Kevin Smith's hilarious and profane ode to religion starred BFFs Ben Affleck and Matt Damon before the world was sick of them, it's Dogma. Any movie where the late, great George Carlin plays a corrupt priest who spends more time on the golf course than in church gets our vote. And who could forget Chris Rock's iconic turn as Rufus, the lost disciple of Christ? (You know, erased from history because he was black.) Affleck and Damon play fallen angels determined to reenter heaven via a loophole in the Bible. Indeed, it helped if you went to Sunday school to fully understand this sacrilegious movie that mixed faith with fart jokes, but a funny bone is all you really needed. Religion was always a taboo subject in Hollywood, but to a certain degree, Dogma made it less so - at least for innocuous comedies like Saved! Of course, the witty banter and outrageous set pieces didn't always mix, at least not as successfully as Smith intended (that demon made of human excrement maybe belonged in a comic book but not here, Kevin), but the always welcome Jay and Silent Bob kept things moving at an uproariously entertaining pace. And the cherry on this vulgar cake: Alanis Morissette as God. Brilliant.
Michael Perone has written for The Baltimore Sun, Baltimore City Paper, The Island Ear (now titled Long Island Press), and The Long Island Voice, a short-lived spinoff of The Village Voice. He currently works as an Editor in Manhattan. And he still thinks Michael Keaton was the best Batman.
