Not a spontaneous product from a religious culture, but quite like Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter, this one is too good not to mention. The idea is already genius but Jesus Christ makes a quick appearance, played by none other than porn clown Ron Jeremy. Now thát's what I call casting!
I bet they included a "don't you hate it when people try and stuff their religion down your throat?" joke.
So, it's been a while now that I've been wanting to talk about this. But the day is here. That dragon of a movie: Left Behind. My latest experience with this movie was in class recently where a good chunk of the movie was shown. This was for a Christianity in the United States class and everyone was paying close attention, scrutinizing for religious symbols, scribbling down notes carefully. But... nobody laughed? The poort acting, the weird story twists, the crippled dialogue? Nobody noticed?
Perhaps I'm biased about this movie, having read what especially Heather Hendershot had to say about it. The team behind it was all psyched about making the very first crossover movie success, thinking they'd take Hollywood by storm. With a movie based on a best-selling book, appealing not only to the evangelical subculture from which it sprang but also to the broader public, they did have reason to expect it.
Yet nothing more than a gush of wind it turned out to be. Or in fact, according to the reviews, a very smelly fart. A by now infamous description of the movie by the critic Desson Thomson writing for the Washington Post that reads "A blundering cringefest, thanks to unintentionally laughable dialogue, hackneyed writing and uninspired direction" pretty much sums up the common sentiment about this movie amongst reviewers. Not even the own team was all too wild about this movie, where HollywoodJesus.com didn't have too much praise to sing for it and even the evangelical periodical Christianity Today sighed out a quiet "ahem."
Granted, in the long (long long) run, it did generate some money with video sales. However, it was meant to shine at the box office. 17 million going in, just over 4 million grossed... that's a far cry from the spectacular success that the makers had anticipated. The idea that they could live up to the Hollywood norm with this movie is beyond naive. But why did the team behind this movie think it then?
Hendershot touches on a couple of reasons. One is that the producers thought this movie was quite subtle because they cut back on all the “Jesus”es flying around. Still, for any outsider watching this movie, it’s pretty clear what’s going on. It’s a good bit of end-times propaganda. You almost watch it not as a fiction movie but as a scenario for what is about to happen according to its creators. Also to me it seems these people had no critics at all. They sort of just... went along with it. I know that bands sometimes tend to think they made the greatest record ever because they convinced themselves of this fact in their isolated bubble and not because they critically compared their product to other ones out there. Usually also then, cold harsh reality tends to prove such bands wrong. The feel of this movie very much reminded me of such bubble-reasoning. Whatever the reason might be though, it presented us with a pearl of oblivion from the evangelical subculture!
PS: I do remember now, that when I did finally see the movie after having heard so many bad things about it, I did think: Was that it? I had somehow expected to see the very worst movie ever. In fact, I was looking forward to this. Give me the worst movie to end all worst movies! It was bad, sure, but that bad? I didn't really think so. Could it be then that there was a little bit of politics involved? Secular media cranking the critique dial up a notch or a few to punish the unrealistic expectations of the high-and-mighty evangelicals? The production team did present itself for target practice going on and on about how great this movie was and how it would show all people the way of movie-making of the future, but I don't know if it deserved quite the all-devastating criticism it got. I for one have seen worse. Far... far worse!
Lets talk about bad habits first. I found the trailer for this movie Judgment somehow, I made a not of it, but now that the day is here that I want to write about it, yes indeed, the day of Judgment, I can't remember the context of my find. Well, I'll just dig it up from scratch. First thing I want to notice is that Mr. T is in this movie. That already makes it a winner. "They want fire and brimstone? Then they gonna get it!" You tell 'em B.A.! Second cool thing is that at the end of the movie trailer they mention a website, www.judgment-themovie.com, which doesn't work. Then again, this movie is from 2001 so I suppose that's forgivable. Looking it up on IMDB, the cover makes this movie look like the ones that are all piled up in one big incosolable box at the checkout counter of your local supplies store with a sign that reads "3 for 5 dollars!" This would actually be the one you lift out of that pile of misery for a few seconds because you go "oh hey look, this one has Mr. T in it!" only to quickly throw it back again when that surprise wears off and you realize that you're probably holding something unhygienic that must be banished back to the basket of ill hygiene from whence it came. On IMDB, the phrase to describe it is "The devil arrives on Earth to prove Jesus never existed." Good thing they mention that, because the trailer really doesn't tell you at all what this movie is about. It's about a trial, but it's not really clear about what. You do hear lovely lines like "I call to the stand... Jesus Christ." They throw some "imagine a world..." type intrigue lines around, but mystery is pretty much all you're getting. The acting is way over the top which makes it lovely. It looks like the acting from a Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker movie, but then without the irony. The production company is Cloud Ten, which is a "Christian-themed movie company and record label that is passionate about producing inspirational Christian film and music." I'm sure I'll run into them again some time.
Usually I deal with religion making use of popular culture and not with popular culture making use of religion, but sometimes things are just too good.
"In the new millennium vampires no longer fear the sun. Now they're going to learn it's time to fear... THE SON OF GOD!"
