Fireproof

The basic premise of “Fireproof” is that Kirk Cameron is a firefighter who has a beautiful wife. He’s not a very nice husband, and sometimes he screams at his wife on a daily basis. Naturally, she wants a divorce, because no one should have to put up with that kind of abuse. Kirk Cameron’s dad mails him a book about how to win his wife back, because even though Kirk Cameron is mean to his wife, he wants to keep her in his life…? The movie follows Kirk Cameron as he does what the book says to that he can keep his wife around, probably so he can scream at her more. Errors, suspensions of belief, and commentary are as follows:

1.       Really? Kirk Cameron gets unreasonably mad at Beautiful Wife because she’s too busy seeing to her aging parents to buy a gallon of milk? IT’S CALLED TEAMWORK, KIRK CAMERON, TRY IT!
2.       Yeah, Kirk Cameron, screaming at your wife that she is ungrateful and selfish because she points out your Internet porn habit (an ungrateful and selfish habit), is probably not your best argument. Also, screaming at a weeping woman (especially if she is your wife) is not a game-winning move.
3.       Kirk Cameron and Beautiful Wife let the sun set on their anger, which is NOT the biblical method for handling conflict. But they’re not Christians, so obviously they have no moral baseline.
4.       Hey, Kirk Cameron, your wife won’t respect you if you scream at her on the daily. You want respect? Earn it.
5.       Foolish Teenage Girl, stop screaming for help when the help is already there. Screaming in a crisis never helped everyone, it just makes it harder for everyone else to communicate.
6.       Extremely stilted and inorganic conversation about heaven and hell.
7.       Hey, Kirk Cameron, stop being rude to your mom! Also, way to go, Kirk Cameron’s dad, for never being like, “Hey, son, STOP BEING RUDE TO YOUR MOM, YOU ARE A TERRIBLE SON!” Mens, you gotsta stand up for yo’ wimmins!
8.       Kirk Cameron’s dad – “Hey, Kirk Cameron, hold off on the divorce for 40 days.” Kirk Cameron – “Why?” “BECAUSE 40 DAYS IS BIBLICALLY SIGNIFICANT, YOU UNGRATEFUL KID!”
9.       Beautiful wife meets Dr. Foppish at work, and they flirt and engage in some light eye-sexing. Dr. Foppish’s flirting skills need some work, probably because he is a doctor and went straight from being a bookworm in college so he could score well on his MCAT to being a bookworm in medical school so he could get a high score on his USMLE.
10.   Kirk Cameron’s Wise Black Friend’s weird analogy about marriage and salt-and-pepper shakers also needs some work. Gluing salt-and-pepper shakers together isn’t the solution, and now no one can use them for their intended purpose!
11.   Kirk Cameron runs on the wrong side of the road while jogging. DO YOU WANT TO GET HIT BY A CAR THAT YOU NEVER SAW COMING!?!?
12.   Oh, Kirk Cameron’s Coworker Who is Only Present for Comedic Effect – I noticed you referred to your male coworkers as “ladies.” I see what you did there. By insulting their masculinity, you attempted to assert your own. Clever.
13.   Beautiful Wife turns up her nose at Kirk Cameron’s half-assed gesture of goodwill.  I would, too! If my husband was a complete jerk to me and screamed at me on the daily, I would NOT accepted handouts. Also, Kirk Cameron, when you pour her coffee cup in the sink and then LEAVE IT IN THE SINK FOR HER TO WASH, it is not a gesture of goodwill.
14.   Kirk Cameron and one of his men have a dick-measuring contest. Kirk Cameron wins, of course, because he screams at his wife on the daily.
15.   Kirk Cameron, way to go, breaking your habit of not screaming at your wife on the daily. A whole four days, good for you.
16.   Hey, Kirk Cameron’s Dad, stroking the upright of the cross while Kirk Cameron yells “HOW AM II SUPPOSED TO LOVE SOMEONE WHO REJECTS ME ALL THE TIME!” isn’t very subtle. And it’s really kind of weird.
17.   Gee cameraman, why don’t you zoom in a little closer on that cross, just in case we didn’t already get the extremely obvious reference.
18.   The abruptness of that “Come to Jesus” moment was kind of jarring. I feel like a “come to Jesus” moment should have more of a “Hey, empirically speaking, this is why you need Jesus,” and less of a “CAN’T YOU SEE YOU NEED JESUS?!” repeated over and over. “Um no, because you never explained it to me, you just repeated that phrase over and over?”
19.   Kirk Cameron, if you don’t understand Wise Black Friend’s “brother from another mother, but we got the saaaame father” reference, maybe you should have talked about Christianity a little more with your dad, because that is pretty basic.
20.   Beautiful Wife and Dr. Foppish have some more flirty-flirt eye-sex and Dr. Foppish asks a lot of open-ended questions, which according to Clinical Skills, is a good thing.
21.   I’m not an HVAC technician (and neither are the writers, it seems), but I’m not sure that any house is built such that you can chop a hole through a floor vent DIRECTLY into the crawlspace beneath…
22.   Kirk Cameron, Beautiful Wife, and Dr. Foppish, all in the same room together?!!? Awkwaaaaard!
23.   Ooh, Kirk Cameron’s elderly neighbors are ADOOOOOOORABLE and SO jaded!
24.   Ben used to write me little notes on the same stationary that Dr. Foppish used to write little notes to Beautiful Wife.
25.   Is ANY time a good time to talk to the husband of the woman you’ve been secretly eye-sexing?
26.   Kirk Cameron, just because you’re married to Beautiful Wife doesn’t mean you have a head start in winning her heart. Listening, asking open-ended questions, and not screaming at her on the daily goes a long way with most women.
27.   CHIK-FIL-A PRODUCT PLACEMENT. Wonder how much money was exchanged for that 5 second blurb.
28.   Hey guys, just a little bit of marriage advice from someone who’s been married for 8 weeks and knows what’s up – TALK TO EACH OTHER ABOUT THINGS!!! Your wife shouldn’t find out what you’re doing and why you’re doing it from a classy leather-bound book, she should find it out from YOU.
29.   Oh, you’ve been selfish, Kirk Cameron? You’ve trampled on Beautiful Wife for 8 years? Really? Really. Tell me more. And you’re STILL surprised that your wife isn’t too sure about you, even though you’ve been really nice to her for a MONTH AND A HALF!? EIGHT YEARS IS A LOT LONGER THAN A MONTH AND A HALF, buddy!
30.   Kirk Cameron leads his wife to Jesus, even though I’m not sure he actually knows anything about Christianity. “Love is a Battlefield” plays in the background to gloss over the awkward. 

Here’s the trailer, if anyone is interested. You’ll notice that in the trailer, Kirk Cameron’s daily scream at his wife is conspicuously absent, and it also makes his wife look like she’s the bad guy for wanting out of an abusive relationship, AND makes it look like he sacrificed SO MUCH for her. Um no, Kirk Cameron, you really didn’t. Not at all.

 So, on the whole, the idea of this movie was "Buy your wife some flowers and be nice to her for 40 days, and she'll forget about the last 8 years, when you were a total jerk." I think so, anyway. That's called an abusive relationship, and it'll probably repeat itself once the novelty of being a Christian wears off, and Kirk Cameron will go back to his destructive, wife-abusing ways. See here's the thing - you really need to communicate well in your relationship. Do periodic check-ups, like "Hey honey, do you think we are doing ok? Are there things we could improve upon?" Don't criticize each other in the heat of the moment, do it later, when both of you have had time to calm down. Unless of course, the heat of the moment involves driving head-on into a semi, then maybe you might want to think about mentioning something. 
Also, the whole "people are terrible people with no moral compass until they become Christians" is something I'm probably going to harp on a lot. It is a pretty big pet peeve.

Hope you enjoyed that. Let me know if you have a movie you want me to take a crack at. I don't have anything lined up at the moment, so I'm wide open for suggestions!

Introductions and Preliminary Apologies

        Ok, everyone, first of all, let's get the obvious things out of the way. You're here because you either think my Christian movie reviews (previously done exclusively on Naomi's Facebook wall) are hilarious, or by complete accident. If the first, welcome to my cohesive platform for criticizing mainstream Christian media! And by criticizing, of course, I mean "evaluating critically, using sound biblical teaching and a dose of common sense." I'm really excited to get started watching hyped Christian movies that are just straight-up, hilariously bad. I also plan to watch movies that I think are actually good (or at least, start a healthy conversation about Jesus and God and religion and stuff - media like "Book of Mormon" the musical, "Jesus Christ, Superstar [the '70s version, duh!], and if I can get around to having time to actually read a book, "Lamb: the Gospel of Biff.") Super huge disclaimer here: I am a medical student, and my life is hella busy, so don't think that I'm going to post reviews like every other day. You will be disappointed, and then I'll be sad, because I hate it when people are disappointed in me. I'm thinking like every two weeks, if I stay on top of things.
        Now, on to the people who arrived here by accident, and have never read one of my reviews: this is NOT Plugged In Movie Review. This is NOT where I take a popular Christian film and tell you how good it is and how it will improve your relationship with Jesus. I will probably say something that you find offensive at some point. Before you get angry, sit back and think "Ok, am I offended because she said something that challenges popular conception of Jesus/God/Christianity, or am I offended because what she said was ACTUALLY offensive?" If it's the first, yeah, that's probably going to happen. It's good for you. If you don't like too much boat-rocking, get off the boat. If it's the second, I sincerely apologize in advance. However, I am coming at this project from a certain viewpoint, one that is definitively NOT mainstream Christianity. Things that I will NOT do - 1) Make fun of God/Jesus and 2) Make fun of Christians as a homogenous group. Things I will probably do - 1) make fun of certain portrayals of Jesus/God (especially if it is not biblical, or better yet, lifted verbatim from the gospels) and 2) make fun of Kirk Cameron, because Kirk Cameron. Again, if what I say is offensive to you, stop reading. I don't read Matt Walsh's blog because I think he's kind of a terrible troll. If reading my blog makes you want to punch me in the face, haha, lucky for me, because unless you're one of my classmates, you won't get that opportunity because you don't know where I live. But also, stop reading it.
        Great. Now that I've got all of my apologies and justifications out of the way, ON TO THE MAIN EVENT!!!
        Oh, sorry, one last thing - the title of this blog comes from my good friend Clint Harris, and he said I had to credit him. I think that's just because he likes seeing his name in print, attached to accolades.