Christian Mingle

       

         According to the trailer, Gwenyth (who even names their kid Gwenyth anymore? Mom always told me that when I was picking out baby names, I should stand on my back porch and shriek their proposed name as loudly as possible, five times, and if I felt stupid doing it, then I probably shouldn’t pick that name. And that’s now GERRRRTRUUUDE EVELYYYYYN UNRUUUUUUH was scratched off the list) is a standard cool-girl, looking for love in all the wrong places. And by “wrong places,” we mean OKCupid or Tinder or eHarmony. Because she’s not looking for love in all the right places (church), she hasn’t found it yet. So, on a whim, she signs up for ChristianMingle.com (which definitely did NOT sponsor this movie) despite the fact that she doesn’t even know what a Christian is or how to act like one, which will definitely NOT be a major plot point in this film. S/O to Emily Luedke for digging this one out of the trash heap.

1. Kickin’ this movie right off with an Owl-City sound-alike, which is about Jesus, and not fireflies. Hilariously, the song is entitled “Me Without You,” and is set to a slideshow of a girl and a boy hanging out, and not a girl hanging out with Jesus, which even more concretely makes my point that modern Christian music is just secular music with “Jesus” inserted in place of “my boyfriend.”
2. Scene of Sad Single Gwen sadly flipping through channels while eating cookies and reading Facebook about all her friends being in relationships, because that’s what single girls do. They don’t cultivate hobbies or friendships, they just pine about how they’re not married.  
3. WHAT, DID YOU JUST THROW THAT POINSETTIA INTO THE TRASH WITHOUT EVEN TRYING TO RESUSCITATE IT?! You can’t even keep a plant alive, why do you think you don’t have a boyfriend?!!?
4. OMG IF YOU SIGN UP ON CHRISTIANMINGLE.COM AND YOU DON’T ACTUALLY ATTEND CHURCH, YOU PROBS SHOULD NOT LIE AND SAY YOU ATTEND CHURCH EVERY WEEK. That’s just bad form, and it will be immediately obvious. Hope you’re not Catholic, cuz the jig will be up as soon as you start jumbling that liturgy.
5.  They make a book called “Christianity for Dummies?”
6. This girl has zero conversational skills, no wonder all of her dates have sucked.
7. “Uncomplicated AND a believer!” Haha… this relationship is founded on SO MANY LIES ALREADY AND IT IS LITERALLY 10 SECONDS OLD.
8. Apparently the “Christianity for Dummies” book did not include a section on how to fake a believable prayer.
9. “Who says I’m not Christian? I read the Bible!” Apparently not enough, since you had to read a book called “Christianity for Dummies”
10. This girl totally has a Pinterest board titled “Someday…………………”
11. NO NO NO NO NO DO NOT DIP YOUR SUSHI IN THE SOY SAUCE WITHOUT TRYING IT FIRST the sushi chefs are totes judging you if you do that. It was on NPR, you can read about it here. 
12. You have read the Bible before, but have to read a book titled “The Bible for Dummies” instead of actually reading the Bible in order to learn about the Bible? I just… you’re doing it so, so wrong.
13. UUUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I literally (LITERALLY) just did a Tina-groan out loud - this Bible study scene where she tries to recite a Bible verse about marriage and sexual immorality, but instead mis-attributes it to the wrong author…… it is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO AWWWWWKWAAAARRRRDDDDDDDDDDDDDD.
14. Girl, if you can’t freaking find Romans right off the bat, you are totally sunk. That one is pretty basic.  Did you never have sword-fights as a kid? “GALATIONS 5:17, GO!” Like, Titus, Obadiah, Haggai, sure, but Romans?
15. “I’m really good at faking it.” *snicker*
16. “Your mother doesn’t like me.” Of course she doesn’t, you’re a blatant fakity faker, and moms can spot that in like 0.0000006 seconds.
17. These people are SUUUUCH caricatures of modern Christianity, it is the most painful thing.
18. You’re mad at Christian Boyfriend, so you’re not answering his calls? Real mature. Probably why you haven’t been able to sustain a viable relationship.
19. Girl just ships off and visits Christian Boyfriend in Mexico, where apparently they have crackle-free cell reception, which I don’t believe for one minute.
20. Who nominated this cowboy singer, anyway, because he’s absolutely terrible.
21. Both Fakity Faker and Christian Boyfriend agree that the cowboy singer has a beautiful voice, which is definitely a sign that they deserve each other.
22. Every Mexican character in this entire movie just stands around and stares, while the white people move around and get stuff done. Thank goodness for the white people, otherwise nothing would ever get done.
23. “You know what I think? You’re pretending. The “Christianity for Dummies” book that I found in your luggage didn’t tip me off at all.” Good grief, Christian Boyfriend, how did you fit that thick book into your jacket pocket? An Undetectable Extension charm?
24. “Why does it matter that you’re a Christian, and I’m not, even though I totally said I was, but I was lying about that, and what does it matter that our entire relationship is based on this one very important lie about who we each are?” Hahahahaaaaaaa…… like, how did you expect this to turn out? At what point did you plan on telling Christian Boyfriend that you’ve been faking it this whole time?
25. Skipping work because you have strep throat would NOT buy you a couple weeks, who are these pansies? Go to the Urgent Care, get some Amoxicillin, deal.
26. NO NO NO NO NO DO NOT START READING THE BIBLE WITH GENESIS OMG STOP IT. Yeah, sure, it’s cool for a few pages, with the “Let there Bes” and the “And it was goods” and the “two by twos” and the incest between Lot and his daughters, but once you get to Leviticus, with the menstrual requirements, and the mold, and the uncleanliness, you’ll stall out.
27. Oh, girl, picking a random church because you were walking past on the sidewalk, and they had a rockin’ multiracial praise team with tambourines and lots of clapping, that’s just not the way to do it.
28. Girl, you can’t be disappointed in Christian Ex-Boyfriend because he’s dating a girl who isn’t a Christian from reading “Christianity for Dummies.” I think maybe you don’t have that right…
29. "I’ll pray for you.” That’s the Christian way to end a conversation without saying “Buzz off, jerkface”
30. HOW ARE YOU ANGRY THAT CHRISTIAN EX-BOYFRIEND DUMPED YOU THE FIRST TIME FOR PRETENDING TO BE A CHRISTIAN BY READING “CHRISTIANITY FOR DUMMIES AND WHO THEN DUMPED YOU *AGAIN* BECAUSE YOU CALLED HIM OUT FOR DATING A GIRL THAT ISN’T YOU, A GIRL THAT DIDN’T PRETEND TO BE A CHRISTIAN BY READING “CHRISTIANITY FOR DUMMIES,” BUT WHO ACTUALLY *IS* A CHRISTIAN, AND ISN’T LYING ABOUT A VERY FUNDAMENTAL ASPECT OF RELATIONSHIPS?!?!?!?” Shouldn’t you be mad at yourself at this point, for making such a public spectacle of yourself?
31. How did the little Mexican girl get her address to send her a plot-device letter?
32.  …………………… so she moves to Mexico and teaches English to the little Mexican girl's friends……… except the kids don’t need to learn English, because they already speak it without a trace of an accent…
33. Christian Ex-Boyfriend is back………………? He dumped the Real Christian Girlfriend to come back for the girl who based their entire relationship on a really big lie? You guys are gonna need some major pre-marital counseling

               THAT WAS SO PAINFUL I AM SO GLAD THAT IT IS OVER OMG IT WAS LITERALLY THE WORST MOVIE I HAVE EVER WATCHED FOR THIS BLOG AND THAT INCLUDES "GOD IS NOT DEAD." Sorry for the excessive use of caps lock, you guys, but this movie 1000% deserves every capitalized letter. It was absolutely excruciating. The moral of this movie was “Base your relationship on a lie, and it’ll totally work out for you!” Alternative moral was “Mexicans need white people to fix their problems for them.” I don’t have anything nice to say about this movie, it was absolutely awful. I don't even know what the target audience is, because it was offensive on so many levels. Like, "God is Not Dead," is obvi for the apologetics buffs. Kirk Cameron is obviously for men who want to feel good about yelling at their wives. "Left Behind" is obviously for people who think Obama is the Antichrist," and I get it, movies need a target audience. But this... it was just so bad. I don't even know who the writers had in mind when they wrote it. 

  

The Red Tent

     

You cannot convince me that this is not the best movie poster of all time.

      I have heard nothing but good things about “The Red Tent.” A BRL friend from Bethel told me about the Lifetime adaptation, and how I absolutely HAD to read the book. So I ordered it awhile back, and spent last weekend reading it in it's entirety. Then this weekend, I watched the movie.
     The book/movie is about Dinah, one of Jacob’s daughters by his 1^st wife Leah. The only mention of Dinah in the Bible is from Genesis 34, in which Dinah goes out walking one day and is raped by this dude Shecham, who was the son of the local bigwig. After raping her, he was like “Oh… she’s kinda cuuuute, maybe I should marry her!” Presumably Dinah had no say in the matter, because being a lady in the Old Testament SUUUUUUUUUUUUCKED. So he gets his dad to try and talk to Dinah’s dad, Jacob (of the Jacob-and-Esau fame), to see if they could get married. Jacob finds out how this kid Shechem knows Dinah, and understandably flips his lid, tells his sons what happed, and they, understandably, flip their collective lids. Meanwhile, Shecham’s dad is still trying to get Dinah to marry his son, so he goes to talk to Jacob and his sons again, and they’re like “Yeah, it’s totes cool that you’re gonna marry our sister, we have no problems with that whatsoever! But all the people in your local bigwiggery have to get circumcised in trade for her, because… reasons!” So Shecham’s dad is like “Yeah, sounds reasonable.” While all the dudes in the local bigwiggery are lying around groaning in pain, Dinah’s brothers show up with swords and killed all of the men, looted the city, and stole all their flocks of animals, killed Shecham and his son, and brought their sister back. So kind of a weird and bloody little historical footnote.

     BUT the book is super good, just oozing with female empowerment and stuff. And I love me some feminist empowerment, especially when it’s encapsulated by a really great historical mostly-fiction-but-not-completely story that’s based in something from the Bible. Because let's be real - the Bible and female empowerment are usually mutually exclusive terms. Not always (see Tamar, Mary Magdalene, Ruth, Esther), but it’s a good rule of thumb.

     So here we go! I’m super excited to NOT get really angry at some dumb movie!

1. Seriously though, is there nothing worse than an unrequited love-triangle? Unless it’s an unrequited love triangle made up entirely of people in the same family. Leah loves Jacob who loves Rachel, who loves Jacob back, but is also Leah’s little sister. Oh, and they’re all cousins! Bleargh. They are just asking for some recessive genetic diseases.
2. For being known as "the ugly sister," Leah is extremely beautiful.
3. Jacob’s totally ok with having Leah instead of Rachel. Dude gets his cake and can eat it too!
4. Wow, Jacob, four wives instead of one. SO much cake.
5. Jacob is SUCH a shrewd investor. Honestly, the only thing I knew about this guy was that he’s really good at breeding sheep, and that he tricked his dad into giving him the eldest-son birthright, which seems a little low, buuuuut at the same time, the eldest-son birthright is a pretttty sweet deal, sooo…… I’m not sure how much I can really fault him for that. Also he had a crapton of kids, because that tends to happen when you have four wives.
6. WHYYYYY are Simeon and Levi always the jerks? In “King of Dreams,” they were the dark-haired, shifty-eyed jerkfaces, and now the same is true here, too! Maybe I didn’t pay attention enough in Sunday School, but I’m not sure that’s ever really implied in Genesis.
7. Where do all these incredibly beautiful women get the tools to sculpt their incredibly beautiful eyebrows? I mean seriously you guys, I have a mirror and at least 40 more centuries of beautification technology on them, and my brows do not look even half that good!
8. Yarrow root??! The only thing I know about yarrow root is that if you chew it, your tongue goes numb (thanks Camp Friedenswald!). Turns out it’s also Bronze Age Ambien.
9. ENTER THE BAD GUY. You can tell because he wears a lot of black eyeliner. Dinah, gurl, he totes notices you peeking at him from across the way. You’re not being sneaky at all.
10. “Not as beautiful as you.” Oh, you charmer. 
11. Ohhhhh gurrrrl you are gonna regret that decision. Stripping down for a dude you just met that wears that much black eyeliner, and whom you plan to marry without asking your dad is just not the mark of a well-considered choice, not when you’re an OT lady. Nowadays, sure, whatever, full steam ahead. Back then? No.
12. Dinah’s sexy striptease is made even more awkward by the complete lack of response from Not-So-Bad-Guy.
13. OHHHHHHHHHHHH the family couldn’t POSSIBLY want Dinah back, because she’s no longer “pure.” Haha, you guys suck. But seriously, though. Sit down. *Relatedly, I read a book over Christmas that was all about stuff like that, and how a girl’s dowry wasn’t so much payment to her dad in exchange for the work he’ll not get out of her once she left the farm, but more as payment for her intact hymen. PATRIARCHY.
14. Mmmmm… circumcision. Nothing says “good bride price” like a big pile of foreskins.
15. WHY is it that Simeon and Levi and Joseph are the only sons that ever show up in this movie? Jacob has 10 other sons, and none of them are ever even mentioned!
16. “It’s just a flesh wound!” Yeah, Not-So-Bad-Guy, that’s what they all say. Look at what happened to that one dude from Game of Thrones! “Just a flesh wound to my sculpted and incredibly defined pecs,” but then he dies of blood poisoning or something.
17. How in the crap did Jacob’s sons (ie Levi and Simeon) slit Not-So-Bad-Guy’s throat without Dinah noticing?!? They were in the same bed, 6” from each other! I would certainly notice that sort of thing, especially if there were blood-loss-induced thrashing going on.
18. You know, Jacob, bringing up the shame your daughter brought on your name by not asking his permission to marry Not-So-Bad-Guy MIGHT have been better brought up in a conversation that did not directly proceed from blood-drenched Dinah’s completely justified ranting involving your sons and their rampant murder of everyone. Just saying. Time and place, dude. Also, Dinah, wow. Call it like it is, gurl. 
19. Not-So-Bad-Guy’s mom is a total boss. What a lady, I mean, really. Strong female role and all that.
20. I take it back. She’s a total BIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITCH.
21. Is anyone planning to do anything about the Dinah’s episiotomy-induced HEMORRORHAGE?!??!? She’s bleeding all over the place! Jeez guys, I know you’re Bronze Age and all, but if you can do an episiotomy, you can sure as heck fix one.
22. No, random carpenter, Dinah’s kid Re-mose does NOT have Dinah’s eyes. Hers are blue, his are deep brown. It’s like saying Harry has Lily’s eyes, when he clearly does not.
23. Wow, this is hardly the Dreamworks’ version of the confident and carefree Joseph that lived in an Egyptian cell for like 5 years, practicing botany and vibrato in his spare time. This terrified and unkempt Joseph is probably more accurate, though.
24. Re-mose, your hair is stupid looking. And you’re a complete douchenozzle.
25. GUUUUHHHHHHH girl has some crippling self-esteem issues. And some dude swoops in and saves her. Thank goodness for the mens, amirite, ladies?
26. OH SNAP DINAH’S KID RE-MOSE WORKS FOR THE EGYPTIAN VIZIER WHO IS NOW JOSEPH, WHOSE WIFE IS IN LABOR AND IS BEING ATTENDED TO BY DINAH. IT’S ONE BIG HAPPY FAMILY REUNION! Except no one knows it, because none of them actually meet. Also, I don't want to be like "Well, in the BOOK..." but in the book, Joseph is an arrogant but illiterate former slave with homosexual leanings. Not very Lifetime-movie-friendly, I gather.
27. Now that they have met, it would have been better if they hadn’t, cuz all hell breaks loose.
28. Joseph can forgive his brothers for selling him into slavery, but can’t forgive his sister’s kid for nicking his pecs? He’s probably (justifiably) afraid of dying of blood poisoning. But c’mon dude, where’s that soulfully-singing botanist we’re all so familiar with?
29. So if all the kids are coming together to be with their dying dad, where are all the other brothers? Seriously, again, it’s just Joseph and Dinah. But I guess if I’d sold my brother into slavery, and killed my sister’s husband and every dude in his kingdom, and were the direct agent of their misery, I’d probably lay pretty low, too.

     At the end of the movie, everyone is ok with everyone else and all is forgiven, because what is a Lifetime movie if it doesn’t end like that? The book is a lot darker. That said, it was a very well done production, and I very much enjoyed it. You guys, look, it’s totally possible to do a religiously-themed movie without kowtowing to idiotic, overused themes, and Lifetime just did it. It’s not perfect, because of course it couldn’t be, but of all the religious-themed movies I’ve reviewed for this blog, this is the one that I’ve hated the least, by a long, long shot. I probably liked it because it took a lot of artistic liberties with a story that is a tiny, weird little footnote in Genesis, one that hasn’t been told like 9,000 times. And it's cool because it tells the story from the lady's point of view, which, let's be honest, is pretty much absent from the OT. The mens get to tell all the stories, and as a result, maaaaaaybe stuff gets a little twisted in the telling. "History is written by the victors," and all that. This story was also awesome because it involved a bunch of super boss ladies who were very cool. I would legitimately like to hang out and menstruate in the red tent with them. It sounds like it would be really fun. You should defs read the book. Unfortunately, you can’t go see “The Red Tent” in theaters, but you can probably stream it on the Internet. If I can do it, you can, too. And you totally should. Full marks.

Exodus: Gods and Kings

   

       Alternative titles – “Everyone is White,” “The Writers are Basing the Movie off of Sunday School Flannelgraphs and Not Off the Bible,” and “Moses, You’re Doing it Wrong.” Now, I've seen Dreamworks’ “Prince of Egypt” at least a dozen times, and know every word to every song in there, even that crazy song sung in Hebrew, so I defs know what I’m talking about when I say that this most recent adaptation is pretty weird. It’s mostly accurate, by which I mean “Christian Bale is obviously Moses, the plagues are sequential, Tzipporah is a hottie, and the Hebrew God is maybe just a little bit petulant.” So really, not that much accuracy. Errors, suspensions of belief, and laudable moments are as follows:

1. Moses and Ramses are both given swords with the words “short enough that you won’t trip over them.” Hurrrrr that’s what she said.
2. The only Black lady in the entire movie is obviously just hanging around in a position of sexual subservience. Way to go, typecasters.
3. Haha, yeah, Hebrew slave, when you came up to Moses in the middle of the street and told him to meet some random slave dude in the slave quarters at midnight, I’m sure no one noticed that, especially not the 6 guards that are all around Moses. Nah, bro, you’re good.
4. WHAT?!?!?!? No, Miriam did NOT put Moses in the river, her MOTHER did! Jeez, did you guys not read Exodus 2 at all? Have you been depending on flannelgraphs from Sunday School this whole time?
5. Moses, understandably super pissed that he’s a prole and not a prince, storms out and… kills an Egyptian guard…? Yeah, makes sense.
6. Moses is exiled because Ramses (now Pharaoh) is mad that he killed an Egyptian guard. Ok, yeah, that’s pretty on-point.
7. Goat toenail trimming is a great place to meet the ladies. Just ask Moses and Tzipporah, they’ll tell you. One minute they’re trimming goat toenails, the next, they’re getting married!
8. “Proceed,” is all Tzipporah says before Moses starts taking off her clothes. Um. Ok?
9. FAST FORWARD 10 YEARS WITHOUT TELLING US!!!! Or maybe it’s longer, I don’t know. Moses has a ten-year old son, so maybe they waited 5 years to have kids, and it’s actually been fifteen! Christian Bale doesn’t actually age though, because, as we all know, that dude is classic.
10. WHOA, MUDSLIDE ON THE MOUNTAIN!!!!
11. Moses takes a mudbath while God (a ten year old boy with a very petulant way of speaking), tells him to go fight for the Hebrews in a very nonspecific way. No instructions, nothing. The burning bush is just kind of chillin' in the background. I’m pretty disappointed in this scene, to be honest. That whole burning bush thing, with the “who made man’s mouth, who makes him deaf or mute?” is actually kind of my favorite part of the whole story, and this movie cut that out, which makes me really mad. Also, the “Prince of Egypt” soundtrack accompanying the scene is some of the most powerful music out there, and I’m sad that the whole burning bush scene is just Moses taking a mud bath while a ten-year-old boy talks smack to him.
12. Whoa, Moses, really, you haven’t told your WIFE that you grew up in Seti’s palace? You think that maybe, in 10-15 years of marriage, maybe that sort of thing should have come up BEFORE you went riding off back to Egypt again?
13. Tzipporah is not supportive at all, which is not how it is in Exodus. She goes with him, and when God tries to kill him this one time on the road (I regularly tell people to do something, and when they go to do it, I try to kill them. It happens to the best of us, I get it), she CUTS HER SON’S PENIS and puts the blood on Moses’s feet so that God can recognize him again. That is one of the weirder parts of the Exodus narrative.
14. In response to Moses’s classic “Let my people go,” Ramses is like “Yeah, no, because infrastructure, amirite?” And Moses is like “Oh, yeah, you’re right dude, that is a completely valid concern!” Haha, except not. He’s like “Ok, cool, hellfire and damnation, then!”
15. Pharaoh’s army looks like Stormtroopers in those hats.
16. Um no. Burning ships in the harbor? Training guerilla Hebrew slaves during the day? That’s not how this works. You gotta F.R.O.G! That stands for Fully Rely On God, for those who did not grow up in the evangelical tradition of the late 90s.
17. The god-child and Moses (no mudbath this time) have a conversation that basically goes like this: “Hey, Moses, remember that time when you were taking a mudbath and I told you that I needed a guy to go fight for the Hebrews? Well, you went and fought for the Hebrews, pretty much exactly like I told you (except I didn’t give you any specific instructions on how to do that), and it didn’t work, and now Pharoah is totes pissed. So now how about you sit back, relax, maybe take another mudbath, and watch me do my thing.”
18. The Nile is red because the crocodiles ate all the boat-men on the river, turning the river to blood. No.
19. Quick succession of the plagues, which, mercifully, are all in the right order, but unmercifully, are unaccompanied by the "Plagues" song from "Prince of Egypt," which is probably my favorite.
20. NO THE PLAGUES DO NOT AFFECT THE HEBREWS THAT’S NOT HOW THIS THING WORKS. *Caveat – I double-checked after the movie, and apparently the only plagues that do not specifically bother the Hebrews are the plague of darkness and the plague of the firstborn. My bad.
21. Oh for Pete’s sake you guys, those hailstones are NOT that big. Just chill out.
22. Ramses yells to an empty room about how he’s going to drown Hebrew children. He’s slowly going bonkers, probably because of the Egyptian nobility’s penchant for marrying their own fathers and daughters.
23. Ramses… you can’t just put your mummy-baby into that admittedly adorable little sarcophagus. Mummies need like 90 days to chill on a bed of salt and have their brains pulled out through their nose, and their organs packed in special little jars! Didn’t you read the mummy-making books in 3^rd grade like the rest of us?
24. Oh, what? Moses’s SWORD was the thing that divided the Red Sea?! WHAT??!?!?!? The subtle implications of that little change in narrative have HUGE ramifications. Suddenly, Moses is no longer the peaceful shepherd-vessel of God’s spirit, but the charging-forth champion FOR God! You guys, this is NOT COOL.
25. NO, NO, NO, WHERE IN THE BOOK OF EXODUS DOES “THEY WALKED ACROSS ON DRY LAND” TRANSLATE TO “THEY SLOGGED THROUGH WAIST-DEEP WATER”?!?!?!?!?!? Relatedly, slogging through waist-deep water with 400,000 other people and their panicked animals sounds like the best way to get oneself killed before reaching Canaan.
26. TORNADO?!?! I mean, whatever, it’s a little one, but… OMG *MORE* TORNADOES?!?!?! WTF, WHERE IS THE PILLAR OF FIRE?!?!?!!?!?
27. And then Moses’s guerilla fighters (that do not exist) go out and try to fight with Ramses’s charioteers? No, you guys, come ON, have you NOT read Exodus 14:14? The Old Testament Moses is a super hippie, he’s like “Yeah dudes, just chill, God’s gonna wipe these guys up like spilled milk, just calm down, it’ll be fine.”
28. A brief parlay with Ramses, with the converging combinations of tornadoes and the returning sea is a great idea, Moses! It’s awesome that you’re using your words instead of your sword in order to talk some sense into your former best friend, but for realz, dawg, you need to GTFO.
29. Hey Moses, maybe instead of throwing a rock at your son to let him know you’re back in town, maybe you wanna be like “Hey son, I’m BA-A-AA-ACK!!! Dja miss me?!!?” or something that doesn’t involve throwing rocks at your son.
30. Tzipporah is super excited to see 400,000 Hebrew refugees in her town, because that’s not a strain on the infrastructure AT ALL.
31. That’s super nice of the god-child to make Moses a cup of tea while he chisels out the Ten Commandments.
32. You guys, WHERE is Miriam in all of this?!?!!? The song of Moses and Miriam in Exodus 15 is SUPER nice, and they IGNORED IT!! And once they’re wandering in the wilderness for 40 years, who else but Miriam is supposed to get leprosy to teach Moses a lesson about trusting God? Seriously, the wimmins in this story get shafted.

      So yeah. That’s the story of “The ‘Exodus’ Writers Are Basing This Movie Off a Sunday School Flannelgraph and Not On The Bible.” It was just so… militaristic. So much less “Hey, God’s gonna fight for you, just chill,” and so much more “Yeah, God probs defs wants us to whip our swords out and kill the Egyptians!” And Moses’s staff was missing! It doesn’t get turned into a snake, it doesn’t part the Red Sea, it doesn’t get hit on a rock to produce fresh water, and it doesn’t turn the Nile into blood! I mean, this thing is a super important prop, and they just do away with it! Or, better yet, they TURN IT INTO A FREAKING SWORD, BECAUSE SWORDS ARE AWESOME YAY!!!!! I mean, you can just look at the movie poster, where his GIANT SWORD is just out there for the world to see, to see that this is not your typical Moses movie about your typical Midianite shepherd. It was pretty disappointed. My professional opinion is that you should not watch this film. 

Left Behind

          

          “Left Behind” came out like two months ago, and I wanted to review it then, but alas, I am not about to spend $10 of my husband's hard-earned money to watch a terrible movie starring Nicolas Cage and his Sad Face, and thus am dependent on Christians to illegally upload the movie to the Internet once they are done watching it. Since Christians tend not to be moral black holes, this can take awhile. BUT THE WAIT IS FINALLY OVER.

         Nicolas Cage, obviously hoping to deep-six his film career even further, stars as Ray-Ban, a pilot in charge of driving a plane full of empty clothes through the air, in a modern remake of the 2001 Christian blockbuster “Left Behind,” which was based on the 436-book series by Jerry Jenkins and Tim LeHaye, which is NOT based on the Bible, but instead features their vividly inaccurate imaginations of a non-biblical, but nonetheless pop-culturally significant, apocalypse. That was a long sentence, but if medical school has taught me anything, it's that you want to fit your case presentation into 2 sentences, but you don't want to leave anything out. Enter: run-ons.

         Before we get started, I want to assure you all that I have, indeed, read all 942 “Left Behind” books. Maybe (definitely) more than once. I was THAT person. I read Revelation from cover-to-cover, and when I was in middle school, I tried to write a fantasy book co-starring the Horsemen of the Apocalypse and the Lion of Judah. Unfortunately, I do not have a copy, but desperately wish that I did. Believe me when I tell you, I am EXTREMELY qualified to write this review. Errors, suspensions of belief, and any smidgen of accuracy will be noted as follows:

1. Jumpin' right in there with the Random Airport Christian and your Garden-Variety Apologetics, hopelessly outnumbered by the one-two punch of Ray-Ban's Clueless Daughter and Ruggedly Handsome Reporter's displays of rational thinking and sincerely-held-belief-bashing. Both of them are atheists, and are quite obviously quagmires of immorality.
2. Oh, Ray-Ban, I see what you did there – the disappearance of your wedding ring coincided exactly with the arrival of Hottie to the scene. However, if Foundations of Medical Practice has taught me anything (and it hasn't), it's that correlation does not equal causation.
3. Hottie's sexual attraction to Ray-Ban is evident in the way in which she eyes his backside with appreciation. Causation equaled, I retract my previous statement.
4. Ray-Ban wears his Ray-Bans inside. Because of course.
5. Clueless Daughter's use of “wacko” to describe her Christian Mom's belief system makes me think she's probably related to John “Wack-o Bird” McCain.
6. The sneak peeks of children on Ray-Ban's plane is not a subtle use of foreshadowing at all.
7. Hey, Ray-Ban Junior and Clueless Daughter, going to the mall is what the cool kids do........................ in 2003.
8. The sneak peaks of children in the mall is not a subtle use of foreshadowing at all.
9. Hey, Ray-Ban, Hottie, and Ray-Ban's backside, going to a U2 concert is what the cool kids do...................................... in 1989.
10. WHOA THAT WAS ABRUPT!!!!!!!!!!!! RAY-BAN JUNIOR IS JUST A PILE OF CLOTHES!!!! CLUELESS DAUGHTER IS TELLING A PILE OF CLOTHES THAT SHE LOVES IT!!!!!!!! THE PLANE IS FULL OF PILES OF CLOTHES!!!!!! THE MALL IS FULL OF PILES OF CLOTHES!!!!!!!! THE CO-PILOT IS A PILE OF CLOTHES!!!!!!!! A PILE OF CLOTHES IS FLYING THE PLANE!!!!!!!!! The whole plane looks like the floor of my college roommate's side of the room – PILES OF CLOTHES EVERYWHERE!!!!
11. Hey, Clueless Daughter, I'm pretty sure that Ray-Ban Junior is not inside of the backpack through which you are so frantically rummaging.
12. Um wow, I'm not a pilot at all, but I'm pretty sure that there is NOT a button on a plane that just SUCKS ALL THE OXYGEN OUT OF THE CABIN!!!!!!
13. Um, no, Ruggedly Handsome Reporter with a boss Nikon, you can't just take a picture out a dark airplane window of a dark airplane wing in the dark while flying in the dark and have it come out perfectly focused and perfectly lit without even a hint of shake. I am a photographer who owns a boss Nikon, I know these things. If I can't do it, you can't do it.
14. How is it that even though Ray-Ban and his backside on a plane that is only like 3 hours from New York, and Clueless Daughter is IN New York, why is it that it is completely pitch-black outside of Ray-Ban's plane, while Clueless Daughter is running frantically through the well-light daytime streets? Even if a plane is flying against the rotation of the earth, it just doesn't work like that. 
15. Clueless Daughter, does Ray-Ban Junior have a curious case of the Benjamin Buttons? Why else would you look for him in the nursery of a hospital?
16. Oh, all the babies and all the kids and all the nice people were taken, but the DOCTORS were left behind? You know why that is, right? We doctors are godless moral vacuums, that's why.
17. The dog sitting next to the pile of clothes is probably the saddest part of this whole stupid movie.
18. Whoa, Ray-Ban, does your mom live in the cockpit of your aircraft? She doesn't? Then maybe, as you are flicking casually through the pile of clothes that used to be your co-pilot, idk, maybe you want to be a little more neat about it, and not just toss things willy-nilly over your shoulder?
19. Christian “Wack-o Bird” Mom's Bible is open to Song of Solomon? For a woman who believes fervently in the Rapture, I would have expected a little more “abomination of desolation” and a little less “your breasts are like two fawns” from her daily devotional but hey, what do I know, it's not like I majored in Bible and Religion in college or anything.
20. Straight from the mouth of King Nicholas himself - “Either I'm going crazy, or the entire world is insane.” Truer words have never been spoken, especially by a man who (presumably) voluntarily chose to eighty-six his film career by appearing in his wretched screenplay, and is now deeply regretting that decision. True fact – those words were not in the original script – they were ad-libbed as Nicolas Cage realized what a mistake he had made.
21. WHOA, LADY WITH A GUN?!?!!?!? ON A PLANE?!?!?!? It's been a long time since I've held a gun (those darn pacifist beliefs!), but last I checked, they were made of metal. Metal that is detected by metal detectors, specifically set up to detect the guns made of out metal that crazy people bring onto planes. WHERE IS THE TSA IN ALL OF THIS?!?!?
22. Ray-Ban, telling Hottie that you have a wife is a very noble thing to do, but come on, time and place. I mean, no time like the present, but all hell is kind of breaking loose with the proles in steerage right now!
23. Hottie, if I were you, I'd be more upset about the steerage full of empty clothing than the fact that flirty-flirt Ray-Ban and his backside have a wife.
24. The look on Ray-Ban's face when he finds out that the entire planet has been affected is probably the same look Nicolas Cage wore at the premiere of “Left Behind” when when he realized that everyone would see him in this ridiculous movie. Sheer horror.
25. Wow, despite having demonstrated absolutely zero aptitude for original thought or talent of any kind, other than parroting John McCain, Clueless Daughter has suddenly learned to drive a motorbike! Her newfound skill at motorbike-driving does not extend to picking up a helmet, however.
26. Clueless Daughter's previously untapped reservoir of mechanical knowledge comes in handy in very quick succession – first a motorbike, then a stick-shift pick-up, and now a road-grader! I hope that someday, my vast knowledge of trees of the United States comes in handy in an emergency like this.
27. YEAH, GURRRRL, LIGHT THAT SH*T UP!!!!!! Good thing there is always a gas can available in an emergency.
28. The hug between Ray-Ban, Ray-Ban's backside, and Ray-Ban's Clueless Daughter is inspiring as all-get-out. Hallmark movie music plays, New York burns in the background, families are sobbing over piles of clothing that used to be children, but all is right in what remains of their little family.
29. The closing screen is of Ray-Ban's stunned face, as Nicolas Cage realizes what appearing in this movie has done to his career.

        My biggest beef with this movie is not the bad acting, not the lack of Kirk Cameron, and not even that it portrays a biblically-inaccurate event, but that the entire movie is just Nicolas Cage flying a plane while repeatedly assuring everyone that he would get to the bottom of “whatever-this-is.” Having read the “Left Behind” books, I can tell you that Ray-Ban flying a plane constitutes approximately 1/100^th of the entire series, and only about the first 30 pages of the 250-page first installment. WHERE IS THE ANTICHRIST?!!? In the White House, obviously, and unavailable for comment. 
         In conclusion, don't watch this movie. Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 5%, which is probably some kind of record. If you really feel like you want to hasten the arrival of Jesus, just keep on doing good things for people who need it, because nothing you do is going to speed up his return. Dude has his own timetable. 

God's (Not) Dead

    

     “God's (Not) Dead” is basically the ham-fisted, live-action remake of Lee Strobel's “Case for a Creator.” Have you read that book? I've read that book. I DEVOURED that book, took notes, took the arguments to my high school biology teacher, and tried them out during his class on evolution. He was very kind, but in his head was probably like “No. Stop. Just stop. Why did I start teaching, again?”

     The basic premise of "God's (Not) Dead" is that Fresh-Faced Christian Dude goes to college. His first (and apparently only) course is Philosophy, taught by Atheist Professor, who orders his students to write "God is dead" on a sheet of paper in order to pass. The sheeple in the class comply, because passing grade, but fresh-faced Christian dude refuses, because Christian. Atheist Professor allows him this transgression, contingent on his winning over his classmates in a defense of God, which of course he does, because if there's one thing God needs, it's some fresh-faced Christian dude to defend him. Errors, suspensions of belief, and flat-out terrible (or the elusive laudable) moments are as follows:

1.             Really? In the first five minutes of this movie, there is already an incredibly offensive racial stereotype? Hey, writers, before telling someone to slap a scarf over her head and face in the most ridiculous approximation of a hijab, HOW ABOUT YOU DO A BASIC GOOGLE IMAGES SEARCH?!?! That's not what it looks like.

2.             The Overly Caricatured Liberal Woman with “meat is murder” and humanism stickers on her bumper just might be a liberal, but I'm not sure that the stereotype is heavy-handed enough.

3.             ADORABLE OLD WOMAN WITH DEMENTIA, I LOVE HER!!!!! She'll end up being the only reason I keep watching this film, I guarantee it.

4.             Really? Out of a class of 50, only Fresh-Faced Christian Dude is a Christian? Maybe I'm used to living in the Bible Belt, but that seems improbable.

5.             It is also a suspension of belief that this professor hasn't been fired for this.

6.             Dear writers – if you want to have a Muslim girl throw a scarf over her head and call it a fakity-fake hijab, AT LEAST stay true to Muslim ideals of modesty, and DON'T HAVE HER WEAR A SHORT-SLEEVED SHIRT!

7.             Extremely Handsome Pastor gives Fresh-Faced Christian Dude some Scripture references and then walks away. Just the references. Not the actual Scripture. Luke 12:48, Matthew 10:33. Like he was playing Bible Bingo or something. Doesn't even write them down. My luck, I'd go home, forget, try to remember, and then end up looking up that one passage in the Gospel of James, where Jesus says “pass the celery,” and then I'd be really confused as to how that was to bring about the Kingdom of God.

8.             Uh, yeah, Overly Caricatured Liberal Woman, when you go to the doctor, you're gonna want to turn your phone off and not answer it 3x in the first 10 seconds. We doctors hate that sort of thing.

9.             Hey doctor, according to Clinical Skilz, when you tell a woman she might die of cancer, it's best to do it as an open-ended question, and be sure that you ask her how it makes her feel, hearing that she might die of cancer.

10.          Fresh-Faced Christian Dude's Beautiful Girlfriend, on the day of their 6^th anniversary of their meeting in youth group, tells him that he has to choose between her and defending God in his Philosophy class. Uhmmmm... maybe I went to the wrong youth group growing up, but we wimmins were encouraged to encourage the mens to defend God...

11.          Beautiful Girlfriend DROPS Fresh-Faced Christian Dude LIKE A HOT POTATO because he's too into God? Let's be honest here, she totally cheated on him with his best friend, and this is her exit strategy.

12.          The school library uses rubber stamps for due dates? I haven't seen a rubber-stamped due date since I was in MIDDLE SCHOOL. IN 2004. TEN YEARS AGO.

13.          Atheist Professor has a Christian Girlfriend. Guuuurl, at this point, you have only yourself to blame.

14.          Atheist Professor's Boring Colleagues are obviously not Christians. You can tell by the way they are horrible to Christian Girlfriend, all because she served bad wine. Ok, screenwriters, we get it - ALL ATHEISTS ARE TERRIBLE PEOPLE AND HAVE NO MORAL COMPASS OR BASELINE FOR TREATING PEOPLE KINDLY. Can we stop beating that dead horse?

15.          Yeah, Fresh-Faced Christian Dude, insulting Atheist Professor in HIS OWN CLASS, in front of his students, is probably the best way to eighty-six your college career. If you weren't infamous before, you certainly are now. Good luck escaping that stigma.

16.          Hey, Fresh-Faced Christian Dude, are you a biologist? Have you taken a few biology courses? No? Then stop using Darwin to prove God's existence. It's not as simple as it sounds, and you're outta your depth. Unless you actually have some real biology knowledge (and are not parroting Lee Strobel), you just sound foolish to the rest of us, who actually DO have biology knowledge. Also, the “facts” you're using are at least 20 years out of date.

17.          Haha. Fresh-Faced Christian Dude's face, when Atheist Professor starts quoting Job. It very clearly says “I do not recognize this passage, because I have never read Job. In my church, we only read I Corinthians 13, Luke 2, the Golden Rule, and that one passage in Leviticus about the homosexuals.”

18.          Ugh. This tired old trope. “Hey, I know I'm Atheist Professor NOW, but this one time, I was CHRISTIAN Professor! Only, my mom died. My CHRISTIAN mom. SO I BECAME AN ATHEIST BECAUSE GOD LET MY MOM DIE.” Stop. Just stop.

19.          OMG SCREENWRITERS, DID YOU SERIOUSLY JUST HAVE MUSLIM DAD SLAP MUSLIM GIRL ACROSS THE FACE BECAUSE SHE WAS LISTENING TO CHRISTIAN STUFF?!?! AND THEN YOU THREW HER OUT OF THE HOUSE?!?!!? Why don't you just have him yell “Allahu Akbar” a few times, just to get the point across the Muslims are REALLY BAD PEOPLE.

20.          Boring Colleagues give each other awkward side-eye when Christian Girlfriend breaks up with Atheist Professor in front of them. Yeah, girl, GET IT.

21.          Really, Extremely Handsome Pastor? You're really gonna use PAUL to comfort Secretly Christian Muslim Girl? Of all the misogynistic writers in the Bible, you're gonna choose Paul? Why not Stephen?! He gave a very nice, non-misogynistic speech about suffering as he was being stoned to death! Or Jesus! Dude was all about suffering and persecution, and perseverance in the face of persecution! They tried to kill him like 5 times, but he just kept right on truckin', even after they kind of succeeded that one time... now THAT'S inspiring.

22.          Atheist Professor's and Fresh-Faced Christian Dude's unintentional meeting in an elevator is as awkward as it sounds.

23.          Yeah, hey, Atheist Professor, pro tip from a college student who dislikes figures of authority who misuse their positions of authority - maybe if you want to be taken seriously in your class, don't start screaming at Fresh-Faced Christian Dude... that's just gonna put all the students in your class on HIS side, simply because college kids don't like authority figures, and will use any excuse to spite them.

24.          I'm 100% certain that the class's 180 degree turnaround regarding the existence of God is 100% due to Atheist Professor LOSING HIS S***, and 0% due to Fresh-Faced Christian Dude's sound reasoning abilities and outstanding oratorical skills.

25.          Hmmm.... this camera-pan of Sweet Old Dementia Lady's darkened house is kind of weir- OMG THERE IS A MAN SITTING IN THE ROOM LIKE SOME KIND OF CREEPY CREEPSTER!!!!!

26.          CREEPY CREEPSTER MAN, YOU WILL NOT TALK TO YOUR SWEET OLD MOTHER LIKE THAT. I love old people, and I will NOT allow it!  Where is your sense of morality and respect?! Oh, right. You're not a Christian, so you are a bottomless pit of filth and moral degradation. Carry on.

27.          Wait, suddenly we're at a Newsboys Concert?

28.          Yeah, Atheist Professor, I'm sure you'll be able to find your Christian Girlfriend at the Newsboys concert, among 8,000 screaming Christian fangirls...

29.          Hitting Atheist Professor with a car in order to reach the next plot point is just bad writing.

30.          Apparently, when this scene showed in theaters, people LAUGHED. Christian people, one would assume, based on their attendance at this very-Christian film, LAUGHED as a man was hit by a car. Where in the Bible does it say “when a man is hit by a car, if that man be an atheist, thou shouldst laugh?” Nowhere. Not even in the Pseudoepigrapha. So before laughing at someone's misfortunes, ask yourself - “WWJD?” He wouldn't, that's what.

31.          Hey, Extremely Handsome Pastor, who serendipitously just HAPPENS to be present, do you moonlight as a doctor? No? Then maybe you shouldn't shout about how Atheist Professor has crushed ribs and lungs that are filling with blood, cuz I'm pretttttttty sure you have no idea.

32.          Also, Extremely Handsome Pastor, do you think that maybe, if you have a captive and dying audience, like poor crushed-ribs Atheist Professor here, do you think that maybe you might consider cutting your “Come to Jesus” spiel a little shorter, since the guy might actually choke on his own pulverized lungs and die before he gets the chance to rasp “Into your hands I commit my spirit?” My disapproval of your actions notwithstanding, I wouldn't want all your fine work to be in vain.

33.          Secretly Christian Muslim Girl and Fresh-Faced Christian Dude ALMOST CERTAINLY went home and boinked after they met at the concert. Nothin' like a little bit of Newsboys to get the blood up... 

     Yeah. So I disliked everyone in this movie. Except the sweet old lady with dementia, because I love old people. And Christian Girlfriend. She stood up for herself, even though conventional Christianity vacillates between “be not unequally yoked” and “stay in an abusive relationship because the light of Jesus will shine through you and eventually reach your abusive husband.” Atheist Professor was just a huge jerk (because he's an atheist, duh, and all atheists are bad people whose moral compass doesn't point north), Fresh-Faced Christian Dude couldn't make an argument to save his life, and everything about Muslim girl was just wrong. Everyone in this movie was stereotyped to the EXTREME. As if a lot of Christians don't have misunderstandings about Muslims in the first place, now you add physical abuse and poorly-researched beliefs? And atheists are NOT jerks. I mean, some of them are, like Dawkins, but on the whole, most of the atheists I've met are kind, thoughtful people who are often more accepting of people than a lot of Christians I know. So let that be a lesson!

     So to wrap it all up – don't watch this movie. It was written by a toddler with a crayon. I wasted my time on it so that you wouldn't have to. Instead, go call your grandma or something, she'd love to hear from you.

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.