To Save a Life

Posted on August 2, 2010 at 10:48 pm

Whose life does the title refer to? “To Save a Life” begins with a funeral, a tragic loss of a high school kid who committed suicide because he felt isolated and friendless. Jake (Randy Wayne), a popular senior who thinks he has it all attends the funeral, remembering Roger, who was his closest friend when they were children. Roger once saved Jake’s life when they were on their bicycles, putting himself in the path of an accident that left him with a permanent limp, and Jake wonders how they grew apart and when the last time was that he even said hello to Roger in the school hallway.

Other lives will be at risk, metaphorically and literally, as this story continues, and one of its strengths is its willingness to engage candidly and open-heartedly with the real issues that confront teenagers, giving it some heft and credibility. It also benefits from better production values than most Christian-identified entertainment, with sound, lighting, script, direction and acting that compare with the kinds of content kids are used to on television and in theaters. While some adult audience members looking for family-friendly fare may not be happy about the frank portrayal of some high-risk teen behavior, the target age group will appreciate its honesty about high school life and stress. Even more important is the portrayal of a clergyman who walks the walk, making his leadership about meaning and values and most of all kindness. He does not try to make God the explanation for everything, just the beginning of the answer. And he handles one of teenagers’ most frequent complaints about “churchy” people, that some of them are hypocrites who do not practice what they preach, in a forthright and believable manner that is genuinely disarming.

I have one DVD and one Blu-Ray to give away. Write to me at moviemom@moviemom.com with “Life DVD” or “Life Blu-Ray” in the subject line and the first to arrive will win. Good luck!

Visions of Israel

Posted on August 2, 2010 at 10:54 am

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	All Ages
MPAA Rating:	NR
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	None
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to DVD:	August 10, 2010
Amazon.com ASIN:	B0039ZF8LY

From the Western Wall to the Temple Mount, “Visions of Israel” shows us breathtaking footage of this timeless land, sacred to three major religions. Stunning high-definition footage takes us to sites ancient and contemporary, providing settings of ancient history going back thousands of years with timeless beauty that continues to the present day. You will see where Jewish rebels fought for freedom, where ancient civilizations from Greece, Rome, and Egypt established their outposts. Unprecedented views of the Sea of Galilee, Masada, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre illuminate our understanding. This is part of the distinguished “Visions” series broadcast on PBS, now available through Acorn Media.

I have one copy to send to the first person who writes to me at moviemom@moviemom.com with Shalom in the subject line.

The Jesus Guy

Posted on July 10, 2010 at 8:00 am

A wandering evangelist known only as “What’s Your Name” walks through the world with no money or possessions, dressed like the images of Jesus most familiar to Christians, sharing the messages of the Bible. It is interesting to me that many people approach him because they’ve seen him on television rather than because he represents the spirit of Christianity. But people find their encounters with him genuinely moving and inspiring, and it is touching to see the connections he makes with people, often more from the way he listens than from what he says. Believers and non-believers will both find their assumptions challenged in this film, and as with the people he encounters, your reactions will be more governed by what you bring with you than by whether he is a con man or mentally ill or truly filled with the spirit of God.

The entire “Jesus Guy” film is currently available at no charge on Hulu.

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Documentary Spiritual films

Christian Books for Young Adults

Posted on July 1, 2010 at 8:00 am

Ruth Graham has an excellent piece in Slate about the “surprisingly empowering guide to adolescence” found in young-adult novels from evangelical authors and publishers for a Christian audience. christy miller.jpg

Created as a “safe” alternative to mainstream fiction, books for Christian girls include wholesome heroines, lots of praying, and absolutely no cursing. And they’re a big business. The <a href="Christy Miller“>Christy Miller and Sierra Jensen
series–now Christian YA classics–have sold more than 2 million copies between them, and the Diary of a Teenage Girl books have sold more than 600,000 copies since 2008. Most Christian publishers have guidelines for taboo words and situations, and some also have in-house theologians vet content to make sure it adheres to “Biblical principles.” Amid all of this piety, however, are explicitly positive–even feminist–messages like positive body image, hard work, and the importance of not settling for just any guy–that present a grounded alternative to the Gossip Girl landscape.

Graham is frank in her assessment that these stories are more parables than literary works.

Make no mistake: Christian novels written for young people are still primarily developmental tools rather than literary efforts. They’re often didactic and formulaic, and a secular parent should think twice before buying them for his or her child. Evangelical publishers and authors say that what sets their books apart is how they show “natural consequences” of vice, which, in effect, means that no young person has sex without life-altering regrets or worse, and no one has a sip of beer without becoming a full-blown alcoholic. As Daniel Radosh, whose excellent Rapture Ready!: Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture
is just out in paperback, explains it, “When you start with the premise that the original form is inherently corrupt, you end up going overboard trying to demonstrate the acceptability of your version.” More disturbingly, the books’ positive messages are muddled by a concurrent strain of self-abnegation. The 13-year-old heroine of Ann Tatlock’s A Room of My Own, for example, learns that a life of sacrifice and service is more important than having her own room.

Despite Graham’s pointed reference to Virginia Woolf’s thoughts on the importance of having one’s own room, I have no problem with a story that reminds young people that sacrifice and service are more important than a private bedroom. Tatlock’s heroine can still earn the right to a room and the work it makes possible some day.
Graham writes about the influence these works have had on more mainstream and widely popular literature like the Twilight series. And she makes an important point about the welcome nature of the focus for tweens and teens on being about something more than designer fashion and a boyfriend.

Though evangelical books have had a hand in creating this more moral era, the larger takeaway from the Christian books is not that girls should imagine themselves as subservient wives, but that they should prepare themselves for adulthood. Certainly heroine Candace Thompson sees marriage as her ultimate goal when she is choosing a boyfriend. But she also wants someone “who valued what she did, would take her seriously, would help her grow as a person, and would love and respect her.” That’s not a girl preparing for a life as a doormat; it’s a girl learning about the importance of emotional strength. It’s a girl who refuses to settle for a so-so boy who is not on track to be a good man. As far as girlish escapism goes, it’s better than holding out for a Prada purse.

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Books Teenagers Tweens

Interview: Rich Christiano of ‘The Secrets of Jonathan Sperry’

Posted on May 4, 2010 at 1:59 pm

I spoke to writer-director Rich Christiano about making — and marketing — faith-based films.
You were really a one-man show behind the scenes for this film.
We have a good production team and worked hard on the distribution. This the third film we’ve put out theatrically. We learned a lot doing it. It played over 300 screens. We lot local churches to sponsor the movie in their cities. The churches that put forth the effort did well. We also worked with Christian radio. In Dayton, Ohio we ran 22 weeks because the radio station got the word out. In another city there was a pastor who really got behind the film and we did really well there. Promotion is the hardest part of it. We made sure we had local groups pushing the movie.
Is there a big audience for faith-based films?
The inspirational films have a lot of upside. One-third of this country goes to church each week and that’s our marketplace. And they’re an under-served audience. If everyone who goes to church would see our movie, we’d have “Avatar” numbers. Our society has changed over the last 20 years. If I’d told you back then there would be a weather channel, you would not have believed it. The Christian consumer group is now becoming more and more a player. They audience wants to watch these films; they just need to know they are there.
What do you hear about the way audiences respond to this film?
We’ve had wonderful reactions. There’s an emphasis to read the Gospel of John in the film. I heard from a lady who said her eight-year-old came home from the movie and read the Gospel of John. Then he wanted to go to Bible study like the boys in the movie. Another woman said her husband had drifted from the Lord. But when he came home he said three words that really lifted her spirit: “Where’s my Bible?” A 60-year-old lady told me her sister was visiting from Scotland and that she’d never, ever seen her cry until she saw this film. One of our sponsors in Fort Worth, Texas took his daughter to the film. When she saw a character change in the film, she told her father she wanted to show that she had been changed. There’s a strong message of forgiveness in this film. We’ve shown it in prison. Several of the prisoners wrote me a letter.
What can a movie convey better than a book or a sermon?
The church needs to recognize how powerful the audio-visual really is. I spoke to a man who was a church-goer and asked him if he could remember what his pastor preached a month ago. He couldn’t. I asked him if he could tell me about “The Wizard of Oz.” Even though he had not seen it for 15 years, he could remember all of the details.
Movies manipulate us, affect us, influence us. Most movies influence people away from the Lord. I want to use them to influence people for the Lord. There’s a spiritual battle going on and the Message of Christ is always being snuffed out. Movies are an entertainment medium, but every movie is religious because every movie has standards, every movie has a message about those standards. We’re trying to put forth films that are entertaining but put forth a message for the Lord, to inspire, to challenge thinking, to provoke spiritually, to make people think about eternity.
It was nice to see the film set in 1970 because that lends it a simplicity that suits its themes.
There’s no cell phones, no text messaging, no X-Box. I showed opening credits over pictures like old-school film-making. It’s like Mayberry with Bible study. It’s a throwback. It’s not edgy. It’s simply shot, no visual effects. It’s story-driven. It’s not an action film. It’s got laughs. And it’s got heart.

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