Some folks are readers, others are gawkers. Gawkers will always prefer the movie version of a story, readers usually like the dead-tree offering.

I'm a reader who'll admit that many fair-to-middlin' novels were made into great movies. Mario Puzo's The Godfather was a good book that Brando'd into a terrific flick. It happens. A great actor can take a story to a totally different level, and not that Tom Hanks is a great actor, but I look for him to elevate The Da Vinci Code to greater heights than the error-ridden book could have imagined. And, as a onetime staunch Roman Catholic who's actually been to the holy lands and hunched through more than one catecomb, I've no quarrel with those who'd boycott the theatrical presentation, none at all. It's their money and their opinion so let 'em. A silly little novel made into a summer escapist movie isn't going to bring Christianity to it's knees, and people can decide for themselves which version of mythological goings-on better suits their version of the universe.

BUT, as much as the Roman Catholic Church has come out against the book and flick, it's childsplay compared to what the moslems would be doing were such a presentation to have featured Mohamoud. Not that islam has anything worth translating into popular fiction, while the story of Christianity is larger than life, but if someone did try, heads would roll. Literally.

Lisa and I will catch "Code" when we've the time to, as the previews alone are better than the book.