I've been asked if I'm "that Dan Brown" about 9,000 times. Brown's latest crypto-thriller, which is unleashed today, has brought with it a 50% uptick in alternately genuine and jokey questions for me.

Her experiment works for me. While the science of Angels and Demons doesn't hold up on close examination, this doesn't make the movie any less appealing to me in theory.

There is nothing humorous about violence in the name of religion, whether it is threatened or actualized. Neither is there anything upbeat about religious intolerance -- on either side of the question.

William Donohue of the Catholic League is on a mission, and the goal of his mission is clear: to paint me and the movie I directed, Angels & Demons, as anti-Catholic.