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K-Pax

© James C. Hess

A fellow I know, who lives and works in the Hollywood Machine, made me literally fall off my chair a few weeks ago when he said something nothing less than outrageous.

According to this fellow (whom I won't name) the reason Hollywood is the way Hollywood is is because it is run primarily by Jews.

And Jews don't understand God.

This, by the way, from a fellow who takes great pride in being an atheistic Jew.

After I climbed back onto my chair I asked, understandably, for a further explanation of what this remark meant.

Jews, said this fellow, don't understand God. Because they don't they continually make movies and films about people messianic in nature and form in an attempt to justify their collective ignorance about God.

Now I take this fellow's verbal remarks tongue-in-cheek, given he takes great pleasure in being an irritant. This is a fellow who likes to yell 'fire' in a crowded movie house; this is a fellow who goes to social gatherings not to meet and greet but to say, at some point, 'Who FARTED?'; this is a guy who actually has business cards printed with his name, address, telephone number, and the phrase 'designated bad seed'.

I may take his remarks gently and as mostly harmless, but buried deep in his remarks is a curiousity that gives pause for cause: Why does the Hollywood Machine make the films and movies it does? Specifically, films and movies that suggest visitors from Out There (as in: Outer Space) are not just wayward cosmic wanderers but messianic sorts? Could there be an ugly truth to what the DBS said: We don't understand God, so we try to quantify God's existence through dreams spun of celluloid?

It is a question I leave to greater minds to ponder. Instead I turn my feeble gray mass to considering movies such as "K-Pax", the latest from the Hollywood Machine to attempt to give form to God, and ask: Is it good entertainment?

The simple answer: Yes.

Kevin Spacey, as Prot, is, as often the case, enjoyable, acceptable. His performance is top-drawer, and he does what actors used to do: Act, without taking his work too seriously.

Jeff Bridges, as the good doctor, is what he always is: His father's son: The macho male who wants to cry, and does.

And the story here, well, it does its job.

Here's the thing: I would have preferred a different presentation of this story. Instead of Forrest Gump from Outer Space I would have like to have seen this story within an ensemble design.

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