All posts from "November 2011"
« October 2011 | Main | December 2011 »
November 28, 2011To Hell and Back Again: That's a Wrap!
Filmmaker finishes shooting 'Hellbound,' a documentary on Hades, coming next fall
Writer/producer/director Kevin Miller recently announced that he's finished principal photography for his upcoming documentary Hellbound, coming to theaters in the fall of 2012.
The film, to examine the contentious debate over the concept of hell, was shot in over two dozen cities across the U.S., Canada and Denmark, starting with Copenhell, a death metal festival held annually in Copenhagen. The film features a wide variety of interview subjects, including authors, academics, pastors, social commentators, filmmakers and musicians.
“I couldn’t be happier with how production has turned out," says Miller, who also wrote the script for 2008's Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. "My team and I have had a fantastic time as we've traveled across North America and beyond seeking to get to the bottom of this debate. It's been a life-changing experience for all of us, and I can't wait to share what we've discovered.”
Reality TV Meets the Holy Land
Five strangers take a spiritual trip in 'Journey to Christmas'
What happens when you take a group of complete strangers and throw them together in harsh conditions as something of a sociological experiment in the name of "reality TV"? Well, it's sort of like Survivor, but in the case of Journey to Christmas, it's more like a discovery of what the nativity story is all about.
A four-part documentary series, released this month by Tyndale House (and airing in early December on CTS), Journey to Christmas follows five North Americans from all walks of faith -- including an agnostic -- as they trek to and through the Holy Land for three weeks, visiting key spots in Christian history and culminating in Bethlehem on Christmas Day.
Local Christian historian Nizar Shaheen serves as their guide, giving the biblical and Christian context for each stop along the way, answering the pilgrims' questions. Interviews with Bible scholars are interwoven throughout the series, which is more like a blend between reality TV and a documentary.
Some of the best parts come when the five travelers -- all young adults -- gather at the end of the each day to discuss what they've seen, learned, and experienced. The lone Christian's faith is strengthened on the journey, but what about the other four, including one who says he's disappointed in God and seeking spiritual guidance? What will each of them find along the way?
The four 45-minute episodes are not only interesting and entertaining, but also serve as a good springboard for families or study groups to discuss the true meaning of Christmas in the context of history and geography -- of walking the trails where the magi, Joseph, Mary, and Jesus walked. The DVD includes a discussion guide.
The series can be purchased at ChristianBook.com, and here's the trailer:
Lawrence Fishburne Finds a Little Faith
Veteran gets behind pulpit for ABC's 'Have a Little Faith,' based on Mitch Albom's bestseller
Laurence Fishburne has been a cowboy on a children's show (Peewee's Playhouse), a thug in a Charles Bronson flick (Death Wish 2), a rock 'n' roll legend (What's Love Got to Do With It?), the captain of a hovercraft called the Nebuchadnezzar (The Matrix), a college prof and spelling coach (Akeelah and the Bee), and even Marvel comics legend the Silver Surfer (Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer).
The other central character in Albom’s book and movie is New Jersey Rabbi Albert Lewis, played by Martin Landau. “The Reb,” as Albom calls him, asks Albom to write his eulogy.
The charismatic preacher and the feisty rabbi could hardly be more different, but they both affect Albom profoundly affect the writer. It’s a story about losing belief, and finding it again.
The film airs Nov. 27 9-11 p.m. ET. Here's the trailer:
'Love Begins' . . . but Not All That Well
Prequel to 'Love Comes Softly' films, now on DVD, is a predictable Christian romance
Editor’s note: Love Begins, a prequel to the Love Comes Softly film series, releases to DVD today. We asked CT editorial resident Morgan Feddes for her thoughts on the movie.
Set in the American West, Love Begins is a stereotypical romantic film that describes how Clark Davis, one of the main characters in Janette Oke’s Love Comes Softly series, first meets Ellen Barlow. Ellen and her sister Cassie are trying to keep their family farm going after their father’s death the previous winter. They’re in need of a hired hand, but all the able-bodied young men have been hit with gold fever and have headed off to California, including Ellen’s childhood sweetheart.
Clark is a wanderer in both body and soul who’s passing through town on the way to California himself. When he gets involved in a fight at the local restaurant, he’s forced to stick around until he can pay off the damages. The sheriff convinces Ellen to hire Clark on as a way to pay his debt and give the Barlow farm some much-needed assistance. Clark gets along easily with Cassie, but his initial relationship with Ellen is much rockier.
The film, which originally aired as part of the Hallmark Channel's "Love Saga," has a number of weaknesses. Though this particular prequel isn’t based off a specific book, fans of the Love Comes Softly series—and most anyone who’s read more than a handful of romance novels—will be able to predict how the plot progresses. On top of that, the most interesting, tension-filled points of the plot happen in the last twenty minutes, making for a slow second act. The actors show signs of skill, but the weak dialogue hampers their performances. And though there are elements of faith woven in throughout, the subtle moments often prove to be stronger than outright mentions of God and church, which feel trite and forced.
Still, even with its weaknesses, Love Begins has a certain charm to it. Its Old West setting is largely responsible, I suspect (being a personal fan of westerns), but the quiet love story that unfolds, while predictable, is still enjoyable, particularly to fans of the Christian romance genre.
Love Begins is available for purchase at ChristianBook.com, and the trailer can be seen here:
'The Sound of Mumbai: A Musical'
Documentary explores high hopes, and stark reality, in the slums of India
In Slumdog Millionaire, a young man escapes Mumbai's extreme poverty by winning a ton of money on a game show. It was, of course, fiction.
A compelling documentary, The Sound of Mumbai follows the story of 20 young children from Mumbai's slums who have been selected to sing songs from The Sound of Music with the Bombay Chamber Orchestra at the National Centre for the Performing Arts, a ritzy facility normally inaccessible to the poor.
The film zeroes in on charismatic 11-year-old Ashish, whose unbridled optimism and persistent smile grab you from the moment you meet him. He is chosen to sing a solo, and he's both thrilled and nervous at the prospect of singing in front of a thousand in such an important spotlight. He looks in the mirror and gives himself pep talks, telling himself that he IS confident -- whether he really believes it or not. Articulate and outgoing, Ashish comes to believe that this opportunity is his ticket, and his family's, out of the slums and into a better lifestyle. He's convinced that he'll get noticed, and someone from the aristocracy will pay for a private education so that he can someday become "a doctor or a scientist," and earn the money needed for a better lifestyle.
It's interesting how snippets of Rogers & Hammerstein's songs play perfectly into the story. "Climb Every Mountain," with its admonishment to "follow every rainbow till you find your dream," aptly describes the hope of these children. Ashish's pep talks mirror the message of Maria's song, "I Have Confidence": "With each step I am more certain /
Everything will turn out fine / I have confidence the world can all be mine / They'll have to agree I have confidence in me."
But then there's that haunting tune sung by Maria and the Captain, "Something Good," with its reality-check lyrics: "Nothing comes from nothing / Nothing ever could." And amid all of the smiling faces and colorful optimism of The Sound of Mumbai, you can't help but think of how rare it is to escape India's caste system, for "the least of these" to move up the socio-economic ladder.
"It would be easy to say, if they believe in their dreams, they will do it," says Johannis Steinwender, the orchestra's Austrian-born conductor who puts the program together. "That would be the American way. But this is not America. This is India."
Will Ashish, like Jamal in Slumdog Millionaire, beat the odds and ultimately escape the slums?
Click here for HBO's showtimes, and here's the trailer:
Muppets! Music! Mayhem! Mirth!
Upcoming movie soundtrack will leave you warm and fuzzy -- sorta like a Muppet
As if I wasn't already excited enough about The Muppets, opening in theaters everywhere next week, I just received an advance copy of the movie soundtrack (releasing on Monday, Nov. 21, two days before the film), and after one listen, I'm wearing a smile as big as Fozzie Bear's.
Jam-packed with 30 tracks -- 15 songs and 15 brief bits of dialogue from the film -- this disc's a winner start to finish. Highlights include the dance-sequence opener (which reprises as a finale) "Life's a Happy Song," featuring co-stars Jason Segal, Amy Adams, and new Muppet Walter; "Me Party," a sublime disco duet between Adams and Missy Piggy; "Let's Talk About Me," a hilarious rap with Chris Cooper, who plays the villain (yes, Chris Cooper doing the hip-hop thang!); "Man or Muppet," a snicker-worthy duet with Segal and Walter; and "Smells Like Teen Spirit," not with Nirvana but with The Muppet Barbershop Quartet. Shear genius! Many of the new numbers were co-written by music supervisor Bret McKenzie from Flight of the Conchords.
A few old familiars show up, including "The Muppet Show Theme," "Rainbow Connection," and "Mah Na Mah Na," plus a handful from "real" musicians -- Paul Simon's "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard," Starship's "We Built This City," and Andrew Bird's "Whistling Caruso."
If you can't wait till next Wednesday when the movie opens, get a two-day head start on all the fun when the album releases next Monday. It'll be a great way to start off your Thanksgiving week.
Here's a little preview of "Life's a Happy Song" from the upcoming film:
An Unflinching, Compassionate Look at Homelessness
New documentary explores the lives, and complexities, of LA's homeless
The tagline to the new documentary Without a Home says it all: "She wanted to understand their lives. They changed her life forever." The tagline might have also added that she -- budding young filmmaker Rachel Fleischer -- also played a role in changing some of their lives too, at least a few of the 90,000 homeless in Los Angeles.
As a little girl from a well-to-do show-biz family (her father, Charles Fleischer voiced the lead character in the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit?), Rachel had a sensitive heart for the homeless. So when she grew up, she decided to buy a camera, go to Skid Row, and document their stories. And she found, as many documentarians do, that it was difficult to stay behind the camera and remain an objective observer. Watching Fleischer get to know these folks, and then wrestle with just how much she should (or shouldn't) get involved in their lives is part of this 74-minute film's draw. Any of us who have worked with homeless people have weighed those same things: How much should I get involved, and how do I help without enabling?
It's one thing to see Fleischer give one person a ride to a destination a few blocks away. It's another when one of her subjects asks for $50 to pay rent, or to spend the night at her house because he's out on the street. How will she respond? She wants to do the right thing, but doesn't always instantly know what that is. Fortunately, as Fleischer immerses herself into these lives, she's also meeting professionals in ministries and organizations that have worked with homeless people for years, and she learns the ropes quickly -- including the stark fact that some homeless folks might say they want help, but in the end, they really don't want to put forth the effort to change. Such stories are heartbreaking, and we see a few of them here. But we also see a few stories that are working their way toward a hopeful, redemptive ending.
Along the way, we meet heroin addicts who are high on the stuff, a guy who plays a homemade banjo on the street for a living, and a family that goes through eviction after eviction, just biding time till the dad can find steady work. And we watch Fleischer get involved in varying degrees, always asking herself, "Where do I draw the line?" It's easy to put yourself in her shoes and ask the same question.
Fleischer told The Jewish Journal that her faith definitely influenced the project and the way she went about it: “Tikkun olam, the idea of helping people and repairing the world, has always been, as far as I can remember, a big part of who I am. And one of the things that I really love about Judaism is that it’s so much a part of our culture to help other people and give back. I think it’s a very human idea, but I also think it’s a very Jewish idea to want to give back.”
At the end of the film, it sounds like she's got a pretty good grasp on the sociological and psychological complexities of homelessness:
"I wish it were as simple as putting a roof over everyone's head," Fleischer says in a voiceover. "But with or without a home, many of these people will continue to struggle. We have to be willing to examine the psychological wounds that brought so many of them to the streets in the first place, and then to respond accordingly. The feeling that initially drew me to document their lives ended up pulling me into their lives. And now I understand that as humans, we have a divine privilege to effect change, and when we do, the most extraordinary things happen."
Here's where you can buy the film, and here's the trailer:
Butterflies and Robots for Jesus
UK digital artist Simon Watkins avoids cliches when illustrating the Gospel of John
Instead, he's come up with 21 images -- one for each chapter of the book -- that features robots, butterflies, and "a whole spectrum of colors," he says of the project that took one year to complete. (The robot at right represents Chapter 17: "Lifting his eyes to heaven Jesus said . . . ")
"As I learned illustration and tried to advanced my career, I began to find all doors connected to God would fly open effortlessly while others would be slammed in my face," Watkins writes. "I came to the conclusion that someone was trying to tell my something and I would find something more worthwhile to illustrate. But where to start? God made it blindingly obvious: The Book of John. I am a born again Christian and that means that someone or something bought me close to Jesus. In my case it was a someone -- a someone called John.”
Below is his rendering from Chapter 12, regarding the anointing of Jesus' feet. You can learn more about the book and see more samples here.
'Preacher' Gunned Down at U. S. Box Office
Despite its star power, acclaimed director, and compelling storyline, the movie flops
Machine Gun Preacher -- the based-on-a-true-story of Sam Childers, a drug-dealing, gun-toting biker who found God and became an alleged mercenary saving African orphans -- has crashed and burned at the U.S. box office.
The film is now opening in the U.K. and other overseas locations; time will tell how it fares in the foreign market.
Why was it such a failure in the U.S.? Bad marketing? Weak promotion? Lack of advertising budget? Spoiled Americans who just don’t care about what’s happening in Africa? Christians won’t see R-rated movies? The subject matter?
Probably a combination of all of the above. We asked a few colleagues -- critics and industry writers -- what they thought. One surmised that fans want to see Butler in action movies, not in a drama -- though this film was quite dramatic. Another thought that Christians are simply turned off by the notion of a Christian carrying a gun. Another said it simply never was in wide enough release to attract a big audience.
We also asked one of the film's producers if she had any theories, but received no response.
We don't think our investigative story -- exposing several of the problems with Childers, his claims, and his orphanage in South Sudan -- had much, if anything, to do with the movie bombing, because readership wasn't very high on that piece, and none of the major wire services picked it up.
Whatever the reason, even though the film itself appears to be packing heat, when it comes to the box office, it's shooting mostly blanks.
Jesus Walks into a Wrestling Ring . . .
'Wrestling for Jesus' a compelling exploration of a strange but fascinating subculture
Wrestling for Jesus, an award winning documentary, follows Timothy Blackmon, a rural South Carolina man who decided the best way to share his faith was to form an amateur Christian wrestling league to spread the Word. Blackmon, who goes by the nickname "T-Money," faces challenge after challenge -- financial, marital, spiritual -- as he tries to work with this rag-tag-team group of grizzled old bikers and young skinny wrestlers.
The film begins as a kind of cultural side-show, introducing you to a small circle of enthusiasts where Christian evangelism intersects a grassroots form of what WWE calls "sports entertainment." But although the wrestling action may be overscripted, the evangelistic mission rings true as the traditional altar becomes an invitation to meet Jesus at the edge of the ring.
Nevertheless, the façade of sports entertainment becomes a metaphor in the false-front marriage of one of the couples involved. When that marriage breaks up, so does the Wrestling for Jesus team. The air of unreality is capsulized first in an early scene in which one wrestler shows off the trophy he won for being the most Christlike wrestler. Behind him is a poster of a scantily clad female model draped across the hood of a sexy car. The unreality is capsulized again near movie's end when a morose little girl uses a home karaoke machine to sing herself a sappy little princess song.
And yet, and yet, there is a genuine good-heartedness that permeates all this unreality: the divorced father becomes more attentive and nurturing than ever. The leader of the fractured team pulls them back together for a benefit exhibition to support a fellow wrestler who has broken his neck. These things tip the balance of human experience in favor of hope.
Filmmaker Nathan Clarke (whom, full disclosure, I count as a friend) has a wonderful eye for detail and for metaphor. In Wrestling for Jesus, he helps us see human imperfection with compassion and hope.
The film is available purchase at the official website, and here's the trailer:
recent posts
Archives
April 2012March 2012
February 2012
January 2012
December 2011
November 2011
October 2011
September 2011
August 2011
June 2011
May 2011
April 2011
March 2011
February 2011
January 2011
December 2010
November 2010
October 2010
September 2010
August 2010
July 2010
June 2010
May 2010
April 2010
March 2010
February 2010
January 2010
December 2009
November 2009
October 2009
September 2009
August 2009
July 2009
June 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
| 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |
| 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 |
| 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 |
| 29 | 30 |