Witness

“Witness” (Alternate title - "Amlet Goes To The City", alternate title - "Guns And Englischers Are Dangerous And Here's Why," alternate Title - "The Amish Don't Need Your Englischer Punches") is a movie with Harrison Ford I’ve never even heard of, until a friend told me about the plotline. We were both sort of inebriated in a bar, yelling over the music about the finer points of Amish vs. Mennonite, and about the threshing stones used by my ancestors to harvest wheat, and along came the plotline:

Movie Snob - “Yeah, so ‘Witness’ is about an Amish kid that goes to Philadelphia with his parents and sees a murder in a train station bathroom…”

Me - “OMG DID HE GO TO READING TERMINAL?!?! There are so many Amish there! I saw them in the bathroom! The girls wear straight pins to close their dresses, because buttons are of the devil!”

Movie Snob - “What? No, not Reading Terminal. Like, an ACTUAL train sta-“

Me - “READING TERMINAL USED TO BE A TRAIN STATION, MAYBE THIS MOVIE WAS MADE BEFORE IT WAS A HIPSTER PARADISE!”

Movie Snob - “No, NOT Reading Terminal! Just like, a regular ol’ train station! Anyway, this Amish kid, this Am-let, if you will-“

Me - <collapses forward onto table in helpless laughter because let’s face it, “Amlet” is a great name for an Amish kid, and imma call him Amlet from here on out>

Movie Snob - “-this Amlet sees a guy get murdered in a train station, and he’s the only witness. Like the title. So then Harrison Ford is on the police force, and he dresses like an Amish to protect this kid-“

Me - “OH, LIKE THE AMISH IN THEIR INSULAR COMMUNITY *TOTALLY* WOULDN’T NOTICE THIS STRANGER DRESSED LIKE THEM WHO DIDN’T SPEAK PENNSYLVANIA DUTCH.”

Movie Snob - “Whatever. Anyway, he goes to protect this kid, because people want to kill him, and they try, but Harrison Ford PUNCHES THEM-“

Me - “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO AMISH WOULD NOT BE COOL WITH THAT! "VENGEANCE IS MINE, SAITH THE LORD!!!!!"

I don’t remember what happened after this point. Not because I was soused or anything, it just was a lot less interesting.

Anyway, that is apparently the basic plot of “Witness.” So now I gotta watch it, because according to him, it’s AWESOME, and the BEST MOVIE EVER; but according to me, it sounds like it’ll be riddled with inaccuracies.

1.       The movie opens with a bunch of Amish walking to church. I’ll have you all know that a lot of the “Amish” actors in this film are actually Mennonite. I’ll ALSO have you know that Amish church services are BRUTAL. I went, once, as part of my “Mennonite Life, History and Thought” class, and while it was soooooo interesting, like SO INTERESTING, it was also 3 hours of sitting on a backless wooden bench in a dark basement room lit by kerosene lanterns, listening to a man speak in Pennsylvania Dutch, which I don’t speak, and of which my High German-speaking professor only understood about 50%. The dinner afterwards, however, was FANTASTIC. We had arrived on a day when there were visitors from Indiana, and speaking with them was very interesting. The Amish are actually very well-traveled.

2.       OMG DID I JUST SEE BUTTONS ON LITTLE AMLET’S SLEEVE CUFFS?!?!?! I BETTER NOT HAVE! As previously mentioned, buttons are too modern and “too English” EDIT - apparently it is ok for men to wear buttons on their shirts, but not women. Because of course. 

3.       Wow, they just slit that dude’s throat, and there was absolutely no blood spray anywhere? That’s just anatomically inaccurate. At my school, we have this Ukranian urologist who is our Anatomy professor, and he has SEEN SOME SHIT, back in his days in the army in the Ukraine. He told us how, if we are in a knife fight, to know whether we have severed our carotids or our jugular (pronounced “joooogalur”). If you’ve sliced your carotids, the blood will be spraying everywhere, and it’s all over. But if it’s just your joooogalur, the blood will just sort of fall out, and you can shrug your shoulders to prevent major blood loss and (ostensibly) still win the knife fight.

4.       Wow, so they take the little Amlet and his mom to a real sketch location to meet a suspect? And then leave them in the car to go into the sketchy bar, grab the suspect who is just a random-ass black man (hello racial profiling), and slam him up against the kid’s window for identification? I mean, wow, the 80s were just such a different time, I guess.

5.       Officer Captain Hot Stuff stuffs a hotdog in his mouth and takes a bite, then sits there awkwardly not chewing until Amlet and his mom are done praying, and I just feel like that’s how all non-religious people feel when everyone else is praying.

6.       Wow they’re all using typewriters to do their police reports. I mean, I learned to type on a typewriter that my dad brought home from work, but gosh, the 80s were just such a wasteland.

7.       OMG THE MURDERER IS A COP OMG AND HE SUPPRESSED EVIDENCE FROM A NARC RAID OMG. Just like my fave show “Gotham,” all the cops are corrupt except one.

8.       OMG MURDER COP JUMPED OFFICER CAPTAIN HOT STUFF AND SHOT HIM AND NOW HE’S BLEEDING OMG THEY HAVE TO GET THE AMLET AND HIS MOM OUT OF PHILADELPHIA OMG THE BACKGROUND MUSIC IS SO INTENSE RN SO MANY LASER SOUNDS

9.       OMG OFFICER CAPTAIN HOT STUFF PASSED OUT FROM HIS BLEEDING STOMACH WOUND AND CRASHED INTO A PURPLE MARTIN HOUSE AND NOW THOSE POOR BIRDS WILL HAVE NOWHERE TO LIVE!!!!!! “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the son of Man has no place to lay his head.” Welp, Jesus and purple martins are on the same footing, now, I guess. In related news, purple martins are the only birds that rely on manmade housing - like, they literally do not build their own nests. Back in the day, Native Americans used gourds to lure them to their campsites to eat bugs or whatever, and the birds got used to this lush lifestyle, and now are mostly totally dependent on humans for their tenement-style nesting boxes, with some exceptions for the occasional hole in a cactus or a dead tree or what-have-you.

10.    “Is the English dead? He looks dead.” I’m gonna end up loving this Opa. In other news, Amish call their grandfathers “Dawdi,” and not the word used in the film, which is “Opa,” the High German for Grandfather.

11.    Officer Captain Hot Stuff's stomach wound is in the coronal plane across his abdomen. There is a distinct entry and exit wound, both of which are perfectly circular, meaning that EITHER Officer Captain Hot Stuff has the most bulging-est abs of anyone, ever, OR the bullet entered the right side of his abdomen, and then once inside, pulled a sharp left and exited to stage left, perpendicular to the skin. Also, the "doctor" that Opa Dawdi called gives him a tea and tells him to drink it, and I'm sure that'll help. In other news, the Amish are SUPER taken with chiropractors and other alternative-type medicine, which is interesting. 

12.    Haha, Murder Cop and the Gotham PD are tryna find Amlet and his mom – “There must be a registry of these people, right? Like a Muslim registry, except Amish? I mean, Donald Trump called for a wall to keep out the Mennonites, stands to reason he'd want to register the Amish, right?” “Oh, sure, voter registries, tax records, definitely!” Except the Amish don’t pay taxes, and by-and-large don’t vote, soooooooooo… “Ok, well, maybe you could do some telephoning?” Good luck with that. The Amish have telephones, because what if, God forbid, they need emergency services or something. But the telephones have to be out in a field or a barn or something, and there’s typically only one or two per community. Or they use the phones at their Mennonite neighbor’s houses. Point is, they wouldn’t answer the phone.

13.    Officer Captain Hot Stuff lets Amlet play with his gun, and that is just NOT going to go over well AT ALL. It IS, however, a really great segue into Opa Dawdi’s discussion of Anabaptist pacifism with Amlet and also the wider viewing audience, and I really appreciate that.

14.    Opa Dawdi puts Officer Captain Hot Stuff to work, because far be it from the Amish to pass up free labor. He tries to milk a cow, but can’t, because of course not. It’s actually really hard, if you’ve never done it. My grandma used to milk a couple cows every day when I was a kid, and she used to let me try, and I could never do it, because 1) I was like, 7, and my hands were not strong, and 2) it actually requires quite a bit of coordination.

15.    Officer Captain Hot Stuff tries to make a pop culture reference at supper, and the Amish stared at him like I stare at people when they try to make a pop culture reference at me.

16.    Uh wow, so Amlet’s mom is dancing around a barn with Officer Captain Hot Stuff to an oldies song, and is NOT wearing her covering. HER HAIR IS JUST ALL UNCOVERED, IN THE PRESENCE OF A MAN WHO IS NOT HER HUSBAND, WHAT THE HELL!?! It’s not like she just took it off, or anything, it wasn’t there to begin with! There is just so much wrong with that. She’s NOT WEARING HER COVERING, YOU GUYS THAT WOULD *NOT* HAPPEN. Amish women (and some conservative Mennonite women) are basically Anabaptist hijabis.

17.    Omg wow that is not how shunning works. I mean, yeah, you can’t eat at the same table or touch them, or worship with them, but you can’t just SHUN someone, just like that. There has to be this whole thing of warning them not to, and then having them persist in the face of that warning, and THEN you can be shunned. Also, when a person is shunned, they literally just pull up a card table next to the table, so they’re not TECHNICALLY eating at the same table. They are sneaky.

18.    Gotham PD – “we’re like the Amish. We’re a cult!” OMG THE AMISH ARE NOT A CULT.

19.    OMG BARNRAISING! Honestly, barnraisings always look like such a great time, mostly because I just freaking love it when communities are like “YOU NEED HELP WE WILL BE THERE WITH HELP BECAUSE WE LOVE YOU AND YOU NEED HELP AND WE CAN HELP YOU.” Case in point – when people from our Raleigh church move, they just send out an email being like “Heyyyy, gonna be loading up all our crap on thus-and-such day, give me a hand?” and then like 12 people with moving blankets and trucks and trailers and work gloves all show up and help them move all their crap from their old house to their new house, and it is just so great, and I love it.

20.    Officer Captain Hot Stuff may (supposedly) be a great carpenter, but I literally just saw him trying to swing a hammer by holding it right behind the head. WRONG. I used to do that, when I was a kid, and couldn’t control a heavy hammer, and Dad would always tell me to hold it by the end, because then I had more leverage. But then when I did that, I didn’t have as much control, and I hit the hand holding the nail. Or I hit my sister's hand, if I managed to persuade her to hold the nail while I hit it. But any adult who is supposedly good at carpentry should be able to swing a hammer like a not-moron.

21.    OMG QUILTING BEE!!! We had a quilting frame at my Mennonite church in San Francisco, and we’d set it up every so often and work around it and talk for a few hours after the service or at retreat or something. I loved it.

22.    Oh, Amish nip slip, that’s unexpected.

23.    Oh, full-frontal Amish nudity, ok, maybe close the door while you’re bathing, if you have an Englischer man staying at your house? Or just in general? Far be it from me to critique any woman's expression of her own sexuality, but idk, this just seems gratuitous.

24.    “Amlet’s Mom, if we’d made love last night, I’d have to stay. Or you’d have to leave.” Um, no, probably you’d both have to leave, because having out-of-wedlock sex with a nonreligious Englischer is deeeeeeefinitely up there on the list of “Things That Are Bad To Do.”

25.    And then homeboy Captain Officer Hot Stuff goes and straight-up PUNCHES a dude for smearing ice cream on an Amishman’s face and razzing a family. Ok. That is an overreaction. People have done far worse to the Anabaptists, and we’ve still managed to prevail without punching. Also, the ice cream-faced Amishman is apparently Viggo Mortensen, and I just find that really funny. Also, who the crap puts ice cream on someone else's face?! ICE CREAM IS DELICIOUS, and putting it anywhere other than your mouth is just a damn waste.

26.    Aww, Captain Officer Hot Stuff fixed the purple martin house! But he stuck it in the ground so it’s crooked as a dog’s hind leg, so…

27.    OMG THE GOTHAM PD IS STRAIGHT-UP WALKING INTO AMISH COUNTRY WHILE HOLDING LONG GUNS. Yeah, I can’t imagine that’s going to go well at all.

28.    Aaaaaand then Captain Officer Hot Stuff suffocates a member of the Gotham PD under several tons of corn in a silo. And that is a completely reasonable way to die on a farm. The number of times our FFA “Farm Safety Day” addressed the dangers of aerosolized grain dust as a catalyst for elevator fires, or how not to play in a gravity box because if someone opened the hatch, literally you would absolutely die is like, a LOT. The gravity box thing happens to kids all the time. 100% accurate.

29.    OMG BRAH, DO *NOT* FIRE YOUR GUN INTO A SILO FULL OF RECENTLY-LIBERATED GRAIN, YOU COULD *ABSOLUTELY* START A RAGING FIRE.

30.    All the Amish come running to bear witness to exactly why guns and Englischers are bad, and probably Amlet’s Mom gets PTSD from having a gun pointed at her head while two Englischers yell profanities about guns and yank her son back and forth between them, all while holding guns and yelling.

31.    Officer Captain Hot Stuff and Amlet’s Mom stare at each other longingly, but ultimately go their separate ways, because love between an Amish and an Englischer technically would work, but would be very difficult, and would lead to a lot of family- and community-themed heartbreak.

In short, meh. I guess it’s a good movie, if you’re not into critiquing the finer points of Amish portrayal in the media? They did a pretty good job portraying the Anabaptist penchant for community, nonviolence, and turning the other cheek, but THE LACK OF COVERINGS, OMG! Also, apparently they spoke High German throughout the entire production. Not Pennsylvania Dutch. If you’re gonna do Amish, you gotta do it right, and they were like, 60% there. Really could have used a few more expert opinions from the Mennonites or something.

The 80s space-music was pretty bangin’ tho. 

Kirk Cameron's "Saving Christmas"

          According to the trailer, “Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas” is about Kirk Cameron helping his unironically-named brother-in-law Christian (definitely not a “Pilgrim’s Progress”-type metaphor at all) rediscover the true meaning of Christmas. The trailer starts off with a bang – “I’m setting out to recover the TRUE meaning of Christmas, not this “Happy Holidays” nonsense!” which is funny because it tends to be the same kind of people that whine about how Christian Holidays Matter, but can’t understand why Black Lives Matter is not racist.  All Winter Holidays Matter, yo. The movie looks ludicrously bad, and it IS ludicrously bad – it received an actual 0% on Rotten Tomatoes, causing Kirk Cameron to beg his 17 fans to leave positive reviews, to “tell Rotten Tomatoes that WE decide what media is good and what is bad!” Hilariously, his dumb plan backfired when godless atheists stormed Rotten Tomatoes to further drag his film.

          Normally, I wouldn’t even bother watching a film that is so ludicrously bad. But I truly dislike Kirk Cameron and everything that he stands for, and I truly enjoy hate-watching things, mostly because it allows me to feel morally superior, and I love feeling that way. So here we go:

1.       Starting off with Kirk Cameron sitting in his color-coordinated living room with perfectly matching stockings on the mantel telling us about everything he loves about Christmas. “There’s something about Christmas that makes people more kind, that makes them bring people out of the cold – help them, feed them, clothe them.” Ok, but if you’re only doing that at Christmas, and not at other times of the year, you’re not actually that great of a person. Also – color-coordinated living rooms with perfectly matching stockings is just so bland-ola. Stockings should be made with love by your grandmother or something, not purchased at a store. Also, color-coordination is boring – the best Christmas trees are filled with ornaments that tell a story (“I got this one at this place, or this person gave me this at this occasion”). And when you decorate a tree, you can't have any particular idea in mind - you just open up all your boxes of ornaments, and start putting them on the tree, and when the boxes are empty, that's when you're done decorating. One year, my sisters and I DID actually impose a rule of "no paper ornaments" because we had a bunch of toilet paper tube nativities from like, a program at the library or something, because we were like, 7, and we thought we were too cool for such childish things. 

2.       “There’s a group of people out there that says ‘Christmas is fine, whatever, you do your thing, and sing your hymns, whatever, but just keep it to ya damn self, and don’t let it spill out into the public sphere.’” He’s talking about atheists, who are sinkholes of happiness and good cheer, and who are categorically incapable of having a good time during the holiday season due to their constant Satan-frowns. Or actually, maybe Jews, or Muslims, who also have winter holidays, and are probably sort of annoyed when everyone brays “MERRY CHRISTMAS” every time they try to legitimately wish someone an all-inclusive, wintertime greeting.

3.       Oh god it’s sponsored by Liberty University. What else could you possibly need to know about the awfulness of this film? Oh, if you needed another reason to despise it, the opening credits are kicky drum-solos of popular Christmas hymns. Yuck. Christmas hymns are the best, and so much better than the "Alvin and the Chipmunks Do Christmas Carols" that have been piped through my doc's office this past week. And now they ruined them.

4.       Unironically-Named Caricature hates Christmas because it represents fakeness and greed and consumerism and poor stewardship and pagan symbols. Honestly, bro, I feel ya. Except for the paganism thing, whatever, I don’t care.

5.       Unironically-Named Caricature just needs to go introvert in his car for awhile, because noisy, busy, parties full of people can be overwhelming for us introverts. Naturally, Kirk Cameron doesn’t understand that someone might have a different way of doing things than he does, so he goes out to invade someone else’s introvert-space, because Kirk Cameron, and also #Rude.

6.       Unironically-Named Caricature is mad because he buys his nieces and nephews gifts that they play with for 3 weeks, and “how many kids could we have fed, and how many wells could we have dug?” Right on, my man.

7.       Oh, Unironically-Named Caricature is “all wrong, about everything, and drank the Christmas Kool-aid?” Really, Kirk Cameron, canNOT wait to hear this one, mostly because no one serves Kool-aid at Christmas; that is just disgusting.

8.        “If you had to pick one most precious decoration, out of all the decorations in your house, I bet it would be your nativity set.” I was going to write a scathing response about how that’s not true, but I forgot that my parents had a tradition of giving us a new Christmas ornament every year growing up, for our future tree, once we moved out; and our very first ornament was a little nativity set. Mine is cheap and plastic, with silver glitter on the roof, but I guess if I had to choose an ornament, it would probably be that one, because I am a sucker for sentimental value. Either that or the porcelain angel ornament that my kindergarten teacher's aide gave all of us. I dropped her a lot when I was a kid, and her wings are a mess of JB Weld and Krazy Glue.

9.        “The nativity is important because of the baby. And the baby is important because of the story he enters into.” What’s that story? The systemic persecution of a people group by a majority people group, and the eventual rise of a messiah figure that gave hope to the masses and inspired social revolutions for thousands of years later? That story, right?

10.   Not that story, apparently. Must be a different Jesus.

11.   Omg did he just say that Jesus was born at a time when boy babies were killed for being boy babies? He did. That didn’t happen until Jesus was at least 2 years old, get your story straight, Kirk Cameron, gosh, you can’t just start throwing Wise Men and shepherds and Mary and Joseph and Jesus and Herod’s soldiers all in the same timeline, it literally just did not happen.

12.   Caricatured Black Characters start spittin’ rhymes about Christmas and how they’re so oppressed for being forced to say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” and I just feel like Caricatured Black Characters are just here to provide comic relief, because basically all Black characters, especially in Bad Christian Media fall into either “Wise Black Man/Woman” or “Comic Relief.”

13.   Unironically-Named Caricature hates Christmas trees because they are a “pagan-idol-symbol-worshipping-thing,” and Christmas trees are the best, and they smell so great, especially if you chop them down from your neighbor’s pasture with your dad, so just shut up. On a side note, this one time, my dad was on a work trip for John Deere or something, and it was a week before Christmas, and we needed a tree. So Mom crammed us all into our hand-me-down snow gear from our cousins, and we grabbed a hacksaw and our Flyer sled and headed to our windbreak, where several juniper trees had been planted for the express purpose of being cut down later, after the slower-growing trees had filled in. I was like, maybe 12, and my sisters were 10 and 7 or so, idk. Young’uns. We found a tree, and my middle sister went to town on it with the hacksaw, like a champ. We got it cut down, and loaded it onto the sled, on the assumption that it would be easier to drag through the pasture. It wasn’t, because it was windy as all hell, because #Kansas, and the stupid tree kept blowing off the sled. So we each stood on one side of it to stabilize, and Mom pulled the sled, and we managed to drag the dumb thing through about a foot of snow and prairie grass, back to the porch to wait until Dad got home that night. We decided to stand it up in an ice cream bucket of water so it wouldn’t get thirsty. I believe this was my bright idea. Well, long story shorter, it was windy, the tree blew over, the ice cream bucket full of water blew over, and the tree froze to the floor of our porch and we had to individually cut each branch free so we could drag it into the house. And that’s the story of the best Christmas tree gathering mission. See, the secret to a great Christmas tree is that you can’t care what color it is, or if it has a flat side, or even if it's so sparse that you can see clear through it to the other side! A flat side is great, because you can get it closer to the wall and it won’t take up so much of your living room square footage. And color doesn’t matter once you layer it up with lights and beads and Christmas ornaments. And sparseness just guarantees that you have more space to hang all of your ornaments! And most importantly, all great Christmas trees come from pastures, and not from tree lots, and ESPECIALLY not plastic and from a box. That is just heresy.

This is the tree at my parents' house last year -
what a proper Christmas tree looks like. 

14.   Kirk Cameron argues that Christmas trees are not pagan symbols because God made trees and placed them in the Garden of Eden; and also that Christmas should be celebrated in the winter because it symbolizes the turn from cold, dark, death to life and light and springtime. Okkkkkk I have literally never heard any of this nonsense in my life, and I have heard a lot of nonsense in my life; and I just feel like Kirk Cameron is pulling this out of his backside.

15.   “Adam stole a fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and what happens when you steal something? You have to put it back. But Adam couldn’t do that, he already ate the fruit. So Jesus, as the Last Adam, put himself on the tree as God’s most righteous fruit, and that’s why we hang ornaments on a Christmas tree, which symbolizes Jesus hanging on the cross.” Son, you are reaching so hard right now, Jesus is spinning in his grave. Or, he would, if hadn’t been bodily resurrected and beamed back up to heaven. This is why non-Christians think we’re weirdos.

16.   Unironically-Named Caricature is just so blown away by this weird interpretation of Christmas that literally no one in their lives has ever heard before. He’s speechless. So am I, buddy. Probably not for the same reasons.

17.   “Santa has obliterated Jesus! Jesus is gone, kids just want to take pictures with Santa Clause! And you know what? S-A-N-T-A, rearrange the letters? SATAN. Same letters. Coincidence?” Wowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww, what? In other news, I never believed in Santa - my parents never really pushed the narrative, and I guess none of us possessed the suspension of disbelief necessary to seriously imagine that he was real. We also hung our stockings on the banister instead of the mantel that we don't have, so I'm sure that didn't help. My little sister also once told kids in kindergarten that they could only play with her on the playground if they didn't believe in Santa. She's harsh, even at such a tender age. I don't recall how my parents handled that one.

18.   “Santa rewards the good kids, and punishes the bad, who else does that? God.” “Ok, but last I checked, #SavedByGrace. This is like a carjacking of our religion! Christmas is gone, it’s all about Santa now! Read the Bible, it’s in the Bible, flip-flip-flip. You can’t tell me that Santa Claus is in the Bible, what, is it in Third Corinthians?” This guy is like Donald Trump, I swear, just stream-of-consciousness nonsense, and interrupting Kirk Cameron (which is fine, because Kirk Cameron doesn’t have anything worthwhile to say), and just straight-up babbling until he eventually runs out of steam. Also, it’s Three Corinthians, thanks.

19.   Santa Claus is not Satan Claus because he fought for the deity of Christ at the Council of Nicea, and yeah, I mean, I guess that’s true. Apparently he also slapped someone across the face, which is a really interesting way to defend Christ. “It was not the time to stay silent for the sake of being politically correct.” Shut up, Kirk Cameron, seriously, that’s not how being PC works.

20.   Unironically-Named Caricature is tooooooootally blown away by Kirk Cameron’s flawwwwwwless spinning of Christmas, and now he’s soooooooo excited about Christmas, despite the fact that Kirk Cameron never actually answered any of his questions about “how many kids could we feed, how many wells could we dig?”

21.   OMG HE IS SO PUMPED UP ABOUT SAVING CHRISTMAS NOW THAT KIRK CAMERON PUMPED HIM UP WITH DUBIOUS NONSENSE ABOUT CHRISTMAS TREES AND SATAN CLAUS.

22.   “Imagine the presents like a city skyline, like the New Jerusalem, with a tree in the middle of the city, a healing tree, with lights that shine in the darkness over the city, the stars over Bethlehem.” Dude. What.

23.   Kirk Cameron stands in the open doorway, letting cold air in, and no one minds this wanton waste of electricity, because #JesusOrSomeShit

24.   OMG he’s STILL standing in the doorway, it’s been like 10 minutes, what, do you people burn money for fun on a slow Friday night?!?

25.   “Remember those soldiers at the nativity, the ones that didn’t actually exist, because I literally combined several Bible stories into one and then said it with confidence, so people believed me? Yeah, so when you see soldiers at Christmas, think of that.” What.

26.   Wow, these people have two industrial-sized refrigerators, side-by-side, maybe they actually DO burn money for fun on a slow Friday night.

27.   Unironically-Named Caricature apologizes to his wife for being a jerk, and then gets his Black Caricature Friend to deejay a hip-hop dance-off to a hip-hop version of “Angels We Have Heard On High,” because Kirk Cameron. The hip-hop dance-off is mostly (entirely) white people, because of course it is.

28.   No word on whether or not Kirk Cameron finally ever even heard of… closing the __-damn door. He clearly does not have a sense of poise and rationality.

29.   “Don’t buy into the complaint of materialism at Christmas!” Ok, but like, that’s a very valid concern, you Trickle-Down-Economic.

30.   The movie ends with Kirk Cameron winking at Unironically-Named Caricature over a wineglass, and you just know that their relationship only gets weirder in the Easter sequel.

          Well, sorry that this post is less “empirically speaking, this is why this is a Bad Christian Film,” and more a long post about Christmas traditions in the Unruh family. Hope that wasn’t a huge letdown for anyone who actually wanted to read a nuanced critique. It was just too bad. There was too much wrong with it. I couldn’t do it.

          In short, I can aaaaabsolutely see why “Rotten Tomatoes” gave this a 0%. Like, I don’t even know where to start with this. Between Kirk Cameron literally pulling nonsense out of his backside, to Kirk Cameron literally pulling nonsense out of his backside, to Kirk Cameron not actually answering Unironically-Named Caricature’s legitimate questions about stewardship of resources, I just don’t even know. Like, I expected this movie to be bad, because Kirk Cameron, but this is a whole new level of SOOOOOOO INCOHERENTLY BAAAAAAAAAAD. There wasn’t even a plot, it was just Kirk Cameron rudely interrupting some dude’s legitimate car-interoverting! And then Kirk Cameron just HAPPENED to have ALL of these AMAZING and NEVER-BEFORE-HEARD spins on modern-day Christmas, and then everyone was happy at the end. I just don’t even know. The 2 hours I spent watching this and typing it up? I can never get that back.

War Room

          

          “War Room” (alternate title: Prayer, Not Mutual Effort, Changes Things) is by the same people that did “Facing the Giants” and “Fireproof,” and several others. Obviously, it’s going to be incredible and well-done. According to the trailer, Seemingly Perfect Wife and Seemingly Perfect Husband are not having a great time with each other, and Adorable Daughter knows it. In the course of doing her job, Seemingly Perfect Wife meets Wise Black Woman, who shows her the “War Room” in her house, which is basically a closet with prayer requests taped to the walls, where she retreats to do battle with the powers and principalities, because prayer, and not mutual effort, changes things. Seemingly Perfect Wife is inspired by Wise Black Woman, and, tired of fighting with Seemingly Perfect Husband, makes her own War Room. Eventually, through concentrated prayer and also mutual effort, their marriage improves and by the end, everyone is praying, because it is prayer, and not mutual effort, that changes things. Also, according to the poster, BETH MOORE is in this movie, and if there’s anyone whose theology is JUST MY FAVORITE, it’s Beth Moore. So I’m really looking forward to this.

1.       Seemingly Perfect Husband is a pharmaceutical rep, and he bought a doctor a new golf club? OMG SIR YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO DO THAT. If boards practice questions have taught me anything, it's that you can totes give him a new stethoscope or tongue depressor or whatever, but NOT a new golf club.

2.       Seemingly Perfect Husband meets Flirty-Flirt Hottie and woo-woo, sparks.

3.       Seemingly Perfect Husband walks into the house and immediately starts yelling at Seemingly Perfect Wife about money, because he makes more than she does, and apparently that’s a thing that you need to hold over your wife’s head.

4.       Seemingly Perfect Husband and Wife go to church and meets Flirty-Flirt Hottie who walks in at the end of the sermon and makes eyes at Seemingly Perfect Husband. That’s is just rude. A sermon is most of the way through the service, jeez, just wait in the foyer until it’s over, gosh.

5.       Seemingly Perfect Husband is a giant jerkface, and I’m changing his name to Jerkface Husband.

6.       Jerkface Husband seriously just told Adorable Daughter, who is apparently an ace double-dutcher, that “she’s too old to jump rope." That is just mean, and wtf is wrong with you?

7.       Wise Black Woman (trope!) is introduced because Seemingly Perfect Wife is helping sell her house. She is adorable, and I love her, and her house is beautiful and I want to buy it.

8.       Jerkface Husband calls Flirty-Flirt Hottie to go on a date, because of course he does. Dude, you are so gross, and you don’t deserve the effort that your wife goes through on your behalf.

9.       Wise Black Woman gives Seemingly Perfect Wife a cup full of lukewarm coffee because Seemingly Perfect Wife says that her spiritual life is “neither hot nor cold, it just is,” and honestly, that’s hilarious, mostly because coffee is gross, and I don’t care if people ruin it.

10.   Wise Black Woman shows Seemingly Perfect Wife the “War Room” that is in her closet. She calls it her War Room because it’s where she goes to fight in prayer for people. As a pacifist, I am largely uncomfortable with the militaristic terminology that goes along with going into battle against the powers and principalities armed with the weapons of Scripture and whatnot, but there is something to be said for making a concerted effort to think of others and work towards the improvement of their lives.

11.   “Wise Black Woman, I don’t have all this time to pray for Jerkface Husband every day!” “Oh yeah? But you have plenty of time to fight losing battles with Jerkface Husband, though, right?” ZINGGGGGG.

12.   Wise Black Woman tells Seemingly Perfect Wife that she needs to pray and also just lay down and take it for awhile until Jerkface Husband sees that he’s being a big meanie, and spontaneously changes himself. Um, no, that is not ok, and that’s an incredibly harmful way of thinking about marriage.

13.   Jerkface Husband does not value his wife’s family enough to help them through a financial tight spot, even though he just got another whopping bonus from work. Also he complains about his wife’s smelly feet, which is just rude af.

14.   Jerkface Husband tells Wise Black Friend about how he’s tired of “my wife and her junk,” and bro, you don’t deserve all the effort your wife is putting in on your behalf.

15.   Wise Black Woman tells Seemingly Perfect Wife to back off from yelling at Jerkface Husband and make a concerted effort to love him, and also to pray about it, and he’ll come around eventually, who knows when. And, you know, making an effort is not a bad idea, and playing “wait and see” is not terrible, but at some point, you have to say “you know what, no. Enough of this”

16.   Seemingly Perfect Wife walks around her house shouting at the devil to get out of her house, and honestly, that is a pretty effective self-talk strategy right there. There certainly is something to be said for consciously thinking about things as though someone else has control of them – really helps one to be objective.

17.   Flirty-Flirt Hottie invites Jerkface Husband back to her apartment to “try a bottle of wine.” He agrees, but then feels gross and barfy, which is probably a reaction to being a jerkface who doesn’t deserve the effort his wife is putting in on his behalf.

18.   Once she submits to God, Seemingly Perfect Wife starts selling houses like a boss, attending her daughter’s double-dutch tournaments, and suddenly everything is perfect, because #ProsperityGospel

19.   Jerkface Husband comes home and reads his wife’s text messages about him flirty-flirting with another woman and gets SUUUUUPER ANGRYYYYY because HOW DARE HE FLIRTY-FLIRT WITH ANOTHER WOMAN.

20.   Jerkface Husband can’t understand how his wife isn’t SUPER UPSET about him losing his job because he cheated his employers, BUT OBVIOUSLY IT’S BECAUSE SHE HAS JESUS NOW.

21.   Jerkface Husband looks for his gym bag in his wife’s closet/prayer room and finds all her handwritten notes and goes to his Wise Black Friend, who is like “DUDE THIS IS IMPORTANT, WOMEN DON’T JUST GIVE UP CLOSET SPACE FOR NOTHING, DAWG.” Bro, NOBODY just gives up closet space, ok, it’s not just a lady-thing, don’t be sexist.

22.   Inspiring music swells as Jerkface Husband realizes what a jerkface he’s been. ABOUT TIME, BRO.

23.   Jerkface Husband realizes that Adorable Daughter is totally adorable, and actually super good at double-dutching; and that his wife is fantastic and still sticking around even though he’s been a jerkface; and he’s totally shocked and apologizes for everything, and now I’m sure everything will be totally awesome, because it’s super easy to break deeply-ingrained habits.

24.   Everything is going great now, because they’ve all submitted to God, and everything is just awesome because #ProsperityGospel

25.   Apparently double-dutch tournaments are a Thing, and they look super cool, actually.

26.   Pumpy “Owl City” sound-alikes play “Me Without You” which is another “Jesus is my boyfriend” song that is super catchy, and also super common in Bad Christian Movies (see "Christian Mingle" review).

27.   Oh, now suddenly everyone is praying, ok. Oh, check it, “See You At The Pole!” I did that, once. Most awkward thing ever. I am just not all about the public displays of religiosity, unless it involves posting satirical articles about Christianity and Mennonites to my Facebook page.

          In conclusion, “War Room” was not as terrible as some of the movies I’ve reviewed for this blog. I do not appreciate the theology that says women are expected to doormat for their husbands until *eventually* they come around, and that says women should love their husbands because God loves us that way. Yes, but we are not God, and for better or for worse, our love is conditional on our spouses not being jerkfaces. I’ve known too many women who have stayed with Jerkface Husbands because “that’s what God wants me to do” to be cool with that narrative. Ultimately, yeah, prayer is great, whatever. But you have to know when enough is enough, and when it’s time to talk, and when it’s time to say “you know, not anymore.” Christianity can be pretty abusive with the theology of staying with a jerkface spouse, and I just don’t think we need an entire movie about it (actually, two - see "Fireproof" review) – people get it often enough from their churches.

          Also, apparently Beth Moore was in a scene, and I didn’t realize. That’s fine, I don’t care for her particular brand of religiosity.

The Atheist Delusion

       

          According to the trailer, “The Atheist Delusion: Why Millions Deny the Obvious” (Alternate Title: “Too Complex, Therefore, God” or Alternate Title: "Science is Hard" or Alternate Title "My High School Biology Teacher is Rolling in His or Her Grave Right Now") promises to destroy atheism with one scientific question, and is premised on the fact that all atheists simply lack sufficient proof of the existence of God, and that, when confronted with that proof, will at least promise the man behind the microphone shoved in their face that “they’ll think about it.” The man behind the microphone is Ray Comfort, noted non-biologist, and also the man behind the quote "Behold, the banana! The atheist's nightmare!"

          Hilariously, this movie released recently at the Ark Theme Park in Kentucky. It immediately got terrible reviews, for which Ray Comfort blames delusional atheists, because we all know that the only thing delusional atheists want to do is fire-bomb terrible Christian movies. And also eat babies. In an article about the IMDB firebombing, Ray Comfort refers to atheists as “nasty bees,” which is hilarious. I WAS going to refer to atheists as “delusional atheists” throughout this entire review, but “nasty bees” is WAAAAY funnier.

         Anyway, here we go.

1.       This guy literally just walks up to nasty bees and asks them if they’re nasty bees? Do nasty bees give off like, a pheromone or something, like how can you tell? Is there like a “hey, how are you, do you have some time to talk about our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ?” or is it just like “Hey, so are you a nasty bee?” The people being interviewed all sort of give him this real startled-then-exasperated look, so imma guess it’s the latter.

2.       “We’re atheists because we’re not shown enough evidence for a higher power. If we were, I can almost guarantee that every atheist would immediately admit to there being a higher power.” Now, as a function of my growing up in a small, Midwestern town, then moving to a small Midwestern Christian college, then living among a small group of Mennonites in San Francisco, then moving back to a small Christian school in a small Southern town, I haven’t the fortune of knowing many nasty bees - I can come up with maybe 12 off the top of my head, with half of whom I have had some discussion of religion. But imma go ahead and call “bullshit” on that assertion. I think that a lot of nasty bees are nasty bees because they just don’t find religion (Christianity) to be personally compelling, not because they lack proof of religion’s (Christianity’s) inherent truthiness.

3.       Ohhhhh “The Watchmaker Analogy,” applied to the creation of a picture book, how original. Boy, you’re really gonna compel this basket of delusionals, aren’t you?

4.       Sudden insertion of a Ted Talk about genetics and how genes are the instruction manual for making us, us. Probably so Ray Comfort wouldn’t have to taint his mind with actual science and biology. I wonder if they paid that Ted Talker for his time. Probs not.

5.        “Do you think a book could make itself? It’s utterly impossible, right? Having something happen from nothing is crazy, right? The fact that DNA is intelligent, means there must be an intelligent designer, right?” OMGGGGGGG NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. DNA isn’t intelligent, it’s a wad of chemicals that put on some slow jams and got lucky one night.

6.       So now we just have a montage of nasty bees sort of uncomfortably being lured into conversation by Ray Comfort, whom they’ve never met, waving a microphone and camera and asking them personal questions about their faith. He’s like “Oh, so, obviously a book can’t make itself, and you’d think anyone who thought that was dumb, right? WELL WHAT ABOUT THE INSTRUCTION BOOK FOR LIFE, CAN IT MAKE ITSELF, HUH, CAN IT, CAN IT, *CAN IT*?!?!?!” And the unlucky people he’s interviewing are just like “…what… is my life right now, and why did I agree to this?” It’s also patently obvious that this guy either doesn’t know squat about DNA, or is willfully withholding information to make his point.

7.       This guy just keeps cutting-away between shots, so when someone is like “Yeah, I agree,” after he asks a different person “So do you think that because a book can’t spontaneously self-assemble, that neither can DNA?” And that’s just bad camera editing, because idk, maybe that guy was like “Yeah, I agree [that the sky is blue].”

8.       “I’m just trying to reason with you, I’m not arguing, I’m not tryna win an argument, I just want you to concede something that is absolute common SENSE!” Ok, but like, you don’t understand DNA, and you can’t argue DNA with someone else that doesn’t understand DNA, it’s not a level playing field. Also, is DNA really your most compelling argument supporting why someone should be a Christian? It really just isn’t, you know? Like, WHO CAAAAAAARES about the origin of the universe – it’s an interesting ad nauseum side-debate, if you care, but it is not materially relevant to the mission of Christians on earth, which is to not be shitty people to everyone else. A lot of them are failing at that mission, which is probably why atheists don’t find Christianity particularly compelling.

9.       Guys, seriously, we are 9 minutes and 30s into this film. It’s an hour long. Send help, I just died of an overzealous eye-roll.

10.   “Do you believe that nothing created everything? Do you like Dawkins? Isn’t that what he says, that nothing created everything?” Ray Comfort just has a bunch of out-of-context “gotcha” questions, and poses them to sort of confused and uncomfortable-looking people on the street, without preamble, and then expects them to have a well-thought-out and eloquent answer, when they’re just tryna get to the grocery store or the gym, dangit.

11.   Oh, now Ray Comfort interviews a theoretical physicist or something like that, who’s a lot more bold about saying “that’s a ridiculous question.” He’s also totally talking above Ray Comfort’s pay grade, so Ray Comfort cuts-away and explains away the physicist’s explanations.

12.   Oh god now we’ve moved on to the “chicken or the egg” argument, this outta be good. You all know, of course, that the chicken and the egg were simultaneously created on day 5 of creation, and have remained unchanged since then, which is why dinosaur bones are a trick from God sent to test our faith. Glad we’ve cleared that up, let’s proceed with Ray Comfort’s flawless line of reasoning.

13.   Corny oompah music plays while college students try to answer which came first, which really undercuts the serious nature of Ray Comfort’s line of questioning.

14.   "Evolution can’t be real because how would a chicken survive before it’s lungs evolved?" GAME OVER, YOU WIN, RAY COMFORT, THAT’S FLAWLESS LOGIC.

15.   I’m pretty sure this guy is cherry-picking his interviewees – none of them are biology majors or biochemistry majors, or even seem that secure in their beliefs, and they all appear to be on a college campus, where there should be a lot more smart people than what’s shown in this travesty of a film.

16.   “Can you think of anything on earth that isn’t fully evolved? A dog has four legs, a tongue, eyes, ears, a mouth, everything is fully evolved! You don’t see people with a half-evolved leg, do you? And this disproves evolution, and proves the Bible!” WHAAAT IS THIS MAN TALKING ABOUT OMGGGGGGGGGGGGGG.

17.   “You don’t want God in your life for the same reason a thief doesn’t want a policeman in his life! You love your porn, your premarital sex, your fornication!” OMG CHRISTIANS DO THOSE THINGS TOO, at the exact same proportion as non-Christians, in fact.

18.   God is real because the sun is not too hot or not too cold, it’s juuuuust right for tomato-ripening. FACT. SCIENCE FACT.

19.   This Just In: Nasty bees are nasty bees only because they don’t want to give up their raging porn habits. Sure says a lot about the compelling nature of the gospel message, if it can be so easily overcome by slicked-up actors performing unrealistic improvisations on the Kama Sutra.

20.   Oh yeah, wow, it just defies imagination to think that the Earth developed at juuuuust the right distance from the sun, with juuuuust the right percentage of oxygen vs nitrogen, with juuuuust the right amount of water, and a huuuuuge variety of plant and animal life, all exhibiting sexual dimorphism and the ability to reproduce. TBH, it’s more amazing that this all developed by chance than to imagine that Some Dude made it all just like how it is. 

21.   Oh, trees are here so we can build houses? Cows are here to give us meat and butter? Chickens are here for food and eggs? Sheep are here to give us wool? Plants and fruits are here for the benefit of humanity? Wow. Apparently egocentrism is the new heliocentrism.

22.   “The Bible is full of scientific facts that weren’t discovered until thousands of years later, did you know that?” I did not, because that’s not true.

23.   “If God is good, then how can there NOT be a hell?” Ok, but like, you can avoid hell by just being like “Lord Jesus Christ, plz come into my heart and save me from myself,” so it’s not like there’s not a way to weasel out of hell.

24.   Ray Comfort, with the assistance of a bunch of leading questions, convinces a bunch of college-aged nasty bees that they are all going to hell, and that they should believe in God so they don’t go to hell. If your prime directive in life is to not go to hell, and that’s the whole reason you believe any of this stuff, you’re doing it wrong.

25.   “Telling God you’re doing the best you can to be a good person, while also being an atheist is like saying to a judge ‘hey, I raped that woman, but I’m doing the best I can.’ He’d throw the book at you, wouldn’t he!?” Actually, probably not your best argument. Rapists get off real light, especially if they’re white college sports-boys.

26.   The problem right now is that Ray Comfort stands behind the camera, and you can’t ever see his face talking, so he could legitimately take a video of people smiling and nodding and looking uncomfortable, mute the sound, and then insert his own voice talking over the video, and you can literally say that “Nasty bees eat babies for breakfast, don’t they?” and the video would totally make it look like you agreed with him. I would be unsurprised to learn that he is recycling clips from one segment to another, and just voicing over them.

27.   “You’re a total stranger, why would you care about me?” “Cuz I’m a Christian, I love you, I’m not filled with hate like some of those other religions.” OMGGGGGGGGGG. Ok, wow. Christianity does not have the corner on the love-other-people market, wow. Personally, I think Sikhs have that whole thing on lock, if we're making broadly-applicable arguments, here. Also, PLENTY of Christians are filled with hate. When he says “those other religions,” I assume he’s referring to Muslims, because they're always referring to Muslims when they say nasty things like that, which is just rude, because painting everyone with the same extremist brush is actually quite intolerable.

28.   Montage of nasty bees nodding and looking uncomfortable, with a voice-over of Ray Comfort leading them through a come-to-Jesus moment, which is fine, if they feel legitimately convicted. I personally would not be swayed by these weak-sauce arguments, but other people can make their own choices.

29.   I can never get this time back. And I have a headache. No word on what that one scientific question was that was supposed to destroy atheism. 

           I can’t even with this movie, mostly because gosh, just leave them alone, already! Quit shoving your views in their faces, no one likes it when you shove things in their faces, especially if that thing is already distasteful and has already been shoved in their face multiple times. If all these nasty bees find your witness compelling, they’ll ask. If they don’t ask, you might be doing it wrong. Or they just aren’t interested. For all you millions of nasty bees out there – if you see a man with a stupid Kiwi accent and he wants to shove a camera and mic in your face, just leave. He’s not gonna listen to you, and if you do try to talk to him, he’ll supercut your words to make it look like you agrees with him. To any of my nasty bee friends who are also hardheaded confrontational biologists with a good understanding of how to argue with idiots - he’ll cut you from his dumb movie because you don’t fit the “fragile atheist” mold, and you’ll just get yourself all worked up for nothing.

This was so dumb, and quite honestly, is an insult to everyone involved.