First off, let me just say I’m a huge fan of C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia.  I was a bit older when I first discovered them in my local library, so I got the Christian allusions throughout the novels.  However, if you’re just reading these novels for fun, the faith-based parts of the story are in many ways subtle and unless someone was standing over you, telling you how this applies to Christianity, you’d probably miss most of it.  I find nothing wrong with Lewis’ use of the novels to promote Christianity.  When you read about Lewis’ return to his faith, in no small part thanks to his friend J. R. R. Tolkien, you can really understand where he was coming from with these novels.  That being said, I find it extremely hypocritical the way in which churches are acting like de fato marketing firms for a film full of fantastical elements, witchcraft, and wizardry when they often condemn books like Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and others who also use these themes to detail the eternal battle between good and evil.  One cold easily draw the same Christian themes of Narnia from Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter novels.  What it comes down to is unlike Narnia the witches and wizards in the other novels are also the good guys.

I hear a lot of good things about Narnia, so I will be definitely seeing the film myself.  If you enjoy fantasy literature like Lord of the Rings it’s well worth reading and seeing.

Do Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger really risk alienating their fans just because they are playing gay characters?  That seems awfully silly to me, especially when so many other straight actors have done it before them and with no disruption in their careers.  I’ve read the short story on which Brokeback Mountain is based and the  "gay" part of it is relatively minor to the overall story, so I doubt it will cause the stir people think it will.  For those who find homosexuality offensive, well, they’ll bitch and moan but they’ll just avoid seeing the film.  Anyone who would stop going to either of these actors future films because of this choice are not probably big fans anyway.

This really wouldn’t be such a big deal if the media didn’t turn it into one.  Every time someone reviews this film they refer to the so-called concerns about the actors’ careers, they call it the "gay cowboy movie," they create these pseudo-worries about its content.  Yeah, this may do much to make the movie a grater success, but it’s all just silly.