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K. Waste posted:American Protestantism has a long history of mediated depictions of Catholicism as being a sinful, idolatrous, wacko outfit.
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May 29, 2014 20:18
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SciFiDownBeat posted:Here's the trailer to Jesus Camp. It's really quite horrifying: I never had the horrified reaction to this movie that so many other people say they had. Seemed like your average churchy kid activities to me. Pretty harmless compared to what Hamas does with children.
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May 30, 2014 00:34
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Animal-Mother posted:I never had the horrified reaction to this movie that so many other people say they had. Seemed like your average churchy kid activities to me. Pretty harmless compared to what Hamas does with children. I don't know that it's "average churchy kid activities," but I had a similar response to Jesus Camp. Unlike Alexandra Pelosi's Friends of God and The Trials of Ted Haggard, it's not really that interested in the zealotry of its subjects, just in the fear that it inspires. The real master behind the film is minister Becky Fischer, whose leadership should be described as nothing short of modern. But the film doesn't emphasize this, the uncomfortable reflection that the same motifs and pantomimes of any given feel good public school speaker are not unique nor especially noble, that they are by their very nature abstract and malleable. Instead, it goes for the easier, reactionary emotion, the one where it's not actually necessary to understand your 'enemy' so that you can avoid interrogating your own relationship with indoctrination. This is epitomized by the intercutting of Ring of Fire host Mike Papantonio's cold sweat style of rebel rousing, treating Evangelicals like pod people. But Papantonio's flabbergasted liberal piety exists purely to emphasize that it's impossible to divorce the political from the personal, that there are pervasive and surviving political views that embrace intolerance as the same as tolerance and faith as the same as science. This betrays the cynicism of Jesus Camp: Ewing and Grady give Fisher's ministry credit by justifying it with a response. Their film rings hollow as a liberal Christian horror movie, because it throws the profound contradictions of spiritual pluralism back up into the face of consumers who want to watch the freaks but also want to feel like they're defending the rights of children. I love the part where Fisher basically Mike Papantonio's role can't be understated. He's the essential point of identification, the galvanized, legalistic, spiritual pluralist who 'just can't,' the redundant, cynical confirmation of what we should already know: that Fisher is batshit. Except, oh, no, she's not, or, at least, not any more batshit then the liberal Christians who cherry pick the friendly stuff from the Bible and ignore the things they don't like. But if Jesus Camp fails in any regard it's in exposing the shared contradiction between both viewpoints. It's not brave enough to just let Fisher's zealotry speak for itself. If we did that, we might end up in an unfortunate situation where we realize... Oh, Fisher is a really compelling performer and the fervent emotion she encourages really does eclipse the relationship between people and contemporary, castrated religions. Friends of God is a great documentary because it makes you think, like the South Park episode about Mormonism, "poo poo, maybe these people have something here/maybe we all subscribe to our own 'social lies.'" The only defense you have is the ability to know, implicitly, that the punch is spiked. I love the part where Fisher just straight up tells him 'indoctrination isn't bad, it's what everybody does,' because it's literally the truest statement in a film filled with lies. K. Waste fucked around with this message at 01:26 on May 30, 2014 |
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May 30, 2014 01:24
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Animal-Mother posted:I never had the horrified reaction to this movie that so many other people say they had. Seemed like your average churchy kid activities to me. Pretty harmless compared to what Hamas does with children. All churches pray to a George W. Bush cutout?
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May 30, 2014 02:20
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K. Waste posted:I don't know that it's "average churchy kid activities," but I had a similar response to Jesus Camp. Unlike Alexandra Pelosi's Friends of God and The Trials of Ted Haggard, it's not really that interested in the zealotry of its subjects, just in the fear that it inspires. The real master behind the film is minister Becky Fischer, whose leadership should be described as nothing short of modern. But the film doesn't emphasize this, the uncomfortable reflection that the same motifs and pantomimes of any given feel good public school speaker are not unique nor especially noble, that they are by their very nature abstract and malleable. Instead, it goes for the easier, reactionary emotion, the one where it's not actually necessary to understand your 'enemy' so that you can avoid interrogating your own relationship with indoctrination. This is epitomized by the intercutting of Ring of Fire host Mike Papantonio's cold sweat style of rebel rousing, treating Evangelicals like pod people. But Papantonio's flabbergasted liberal piety exists purely to emphasize that it's impossible to divorce the political from the personal, that there are pervasive and surviving political views that embrace intolerance as the same as tolerance and faith as the same as science. This betrays the cynicism of Jesus Camp: Ewing and Grady give Fisher's ministry credit by justifying it with a response. Their film rings hollow as a liberal Christian horror movie, because it throws the profound contradictions of spiritual pluralism back up into the face of consumers who want to watch the freaks but also want to feel like they're defending the rights of children. I love the part where Fisher basically It wouldn't hurt you to cite when you post somebody else's work: http://letterboxd.com/kenny_waste/film/jesus-camp/
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May 30, 2014 03:52
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Jack Gladney posted:It wouldn't hurt you to cite when you post somebody else's work: Maybe he was just counting on nobody actually reading that ponderous poo poo all the way through.
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May 30, 2014 05:11
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Jack Gladney posted:It wouldn't hurt you to cite when you post somebody else's work: raditts posted:Maybe he was just counting on nobody actually reading that ponderous poo poo all the way through. Or, hey, maybe it's me. K. Waste fucked around with this message at 05:19 on May 30, 2014 |
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May 30, 2014 05:16
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I remember turning off Jesus Camp half way through because I found it pretty unremarkable. I watched it around the same time as some mormon doc that was about how the LDS wasn't too keen on gay people which I also found pretty dull. I guess these are illuminating to people who grew up outside of the US?
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May 30, 2014 18:16
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The_Rob posted:All churches pray to a George W. Bush cutout? Ha, I forgot about that! I was a Vacation Bible School kid long before Mr. Bush was in the White House but since his original campaign leaned heavily on the idea that he's a good, Christian, family man, I'd be surprised if "Jesus Camp" was the only place openly telling little kids to support the man. Also, I think they were praying for him, not to him.
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May 31, 2014 02:17
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K. Waste posted:I remember being a teenager and my parents commenting on how disturbed they were that Catholicism was being so effectively seduced by really reactionary conservatism. Luckily our parish wasn't very overtly politicized, but by the time I got to high school, the level of anti-liberal sentiment among my peers was striking, and all of it was wrapped up in their religion. There was even one girl in my Junior year honors religion class who basically announced that she believed Muslims and Christians should exist in separate nations. And, obviously, none of this is particularly Protestant, either. Like you say, it's really just the vitriolic hatred of this self-constructed 'Moral Majority.'  I remember working in a water authority summer help job with this guy who was a non-denomination christian and he was always telling me how us Catholics have it wrong that Great Works should get you into heaven/salvation. Also that the free market would have solved racism in the 60s and that the government shouldn't have gotten involved with making things like the Civil Rights Act.  I hope his goals of being a venture capitalist fail so hard. Its weird how political and religious things got once I left Catholic school to a Public High School.
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May 31, 2014 02:28
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I haven't seen this mentioned in the thread before, but there's some kind of football nonfiction movie coming out in the fall that screams that it's targeting the Christian audience. There was a trailer before my showing of X-Men for some bizarre reason, and it has the production value of a TV movie and a pretty C list cast. Jim Caviezel is playing the HS football coach. Overall I think this may be the most cliched sports movie in existence. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_the_Game_Stands_Tall
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May 31, 2014 05:29
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FlamingLiberal posted:I haven't seen this mentioned in the thread before, but there's some kind of football nonfiction movie coming out in the fall that screams that it's targeting the Christian audience. There was a trailer before my showing of X-Men for some bizarre reason, and it has the production value of a TV movie and a pretty C list cast. Jim Caviezel is playing the HS football coach. Overall I think this may be the most cliched sports movie in existence. We could probably start a whole different thread on religious sports movies. And, yeah, one of the backing studios is literally called Affirm Films. I'm sorry so much of this is coming back to high school for me, but, like I said, Jesus Camp really isn't the dramatic expose people think it is. I went to Catholic school, so, obviously, I had to take a course in 'Religion' (really, four years of Catholicism, one year of everything else), and one of my professors (who was actually a really swell guy) would give kids mad extra credit for analyzing films from a Christian perspective. One day in class we watched a movie called Facing the Giants. It's all about a high school football coach who reaches a new low, then finds faith (this happens in a single evening when he reads the Bible cover-to-cover), and uses it to inspire his team. Here's one of the more successful scenes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GYYle0hTUc) but otherwise it's 'based on a true story' claptrap.
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May 31, 2014 08:26
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How about something not terrible. Rolf Forsburg Made a lot of weird experimental religious films, and was pretty drat good at it. Unfortunately they are pretty hard to find. I saw Cinefamily in LA is going to be showing his lost films though. Here is his acclaimed film Parable https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCkqyyBClmU It's a Christ allegory where the role of Christ is represented as a clown.It was commissioned by the New York City Protestant Council of Churches for their 1964 World’s Fair pavilion, and seemed to be pretty controversial. I also found his film stalked which can be watched here. http://matineeclassics.com/movies/1968/stalked/ It was produced by the Lutheran Churches of America. It was about a man who returns to his childhood home to escape his job of being a carnival owner, and to escape god. He returns to his home to find it totally abandoned and is then stalked by Jesus. It was shown at churches to start discussions. He is a really interesting filmmaker with heavily symbolic religious films, and it baffles me he isn't regarded higher with not only the film community, but religious communities. The_Rob fucked around with this message at 21:50 on May 31, 2014 |
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May 31, 2014 21:40
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I don't know if anyone has mentioned it yet, but there is a Left Behind remake coming out later this month, and it stars Nicolas Cage. It should be interesting to say the least.
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Jun 8, 2014 16:05
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Does this count? Redlettermedia found a Japanese video called S.O.S., which had been produced by The Family, a Christian cult who apparently was trying to get recruits in Japan before the Aum Shinrikyo attack happened and the authorities cracked down. The cult was originally known as the Children of God, where Joaquin Phoenix grew up in and was responsible for some pretty terrible poo poo before they cleaned up their image in the last few decades. Some standard stuff, like a video advocating against abortion, disparaging technology, the teaching of evolution and more extreme stuff like barcodes being a mechanism for the Antichrist. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceUSZBMeREY The discussion of the video starts at about 26 minutes in. They produced a version in English and Spanish as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RfU5r63AXY
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Jun 9, 2014 08:23
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Jack Gladney posted:It wouldn't hurt you to cite when you post somebody else's work: Haha, did you seriously not notice the guy's name is Kenny Waste? Sushi in Yiddish posted:They produced a version in English and Spanish as well: I was seriously not prepared for this, by the way. HUNDU THE BEAST GOD fucked around with this message at 16:13 on Jun 9, 2014 |
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Jun 9, 2014 16:07
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Haha, did you seriously not notice the guy's name is Kenny Waste? That K could stand for anything! Kevin or Katie or Ktulu or just anything!
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Jun 9, 2014 16:08
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Would you guys consider "Saved!" a Christian movie? I had forgotten how enjoyable that film is. Had my wife watch it last night since she had never seen it. I feel like that's as mainstream as you can go for "Christian" movies. Though the message is mainly "Stop loving judging everyone and being so goddamn extreme." Mordiceius fucked around with this message at 17:02 on Jun 9, 2014 |
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Jun 9, 2014 17:00
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I don't think most Christians that prefer the Christian movies discussed in the thread would care for Saved! I enjoyed it, but I am not a Christian. From a one-half star review I found: The film's good Christians can't even be called Christians: they're crippled (and atheists), they're Jewish, and in the case of Patrick Fugit's missionary skater boi, they're more than happy to eroticize Christ's crucifixion (how scandalous!). Surely it's no coincidence that Fugit never mentions Jesus in the film but Moore's character engages his name a good hundred times. In essence: Good Christians are born by distancing themselves from Christ. By film's end, Hilary is destroyed but not before taking Jesus down with her (again, scandalous!). Like Mary, perhaps it's not too late for her. Just as Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ looks to connect Christians to God via an unhealthy spectacle of violence, this equally cruel but infinitely more snide Afterschool Special seems to exist only to promote anti-Christian resentment. Here's hoping the next Christian-aimed film cultivates a theoretical and philosophical aesthetic that isn't so, well, black and white. http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/saved
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Jun 9, 2014 17:53
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I'm reading through Jeffrey Overstreet's book Through A Screen Darkly (somewhere between a memoir and an apologia for being a Christian reviewer who enjoys a wide variety of movies) and he writes a fair bit about Saved!. He finds it valuable as a reminder to avoid the self-righteousness and hypocrisy that comes off as familiar in the humor.quote:A satire like Saved! is like a funhouse mirror. It exaggerates our flaws just enough to draw attention to them. Although he also has this to say, which I'd agree with: quote:But the solution his movie recommends falls far short of wisdom. If he had stuck to cultural satire, as Monty Python did so memorably in Life of Brian, the film could have been brilliant. As it is, Dannelly surrenders the satire and becomes moralistic at the end. He concludes with a vague, wishy-washy lesson about tolerance... FlamingLiberal posted:I haven't seen this mentioned in the thread before, but there's some kind of football nonfiction movie coming out in the fall that screams that it's targeting the Christian audience. There was a trailer before my showing of X-Men for some bizarre reason, and it has the production value of a TV movie and a pretty C list cast. Jim Caviezel is playing the HS football coach. Overall I think this may be the most cliched sports movie in existence. I saw the trailer before Edge of Tomorrow. It looks like Affirm Films is behind it (makers of Fireproof and others) but hopefully the movie will make a decent effort at getting Ladouceur right, as he seems like a legitimately cool guy who is also a strong Catholic. From an article written when he retired: quote:Spirituality weaves in and out of a conversation with Ladouceur. He says he sees God's work when a player stands up and tells other players how much they mean to him. He doesn't see God's work in touchdowns or victories.
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Jun 10, 2014 00:49
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My favorite movie about evangelism is They Live . It captures in a very literal sense the sensation that comes with realizing that something is fundamentally wrong with the world, and being helpless to make others realize it. It's a movie that hard leftists and evangelical Christians can equally relate to.
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Jun 10, 2014 01:47
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Sushi in Yiddish posted:They produced a version in English and Spanish as well: What in God's name compels you to produce loving synth pop and new-wave songs decrying the evils of technology? What's the mind set here? And I love how it gets more and more bizarre as it goes along. At first, you're like "Yay! Love! Oh, don't have sex until marriage. Hey... evolution is a lie..." and then suddenly UPC barcodes are the tool of the devil!
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Jun 10, 2014 03:36
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Cemetry Gator posted:What in God's name compels you to produce loving synth pop and new-wave songs decrying the evils of technology? What's the mind set here? It's pretty nuts. The musician who wrote that music was from Fleetwood Mac and worked in the US musical industry for a while. They probably figured that it would be easier to reach international audiences like the Japanese through catchy songs. It's probably not a accident that the first few songs seem completely secular. Apparently back in the 70s-80s barcodes were seen by the more apocalypse minded Christian groups due to it being interpreted as the "mark of the beast". This particular group was ultra-conservative Christian mixed with free love hippie types and did terrible stuff like abusing children as a religious good or having female members prostitute themselves to attract converts. The publishing arm of the cult is still around and seems to have been set up to distribute more normal seeming Christian books, videos and music.
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Jun 10, 2014 04:27
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Sushi in Yiddish posted:It's pretty nuts. The musician who wrote that music was from Fleetwood Mac and worked in the US musical industry for a while. They probably figured that it would be easier to reach international audiences like the Japanese through catchy songs. It's probably not a accident that the first few songs seem completely secular. I know exactly who you are talking about. For those who don't know, that Fleetwood Mac member was Jeremy Spencer. He was one of the original guitarists, and performed with the band in their very early days back when Peter Green was the band leader. However, he left the band when he joined the Family International in 1971. Just basically disappeared. So no, when you're listening to their massive collection of hits, you're not listening to the work of the Family. He was long gone by that time, and the band had become a very different entity. But still. Under Peter Green, the band actually was notable. Even though they had no US hits, they still produced songs like Alabatross, Black Magic Woman (which Santana later covered), and Oh Well Parts 1 and 2. Because he left the band, they had to get Bob Welch, who would start the band towards a poppier track. It was with Mac that he recorded an early version of his big hit, Sentimental Woman. So we can thank the Family International for songs albums like Rumors and Tusk. But yeah. I agree. It's probably not at all an accident. It's a way of getting my attention. I mean, let's face it, if the first song was heard and you didn't know nothing about it, you'd probably think it was a catchy synth-pop song by some no-name band that went nowhere. But knowing that the Family did it just makes it more sinister. And now it's in my head.
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Jun 10, 2014 05:20
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Cathy Don't Go is a stone cold classic and the best song about laser scanner paranoia and I've been meaning to cover it for a few months and now RLM goes and finds this poo poo so now I feel more pressured.
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Jun 10, 2014 12:09
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Haha, did you seriously not notice the guy's name is Kenny Waste? There's a different name credited in the review.
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Jun 10, 2014 17:49
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Jack Gladney posted:There's a different name credited in the review. Yeah but once you go to the effort to call somebody out, you should probably read carefully.
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Jun 10, 2014 18:20
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SciFiDownBeat posted:Here's the trailer to Jesus Camp. It's really quite horrifying: Furthermore, Jesus Camp was very respectful towards the Christians. There is no irritating condescension. They gave the children and the adults plenty of time to speak for themselves. The director of the camp said that they felt in no way exploited or misled. Jesus Camp is a model documentary on how to explore religious fundamentalism. Baron Bifford fucked around with this message at 07:13 on Jun 11, 2014 |
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Jun 10, 2014 20:13
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Yeah but once you go to the effort to call somebody out, you should probably read carefully. Sorry to add to the meta-discussion but there's something unsettling to me about how much the poster "plagiarized" himself, at some points straight up copy-and-pasting his prior essay and trying to pass it off as a genuine, off the cuff post (to the extent message board postings can be considered such), and I admit I can't really put my finger as to why. It may well be harmless (at least in this case), but the disingenuousness of it all really struck me. Not to mention that, you know, it kind of just made him sound like a tool. Like someone entered a casual discussion and started making a speech (half of which he had remembered because he had given it earlier). EDIT: VVV It's nothing personal, it's just something striking that caused me to think about how we conduct 'conversations' over the forums. But yes, I agree, let's carry on! lizardman fucked around with this message at 20:28 on Jun 11, 2014 |
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Jun 11, 2014 17:38
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lizardman posted:Sorry to add to the meta-discussion but there's something unsettling to me about how much the poster "plagiarized" himself, at some points straight up copy-and-pasting his prior essay and trying to pass it off as a genuine, off the cuff post (to the extent message board postings can be considered such), and I admit I can't really put my finger as to why. Can we please stop discussing me? I'm really not that interesting.
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Jun 11, 2014 17:43
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There's much more in the world I'm unsettled by.
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Jun 11, 2014 19:00
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lizardman posted:Sorry to add to the meta-discussion but there's something unsettling to me about how much the poster "plagiarized" himself, at some points straight up copy-and-pasting his prior essay and trying to pass it off as a genuine, off the cuff post (to the extent message board postings can be considered such), and I admit I can't really put my finger as to why. He is not the one who sounds like a tool here.
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Jun 11, 2014 19:39
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It's been reported to the student conduct office, so don't worry. He should be meeting with the professor late this week and will likely receive an F for the semester.
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Jun 11, 2014 19:47
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Danger posted:It's been reported to the student conduct office, so don't worry. He should be meeting with the professor late this week and will likely receive an F for the semester. If you fail CineD do you have to repeat it?
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Jun 11, 2014 19:50
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DeimosRising posted:If you fail CineD do you have to repeat it? Didn't you know? CineD is hell. We watch Christian movies as a form of eternal torment. But seriously, shut up now! We have more important things to talk about. Like The Lock-In It's 5 bux on their website. I'm buying it tonight.
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Jun 11, 2014 19:59
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Dante Logos posted:Like The Lock-In Oh god a "pay 5bux to download this poo poo" button, they've found my Achilles' Heel  It's like Steam, but with a hilariously bad movie instead of a game I should really get around to playing at some point,
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Jun 12, 2014 04:33
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Danger posted:It's been reported to the student conduct office, so don't worry. He should be meeting with the professor late this week and will likely receive an F for the semester. Real question - is it plagiarism if it's your paper? I reused like, 10 papers towards the end of my degree. That's what happens when you have a major that's like, 2 semesters worth of classes spread out to make 4 years worth.
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Jun 12, 2014 04:43
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limeincoke posted:Real question - is it plagiarism if it's your paper? I reused like, 10 papers towards the end of my degree. That's what happens when you have a major that's like, 2 semesters worth of classes spread out to make 4 years worth. At most academic institutions, yes.
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Jun 12, 2014 04:49
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limeincoke posted:Real question - is it plagiarism if it's your paper? I reused like, 10 papers towards the end of my degree. That's what happens when you have a major that's like, 2 semesters worth of classes spread out to make 4 years worth. It seriously is. You are expected to cite yourself as you would anyone else, and you should see it all the time in the scholarship you read.
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Jun 12, 2014 05:08
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The problem is that journals and other publishers would generally like to put out new material, so when you submit old material without mentioning where else it's been printed ("A previous version of this essay was published in Blah Blah") that's seen as dishonest. It may also be copyright infringement!
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