Talk:Monumental: In Search of America's National Treasure

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Interpretation vs. fact

I have changed this text: "The principal 'key' that Cameron alludes to is manifest in the National Monument to the Forefathers..." to reflect that this is Cameron's interpretation, not objective fact: "Cameron says the principal 'key' is manifest in the National Monument to the Forefathers..."

The first version asserts that the "key" IS in the monument. As the existence of this "key" is not an objective fact, it cannot be stated to factually be in the monument.

Try it this way: Joe Schmoe says George Bush is a lizardman from the planet Gorp. Schmoe says this is proven by a random sentence in one of Bush's speeches. We would NOT say "The 'proof' of Schmoe's claim is clear in Bush's speech...". Instead, we would say, "Schmoe says the 'proof' of his claim is in Bush's speech...". - SummerPhD (talk) 02:40, 5 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Box office

Re this edit:

IMDb reports total gross of $177,729 (USA) (20 May 2012)[1] with widest release of 27 Screens.[2]
Box Office Mojo reports a domestic total of $177,729 with a widest release of 27 screens.[3]
Baptist Press reports slightly higher figures: opening on 550 screens for a gross of $1.23 million, opening week alone.

I'm not sure where "Baptist Press" gets its Box Office data or whether or not those figures are served up with Kool Aid, but something is off... - SummerPhD (talk) 23:16, 12 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Is that electric kool aid or jonestown koolaid? Carptrash (talk) 23:24, 12 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, tough call. I am neither implying the Baptists are a suicidal cult nor suggesting taking LSD before seeing this movie. It's more the recent vintage idea of "uncritically accepting information from a source one generally agrees with". (I'm theorizing those promoting the film presented a creative interpretation of the numbers that Baptist Press repeated without question.) In Wikipedia terms, I see no indication that Baptist Press is a reliable source for box office results. - SummerPhD (talk) 00:42, 13 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"Reception" section

I feel the entire "reception" section of this article should either be rewritten using a more non-biased source (i.e. sources not specifically tied to religious or non-religious grounding), or marked for deletion altogether. The only "neutral" (I say that loosely) review is probably the Entertainment Weekly review, but even that review hacks the film on grounds other than historical veracity. I mean, what qualifies as a source for that section? Any actual historians commenting on this film? That would be more legitimate...thoughts? EDIT: I have marked the article, questioning the neutrality of the information presented. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joearant (talk • contribs) 17:23, 26 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Reviews are not objective in any sense. Yes, the conservatives (Glenn Beck) and evangelical Christians (Joni Eareckson Tada) liked it and agree with Kirk Cameron's historical study (he is a historian, right?). The secular crowd (Americans United for Separation of Church and State, George Hrab) say it is nonsense on stilts. This is neither surprising nor inappropriate. Perhaps including EW's "Viewers who already agree will agree; those who don't, won't." would help?

It would be great to have some reliable historians talking about this, perhaps discussing the disconnect between the Monument (based on 19th century Masons' interpretations of 17th century Brownist refugees' ideals) and Cameron's "footsteps of our Founders" (the 18th century "Founding Fathers" were mostly wealthy land owners with many Deists and agnostics in the mix). But I don't expect to see historians lining up to evaluate a film's historical conclusions when the film maker is an actor and his source material is a statue. - SummerPhD (talk) 03:54, 27 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Off-topic chat

Extended content

I recently found an unopened copy of the movie at my local "Used Stuff" outlet and picked it up for $1. It was not the waste of money that I was afraid it would be. The movie was watched not only by me but also by my 93 year old mother. She said, "Oh poo" four times during the screening. For those of you not familiar with the language of ninety year olds, "poo" mean, "poop," "shit' or "bull shit," all words ninety year olds don't use, but the intention was clearly there. I would like to thank the makers of this film for inspiring Mom, not an easy thing to do these days. Carptrash (talk) 17:57, 4 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This article talk page is for discussing improvements to the article, not for general discussion of the article's topic. - SummerPhD^v2.0 02:07, 5 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]