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Family, Movie Reviews

A Week Away

Musical / Christian 2021 / 97 minutes Rating: 9/10 When Will Hawkins steals a cop car he's faced with a choice: heading to juvenile detention, or accepting foster mother Kristin Alway's invitation to join her and her son George at summer camp. While Will doesn't think he's really "camp material" it's better than option #1. It's at this point that viewers find out we are in a musical, with foster mom, George, and Will all breaking out into quite the rendition of Steven Curtis Chapman's The Great Adventure. After he arrives, Will realizes he signed up for church camp... and now it's too late to change his mind. Still, while Will is reluctant, he's not a sourpuss, and with George as his wingman, he quickly starts to see the positive side of things. One big plus is the first girl he bumps into, Avery Farrell. She's a camp veteran, the daughter of the camp director, and an extremely competitive participant in every event of the camp's week-long "warrior games." One early hiccup happens when Will doesn't want Avery to know about his delinquent past so he introduces himself as George's cousin. George objects: "I don't mean to be a prude, but lying is kind of up on the top top 10 'thou shalt nots...'" but gets distracted when Will promises to help him with his own camp crush, Presley Elizabeth Borsky. On the first night campers are divided into one of three groups with Will joining George among the Verdes Maximus, and Avery and Presley together on the Crimson Angels. The "villain" of the piece, Sean Withers, heads the Azure Apostles, and the reason he's the bad guy is mostly just his cockiness – his Apostles have won the warrior games every year for "just about forever." While the budding romance will get the tweens and teens, what makes A Week Away brilliant for everyone is the musical numbers. In a genius move, writer and producer Alan Powell features all sorts of 90s and early 2000s CCM songs to hook mom and dad, and then absolutely nails the choreography: these dance numbers are as good as anything you've seen. Cameos add to the fun, with Steven Curtis Chapman appearing as a frantic lifeguard during a beach number featuring his song "Dive." Then Amy Grant shows up as a cafeteria lady while everyone is singing her "Baby, baby." Their screen time amounts to no more than 10 seconds, but it's a fun wink for any parents who spot them. This is basically High School Musical, though this time the Christians have one-upped their competition. Cautions The cautions here amount to the sort you might offer for the Contemporary Christian Music featured throughout: it's Christianity-lite, with quite a bit about God's grace, and not much about sin. Will is a juvenile delinquent, but his crime spree is played off as just short of inconsequential (who can help but laugh when we're told he tried selling his old school on Craigslist?) and as a result the story is about Will's need for friends and family, and not his need for a Saviour. A more specific caution relates to one lyric, where Avery raps that her team is going to win because "God loves us more." Her camp director father quickly offers a corrective, but it's not on the mark either: "God loves us all equally." I asked my daughters if that was true, and they thought it was until we started remembering how John was distinguished as "the disciple whom Jesus loved" (John 20:2) and David was called "a man after God's own heart" (Acts 13:22). And, of course, there's verse after verse about those God hates (ex. Ps. 5:5-6). Conclusion Most kids haven't seen many musicals, so I wasn't surprised when a neighbor complained about how unrealistic this was. But her problem wasn't the high cheese factor or that everyone was randomly breaking into song; it was that no one had phones! That got me thinking: who knows what dance numbers might just spontaneously come to be, if only we put away our devices! Shut down all the phones and screens, show your kids A Week Away, and then pop in your old Steven Curtis Chapman CD into your even older boombox and sit back and watch your littles bounce and leap around your hallways. This will get them dancing! That's the fun here: the joy. The music is popping, the cast are all lovable even when they're moping, and shucks, even the bad guy gets redeemed in the end. It isn't deep, but it is delightful, and you won't be able to help but play it loud. A Week Away is the best of bets for a family movie night. And, I'll add, it's also better than this trailer makes it look... Producer Alan Powell starred in another fantastic (though not family-friendly) Christian musical, The Song. ...

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Family, Movie Reviews

Good Sam

Drama / Family / Romance 2019 / 89 minutes RATING: 8/10 Kate Bradley is a TV news reporter following the "bummer beat" in New York City, covering fires and other tragedies. That's left her a little cynical, and her boss is worried that it's also left her more than a little jaded about the dangers she risks to get her stories. So when a story breaks about an anonymous good samaritan leaving a bag of $100,000 outside a financial-strapped older lady's door, Kate's boss decides to give her this safer assignment. Kate isn't happy about her new beat, and presumes there has to be some sort of angle behind the good deed. As she tells her cameraman, "It's hard to believe that there's somebody out there doing good deeds and expecting nothing in return." But when the money keeps coming the mystery only deepens; "Good Sam" leaves a second bag of cash with a doctor who isn't in any sort of need. The third recipient, a carpenter who'd been laid up with an injury, has no connection to the first two. And the news just keeps getting better when folks who've heard about Good Sam start acting like him, and starting their own Good Samaritan clubs, to do anonymous good deeds in their neighborhoods. Good Sam would have been too sugary-sweet if it'd keep on this track, but we find out that Kate's cynicism isn't baseless: a tech programmer claims to be Good Sam, but Kate quickly exposes him as a fake. And that's not the only dirt that Kate uncovers. I appreciated a romance angle that was less predictable than most. Kate gets two love interests, both pretty stalwart sorts... or so it seems. Kate's father is a US senator, and when she meets charming hedge fund manager Jack Hansen she initially turns him down, as she has a rule against dating anyone in her father's political circles. Eric Hayes is a firefighter Kate keeps bumping into in her day job. He is as brave as he is private... or might the right word be secretive? Which of these two will she end up with? That's another mystery, and viewers are left in suspense for most of the movie. Cautions No language or violence concerns to share. There is some kissing, right at the end, but exchanged in a public park. The more notable caution is for what the movie doesn't have – this is a part of Netflix's "Faith and Spirituality" category, but it isn't either. While the original Good Samaritan story (Luke 10:25-37) teaches us what it means to live out the Second Greatest Commandment, this one avoids any mention of God. Conclusion The moral of the story trends in a humanist direction – people aren't as bad as we think as they will sometimes do things for completely unselfish reasons. However, the Calvinist in me can recast this in a more orthodox direction, seeing it as an illustrated of how the world is broken but not utterly depraved, and the cyclical Kate has no right to be so in the face of the many undeserved blessings she (and we) receive daily. While this is just a Hallmark-ish kind of romance, I'd give it two thumbs up for being way better than the average sort. The acting is solid throughout, the mystery and romance will keep most viewers guessing for the first three quarters of the film, and the lack of problematic content make this one you can watch with almost the whole family (though I don't know if it'll grab the under 8s). That makes Good Sam a pretty rare treat. ...

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Assorted

Love is...

Love is a mostly misunderstood word – it’s mistaken for sex, for sentimentality, for some sort of chemical thing that just happens, or doesn’t, and either lasts forever, or doesn’t. Some think it’s effortless. Some even think it can be bought for money. Christians, too, are confused. We know love is more than sex, more than sentimentality, and more than chemistry, but most of us are still trying to figure out whether love is a feeling or an action! So what is love then? God tells us that love is… sacrificial “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Eph. 5:25). Some misunderstand love as a math formula, where things are supposed to work out even on both sides of the equation: if you give a friend a thoughtful present, you should be able to count on getting one in return; if you give your spouse a backrub, they should get up and make you coffee; tit for tat, back and forth, even-steven. But Christ demonstrated the complete inequity of real love – He loved us, so He gave himself up for us, even though, in return, we can offer him nothing. Loving is giving with no thought of getting. something you do “Let us not love in word or in tongue but in deed and in truth” (1 John 3:18). Love is more than a feeling, more than an attraction, more than arousal or sentimentality. Love is expressed in what we do for one another. We can say we love our brother, but if we won’t visit him when he’s lonely or help him when he is troubled, there is no love. Love is an action. not a duty to be performed “If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing” (1 Cor. 13:3). Doing is not enough – it’s not enough to give to the poor, go to church twice each Sunday and read the Bible regularly if we are not doing this out of our love for God. A daughter can take her aging father to medical appointments, help him with his shopping and pop by regularly for a cup of coffee, but this, by itself, isn’t love – the very same tasks could be done by hired staff. Love is more than just a verb. A husband can play the part of a loving spouse – he can do all the right things, but love is more than just action, more than just duty. It is an attitude... Love is a feeling. not God “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 John 4:8). The Beatles got it backwards when they sang, “All you need is love.” All we need is God, and while God is indeed love, that doesn’t make the reverse true – love isn’t God. The Beatles aren’t the only ones to get it backwards though. Our society is in love with love – they insist it's the only way to bring meaning to our lives so it must be pursued no matter what the cost. Affairs, naturally, have become commonplace; if love is god, nothing should stand in the way of it, not vows, not spouses, not family. Instead of pursuing the God who is love, our society pursues love itself and has made an idol of it. But love is not God. from God “In this is love, not that we loved God, but the He loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). God commands us to love our neighbor, and it’s a command most of us find easy to do. Or at least easy to do with old Mrs. Todd, our next-door neighbor who bakes cookies for us every Thanksgiving. But this command isn’t as easy to obey with that neighbor two doors down, who always steals our parking spot. Or the guy right next door who leaves beer cans on our lawn. Love these guys? Maybe we would if they were only a bit more lovable. But of course, the love God is commanding here is of a more godly sort – the love that comes from Him. We need to humbly remember that we love, only because God loved us first. He, after all, didn’t love us because we had first in some way earned or prompted His love. No, He loved us first, sending His Son to die for us even while we were His enemies. And it is because He loved us first, that we can now love Him, and our neighbor. Love comes from God....

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Drama, Movie Reviews

A Royal Christmas

Drama / Romance 87 minutes / 2014 RATING: 7/10 How would you react if you found out that the wonderful, thoughtful, fun, quiet someone you were dating was secretly royalty? That's the premise, in this fun-for-the-whole-family Hallmark outing. Emily Taylor is a young talented clothes designer, who comes by her skills from growing up in the family's tailor shop. Leo James is her long-time boyfriend – it's been almost a year now! – who suddenly reveals that he is actually the crown prince of the tiny kingdom of Cordinia. And he's inviting Emily to come visit the kingdom for Christmas. The one hitch? Queen Isadora (played by Jane Seymour of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman) is dead set against her son marrying a commoner. So will Emily win over the frosty queen? Will she find a way to fit in with dukes and countesses? Can she learn the ways of royalty without losing the spark that makes her special? And will the lonely queen find someone to love? If you've seen any of these kinds of films before, you can already answer all of these questions. But that doesn't make it any less fun to watch. Caution The one caution would be a passing mention that years ago the prince once went skinny-dipping with a duchess. It was a weird inclusion, and totally not in keeping with the tone of the rest of the film (maybe it was something innocent when they were just little kids?). The only other concern is that this is yet another movie with "Christmas" in the title that makes no mention of the reason for the season, Christ. Not surprising from Hallmark; still disappointing. Conclusion When I came up with my own film rating scale, what I had in mind for a 7 was a typical Hallmark film, one that was entertaining, but where the acting wasn't all that noteworthy in either a bad or good direction. That's exactly what we have here. A Royal Christmas was enjoyed by all in our household, from 9 all the way up to mom and dad. Shucks, if grandma and grandpa had stopped by, I'm sure they would have liked it too. It's not amazing, but it sure is nice. ...

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Drama, Movie Reviews

Hidden Places

Romance / Drama 2005 / 86 minutes Rating: 6/10 In the Depression of the 1930s, the young widow Eliza Wyatt is trying to help her father-in-law keep their orange farm going. But when he dies suddenly of a heart attack, Eliza doesn't know what to do. She has two children to support, and her only other help is her Aunt Batty. But between the four of them, there's just too much work, too little time, and too pressing a deadline, with a mortgage payment coming due. Then along comes Gabe, a First World War veteran, wandering the rails and backroads of the country, heading away from his home, but towards nothing in particular. They can't afford to pay him. But he ain't looking for much more than a roof above his head. Based on a Lynn Austin novel of the same name, this is a pretty typical Hallmark film, different from the others primarily in that it does have some Christian overtones. I liked this more than my wife, and I think that might have been the orange grove setting, and learning a little bit about how they brought the harvest in way back then. Caution Like many a Christian film, the source of hope and security in this film doesn't seem to be God, but faith. Am I splitting hairs? I don't think so. Even as God is referenced repeatedly – the family reads the Bible together, and Gabe leads them in a prayer – when anyone speak of the importance of "having faith," it seems to be more about keeping up the positive self-talk than an encouragement to put their trust in the almighty Creator of the universe. Conclusion If you're looking for a "safe" film, this fills that bill, but it isn't a keeper. I picked this up on DVD for a couple bucks at the local Christian thrift store, I got my money's worth, and now I'll be donating it back. The trailer below hits the plot points of this leisurely-paced film. ...

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Family, Movie Reviews

Pride and Prejudice (2003)

Romance/Comedy 104 min / 2003 Rating: 8/10 When a book is adapted for the screen, readers want it to be as close to the book as possible. So let's begin this review with a heads up: that did not happen here. The central plot remains the same – these are women "in need of a husband" – but the setting has been updated to the modern-day USA, with five girlfriends all sharing a house just off-campus. Other departures include how the first love interest, Charles Bingley, came by his wealth: selling classical music CDs for dogs, and marketing them via late-night TV infomercials. And he drives a motor scooter. Oh, and Mr. Collins' proposal now has him make the compelling argument: "Elizabeth, we've been commanded to multiply and replenish the earth." So if you aren't up for a light, silly treatment of your favorite book, this is not for you. That said, I do think it is for most everyone else. And if you've ever wished that someone today could make something like Pride and Prejudice, well, this is something like it indeed. This version also adds an element glaringly absent from the book and every other film version: car chases! Caution There aren't many cautions to offer because, as it turns out, this was made by Mormons. There's no sex happening onscreen or off (though the villain of the piece, Wickham, jokes at one point about being “relatively disease-free”). The only problematic element is a self-help dating guide called the “Pink Bible.” We had to explain to our kids that it was a “bible” only in the sense that it was purporting to be the final word on that subject – dating – as the Mechanics Bible would say it is for car repair. We also had to explain to our girls that this boy-crazy guide and the "religious" way that the youngest two girls, Kitty and Lydia, followed it, was meant to be a comic warning and not an example. Conclusion This is not a faithful retelling of Pride and Prejudice and yet it is a very good one, keeping remarkably close to the spirit of the book. That makes it the perfect date night movie for mom and dad, and a pretty good one for the whole family. The pacing is quick, the romance is sweet, and the humor is sprinkled liberally throughout. Of the 50 or so people I’ve watched it with, or loaned it to, somewhere near 90% have given it a thumbs up. There are so many Pride and Prejudice films that if you want to find this one you should search for the title along with the year, or the title along with the word “Mormon." That’ll help you track it down. I share the trailer below with some misgivings – the film is a lot better than this makes it seem. ...

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Drama, Movie Reviews

The Song

Drama / Musical 2014 / 116 minutes RATING: 9/10 The Song destroys all the expectations we have for Christian films. It has great acting, a great script, an even better soundtrack...and also infidelity, abortion, suicide, drugs, and more infidelity. It's far better than most any Christian film you've seen, but also much grittier. It is based on, but does not pretend to be, the story of King David and Solomon. The setting is Nashville, with Jed King (played by Alan Powell) an aspiring country singer who hasn't yet measured up to the status of his superstar father. But he also hasn't fallen into any of his excesses either.  When he meets Rose, the manager of a winery, Jed writes a special song for her that turns into his first major hit. From there we see him rise to spectacular heights. Like Solomon before him, he has it all. And like Solomon (and his superstar father), that's not enough – he falls to temptation, in his case involving the lead singer of his opening act. That doesn't explain how very different this film is from the typical Christian fare, so let's focus on two things that make it remarkable. The first is the outstanding pairing of story with biblical narration. All the "Solomonic texts"– Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, and the Song of Solomon – are quoted regularly and impactfully. Jed is learning some hard lessons through the film, and he shares them, warning us of the ways of the adulterous woman and the futility of having it all when it is all going to turn to dust in the end. Remarkable, too, is the music. It's another fantastic pairing, this time of story and song: the musical performances are worth the price of admission right there! While praising it as highly as I can, I will add that this was a hard film to watch the first time, since, being familiar with both David and Solomon's stories, my wife and I knew that at some point Jed's happy story was going to take a devastating, self-sabotaging turn. We actually ended up watching it in two nights, the first with all the fun romantic joking and giddiness of Jed convincing Rose to be his wife. We shut it off right before Jed was set to make his stupid devastating decisions (it wasn't hard to tell when that was going to happen). Then the next evening, we could start with that ugliness, ride it out, and then enjoy the end of the movie, where we got to see his life impacted by undeserved but gratefully received grace. CAUTIONS Even though we don't really see anything objectionable, the mature topic matter means this is not a film for children. Underscoring that point, it begins with a two-minute overview of the lowlights of David King's life. We see Jed's father singing on the Grand Ole Opry and later catching his bandmate's wife swimming naked in a lake (the water obscures her), paralleling David seeing Bathsheba. While King David kills Uriah, in the film the husband, upon learning of his friend's and wife's betrayal, commits suicide. Thankfully this is all covered in a quick montage in the opening minutes. CONCLUSION Some films are gritty for the sake of being gritty. This is gritty for the sake of being true. But it is also funny, romantic, rousing, thought-provoking, and toe-tapping for the same reason: because that's what life is like too. I don't know if I gave The Song the pitch it deserves, so I'm linking to a few other reviews so you can get a second and third opinion. Plugged In – conservative Christian review Variety – a secular take If you want to dig into the film further, here's a list of some of the biblical references throughout the film. You can check out the unique trailer below, a more conventional one here, and a great musical clip here. You can rent the film online at Amazon and other online streaming services. ...

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Adult fiction, Book Reviews

The Man in the Dark

by Douglas Wilson 258 pages / 2019 Some books only merit a quick read, others should be slowly savored, and a select few are so good you just have to read them out loud to your wife. This is that third sort! Savannah Westmoreland, a self-assured school teacher, finds herself in the middle of a love triangle. Except that it wouldn't be accurate to call what the town's biggest businessman feels for her love. Desire...hunger...lust. But not love. And while the church's newly arrived pastor is interested, and seems a worthy sort, he can't get past the walls Savannah has set up. But events – and friends – conspire against Savannah, putting her repeatedly in the pastor's company. And even as he uses these moments to make a good case for his marriable merits, Savannah is still actively discouraging him. Why? Something from her past still has a hold on her. The pastor is trying to get around this obstacle, but the businessman is trying to discover exactly what her secret is so he can use it to control her. This is Douglas Wilson's third novel, but first romance. It is the second of his books that I've read out loud to my wife, the other being Flags out Front. That's really the highest praise I can give a book. But lest you think Wilson is only a two-hit wonder, I'll share that his other novel, Evangellyfish, won Christianity Today's 2012 best fiction award. This man knows how to tell a story. As you might suspect of a book written by a Reformed pastor, there is a lot of theology, from the dinner table conversations to the metaphor underlying the whole story. But conversations about God are a great way to learn about God, and even though the book has a pastor right in the mix, this is not a sermon disguised as a story. This is, instead, great fiction telling something true. And if you think the ending a tad contrived, I might agree with you. But I'd also invite you to consider what the author is saying about this God of wonders that we serve. And speaking of truth-telling, I should own up that as much as I enjoyed reading this out loud to my wife, she didn't get to hear the whole story. That's because when she fell asleep I just had to keep reading. ...