come, first serve). Goya foods believes in the message of Bella and wants New Yorkers to experience the movie for FREE when it opens this weekend in Manhattan.
Bring anyone and everyone you want and spread the word. Pick up tickets at the box office or look for people wearing Bella or Goya t-shirts.

The executive producers of Bella and Goya Foods finalized these details yesterday and we've been asked to help, so please get the word out. This will be awesome. (In other words, LC/RC officials paid us a visit and made a deal we couldn't refuse.)

That's not a groundswell of fan support, but a nudge from a money-source trying to find fans. Very different animal, folks.

They stuffed the boxes at the Toronto Film festival, so that there were more votes than bodies in the audience. They are buying out theatres and strong-arming members and supporters to buy batches of tickets, they are encouraging all "good Catholics" to vote at designated sites, they are skewing everything to PROVE that this movie (deserved or not) is a phenomenon. (Well, it is that, but it's shades of Maciel's book revisted -- when they bought almost the entire first run and claimed it "sold out!" The books were actually warehoused or given as gifts.)

Honesty is not a strong suit in the Movement, because "pious folk" can break all kinds of rules for Jesus, because He [hearts] RC Best! (xoxo)

Comments

[Anonymous]

I cannot tell you how annoying it was to get several emails from our RC section asking us to please rent a theatre for "only" $3,000. It was very disconcerting. If I had an extra $3,000 laying around, I certainly wouldn't rent a theatre. I'd buy a flat screen LCD & wait til the DVD comes out.

Something else that really bothered me was when they said that the $3,000 could be a tax write off as a charitable donation, but would not cost anything really because we could invite 300 people and charge them $10 each. Smells of tax fraud to me.

[Teresa]

I would like to see the evidence that the ballots at the Toronto film festival were stuffed. That is a pretty serious accusation. I would like to see it backed up by facts. As for the campaign behind the movie's success, this is not unknown to the movie industry. Similar events happened for The Passion of the Christ and The Nativity Story. Metanoia films gave *free* screenings of the movie, beginning one year before it came out! I was at the one show in January 2007 in Washington DC. The creators probably gave more *free* showings of the movie prior to it's release in theaters, than seats that were filled in its opening weekend. Your statements are for the most part true, but you leave a lot out as to skew your conclusion. It's rather shameful.

[bigb]

I read that interview. Frankly I don't see any critic who would like this movie as Hollywood is much more caught up in the form of delivery. Bella really isn't artsy. It does have a message, which it really doesn't know how to say well. "Phooey." "Lazy and sloppy." "Cheap." "Utterly predictable." "Pedestrian." "Melodramatic." "Mawkish." "Gooey." Nothing unorthodox, anti-catholic... so what's your beef? That someone has taken up to actually support a movie with a good message?