The premise has potential for a alternately funny/sad film. I imagine large parts of it will resemble Liar, Liar and The Yes Man, with great deal of groaning humor at the hapless people being forced to "turn the other cheek" and "love you neighbor" to a collection of oddballs. Then, at the end, they will all learn an important lesson about the true meaning of Christmas. Or something like that. I might be good, but any movie that titles itself after a bracelet has a lot of work to do convining me. (I know the phrase pre-dates the bracelet, but that's its most common apperance)
The Biola Media Conference, which is a little more for people interested in Hollywood but attracts Christian filmmakers of all stripes, was last week and I wanted to share a couple of great wrap-up links.
For a more "ground-level" look, check out this page of Twitter posts about the conference. Some are silly, some interesting. One thing of note is that a key speaker at the conference, Ralph Winter, hasn't stopped making X-Men movies to make Christian movies. He wears both hats, one that pays the bills, one that makes Christian films. Winter still seems less a hands-on producer than a businessman to me, especially given the wildly varying quality of the film's he's associated with in the "producer" role. I mean, he produced X2 & X-Men: The Last Stand, and those film's couldn't be more different in quality, so Winter's involvementis probably much more on the business end and less on the creative. That's why I take his comments about the creative aspects Christian filmmaking with a grain of salt: he's a businessman after all.
The most interesting thing was all the people talking about Joe Eszterhas and his conversion, which, given that he published a memoir about it last year is kind of old news. I was hoping to hear more about Eszterhas returning to film writing, but nothing I've seen. He does have a movie coming out soon, but I have no idea how or if it was effected by his conversion.
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed won under the category of "To the Funding Organization that supports the most useless study related to the occult, supernatural, or paranormal during the year."
As much as it tickles me to mention this 'award,' I have to say that I would define very little of Expelled's content as relating to the occult, supernatural or paranormal, and the elaborations on the Pigasus website offer little defense of their reasoning. To be fair, several of their other 'awardees' have only the slightest connection to these subjects. It seems this award is really just looking to lambast bad science, which is all well and good, but maybe not so fun.
The producers share the 'honor' with such luminaries as late night cable TV, some guy who claims he can shoot beams from his eyes, Jenny McCarthy (for her anti-vaccine hysteria), and Kevin Trudeau. I happen to have actually read Trudeau's book about "cures THEY don't want you to know about." A friend bought it and gave it to me, asking me for my opinion. I found it startling that the book provided not a single actual 'cure,' instead spending the vast majority of its time bad-mouthing such villains as Doctors, Gyms, and antibiotics. It was also one of the most eregrious examples of logical fallacies I've ever seen. Until Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed came along! ZING!
Congratluations to the producers of Expelled! Your movie is great proof that any publicity is good publicity!
For our 50th episode we are revisiting our review to Facing the Giants, the first film we ever reviewed and one that, in hindsight, seems much better than we gave it credit for at the time. Our 52nd Episode will be another re-visiting another movie. Which other movie is for you to decide, and you could win a copy of Facing the Giants on DVD!
The contest is simple. Email us at supercandid at gmail dot com, or click the email link below, and let us know what movie you think we should look at again. Maybe you thought we were too hard on Hangman's Curse. Or gave The Nativity Story a bad rap. Perhaps you really like The List. This is your chance to tell us. We'll re-review the movie that gets the most votes, and on Episode 52 we'll draw a winner from among all suggestions! This is your chance to win!
Entries must be recieved by the premiere of our 51st Episode to be eligable.
John Schneieder, star of Hidden Secrets and the upcoming Holyman Undercover, is set to star in yet another Christian film. This one, entitled What Would Jesus Do?, a film based on the book In His Steps, aboput 4 people who vow to make every decision based on "What Whould Jesus Do?" 
