God bothering

The Day the Earth Stood Still: Fifties take on Christianity for the Cold War, as Jesus comes to Earth in the form of the alien Klaatu to try and save humanity from itself. In keeping with the dominant memes of the era, the proposed solution to human aggression is essentially authoritarian (a kind of robot police force which act to forestall any act of externally-directed violence). Not sure how well that would really work in practice. Also visually beautiful, with that kind of clean, spare austerity one associates with the early 1950s.

Dogma: Nineties take on Christianity for the postmodern era, as a group of Generation Xers take a road-trip to try to stop a pair of disillusioned angels from destroying all of creation. The message throughout being that legalism, doctrine and even belief are to be rejected, that grand narratives are generally false, and that what ultimately matters is being good to others, forgiving people and having ideas. Oh, and that Alanis Morrissette is God. Apparently more people were offended by this than by Jay and Silent Bob's continued existence.

Movie count for 2011: 59