DOGMA – List of movie-allusions

Dogma by Kevin Smith is one of the funniest movies I have ever seen. Lately I realised just how many allusions to other movies this special one contains and this is what this page is about. As always, when movie-buffs make movies themselves they draw from a long line of citations and influences and, as in the case of Kevin Smith, create something original.

I have divided the movie-allusions into three, small, theme-oriented paragraphs. I ommitted the characters of Jay and Silent Bob, even though they are an obvious allusions to Kevin Smith’s earlier work „Clerks“, just because of this reason: it is his own movie. Sidenote: „Clerks“ is also a hilarious movie – if you haven’t seen it, do it now. Moreover, Silent Bob is played by Kevin Smith himself, which, I am sure, you are well aware of.

Anyway, so here goes the list. As anything worthwhile on the internet it is very short. If you have something to add, do so here: cracked69@hotmail.com Thank you.

Ben Affleck (left) Jason Mewes (right-left) Kevin Smith (right-right)

Bible-movies:

Well, obviously. But the way Alan Rickman snarls upon them is quite funny. „Nobody cares about religion, but as soon as it was in a movie with Charlton Heston everybody becomes a theologian.“ I guess, he is talking about movies like „The Ten Commandments“ (1956) and „The Greatest Story ever told“ (1965), which are great ways to spend otherwise boring, religious holidays.

The theme of angels fighting among each other has been worked out in several movies, one of the best being „God’s Army“ (1995) with Christopher Walken and Eric Stoltz. I know that having the same issue is not an allusion at all but I wanted to mention „God’s Army“. It is another good movie. Go see it.

Teen-movies:

The reason why Jay and Silent Bob come to the hometown of Bethany is, now dig this, they wanted to go to a town called Sherman, Illinois, because this is the place where movies like „Pretty in Pink“ (1986) or „Breakfast Club“ (1985) or „Weird Science“ (1985) are located and all the girls in the movies are hot while all the men – except for Judd Nelson – are complete jerks. Too bad the place only exists in the mind of director John Hughes.

Then, right towards the end, when god – admirably played by Alanis Morrisette (!) – is reviving Bethany, Kevin Smith does another little thing to explain the way this works. He makes to movements with his hands that are very akin to „put on“ (right hand) and „polish“ (left hand) – the way the master teaches Ralph Macchio how to karate-fight in "„Karate Kid“ (1984).

The message of this is clear – all the good teenie-movies were made in these years: 1984 to 1986. And that, my friend, is a fact.

Others & movies mentioned:

The three satanic ice-hockeyplayers might be - but this is a very wide shot - an allusion to the Gibson Brothers in the craziest movie about ice-hockey ever made: "Slapshot" (somewhere in the Seventies, at least that is what the checkered trousers of Paul Newman are saying.)

During the movie several movies are mentioned. Right now I remember two: Con Air (when the apostle falls to earth) and The Piano (when Jay requests to know why God doesn't talk to him).

Well, that snuffs it for me folks, for this time around. The next project will be about the allusions to comic-books in movies by Kevin Smith, since the guy is obviously more than just a movie-buff, he is a comic-freak on top of that.

more info on Kevin Smith:  http://www.viewaskew.com/