Another Church enters the feature film game with "How to Save a Life"

Following in the footsteps of Sherwood Baptist Church (Facing the Giants, Flywheel, upcoming Fireproof), Summer Grove Baptist Church (considering building a film studio, I have an email out to them for an update), and Voice of Pentecost Church (the ill-fated Shadow of Joseph, which I also have an email out for updates), New Song Community Church in Oceanside, CA is producing a feature length film entitled How to Save a Life.  

The film deals with teen suicide, teen pregnency and various other teenage troubles.  The film will be the directing debut of cinematographer Brian Baugh, who SuperCandid fans might remember was the cinematographer of The Ultimate Gift.


No word on when this will be finished, so we'll have to wait and see.  They are discussing "distribution options" with various companies, so it looks like the whole theatrical/DVD issue isn't close to settled.  

Although I hope this is a good movie, the plot sounds rather like the old "After School Specials" about teenage issues.  If the writer is good enough to overcome the usual cliches, then this movie might have a chance.  I am confident it will at least look good, since the cinematography was one of the highlights of The Ultimate Gift.  Still no word on whether or not The Fray will contribute to the soundtrack.
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Episode Thirty One - Cover

We're back with another episode, and this time we have a really unusual choice.  Directed by Bill Duke (Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit), this is a film that you won't find on the shelves of your local Christian bookstore.  It isn't marketed at Christians, which was sort of our guideline, but it is certainly a Christian movie.  Enjoy the review.  

SHOW NOTES:

The official site for Cover.  

The movie's myspace.  

You can find out about buying the new Sixpence None the Richer EP(and many others) at noisetrade.com.

Listen to our intro and outro music on our muxtape.  

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Weekly Wrap Up - With New Stuff about "The Appointment" and "Time Changer"

We should have a new episode recorded sometime over the weekend.  This time we're reviewing a film that even Christian movie aficionados may never have heard of, but I'll leave that surprise to Monday.  

In the meantime, you can listen to an interesting interview at Crosstalk America with Rich Christiano, director of the film we reviewed in our last episode, The Appointment.  He also directed Time Changer, which we reviewed a while back.  He talks about his history in the Christian film industry, and shares his thoughts on the current state of the industry.  He also drops a couple of clues about upcoming projects.  If the interview is taken down, let me know and I'll post another place to listen to it.  

THIS WEEK'S POSTS

Tuesday - An interview with Doug Jones, Christian, actor, guy in rubber suits, and co-star of The Wager.  

Wednesday - Looking for help finding Christian movies in Spanish.

Thursday - No Greater Love, a new Christian movie being distributed by the people who brought you Facing the Giants.  

(CrossTalk America)
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No Greater Love

No Greater Love, an independently produced Christian film, has been purchased for distribution by Carmel Entertainment Group, the original distributers of the runaway Christian hit, Facing the Giants.


No Greater Love(click for the film's homepage & trailer) is the story of a pair of High School sweethearts who marry, have a kid, then tragically separate.  Years later they find each other again, and it is a test of their faith, and a proof of God's grace, to see if they can over come their resentment and renew their marriage.  

The film is directed by written and directed by Brad Silverman, who says "We saw a need in the Christian market for products that would not only have the gospel message, but would also have the look and feel of a major studio production.”


Now, it may be because the film has a great trailer(and man, is it a great trailer), or maybe it is because I'm easily persuaded by Enya-style music, but this film seems to take a counter approach to many Christian stories that have fairly negative depictions on wives.  I'm looking forward to it, and I applaud anyone who wants to make a Christian movie with high production values, but hopefully the filmmakers remembered that the story and characters are the most important part.  


(Christian Film News)-How did I not find this site sooner?!

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Need help finding Spanish Christian movies

Someone needs the help of the SuperCandid community!

One Josef Urban is looking for Spanish-language Christian films(preferably those with an evangelistic message but without a literal "call to repentance" for the audience) to show to audiences during an upcoming mission trip to Mexico.  

I would go through our archives to see which ones have Spanish tracks on the DVD, but I'm out of town so I don't have a lot of net time.  He already has The Jesus Film, Light of The World and Messages from Heaven.  I recommended Facing the Giants(a crowd pleaser), End of the Spear and Amazing Grace.  I know these have at least Spanish subtitles.  

Anyone have any other suggestions for him?  If you don't want to register for that forum just leave a comment here and I'll pass them on in a few days.  


(Bible Database forum post)
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An omission corrected - Doug Jones of "The Wager" gets his due

When I mentioned Hellboy 2: The Golden Army on Friday, I forgot the film's other Christian movie connection.  

Doug Jones, known to SuperCandid as "the creepy paparazzi from The Wager," is a well known actor mainly for the many roles he's played in suits.  He played the Silver Surfer(voice by Lawrence Fishburne), Pan and the Pale Man in Pan's Labyrinth, and, among many memorable roles, "Dead Iraqi Soldier" in Three Kings.  He's kind of like a modern day mix of Kevin Peter Hall and Frank Oz, doing everything and popping up everywhere, doing all kinds of creatures and voices.  

He's also a Christian, and he gave an interview that Peter Chattaway linked to on his blog, where he talks about his faith.  An interesting read, and, again, sorry I left you out the first time Doug.

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Weekly Wrap-up 11 July 2008

I'm sure all Christian movie fans will be joining me today to go see Hellboy 2: The Golden Army.  You might ask me, "Why?"  Well, aside from being the latest from Guillermo Del Toro, following up his fantastic Pan's Labyrinth, the first Hellboy movie was quite good in its own right.  And now, with his newfound success both critically and commercially, Del Toro is free from the restraints that held back the first film.  

More imporantly, for Christian film lovers, you can see Luke Goss, One Night With the King's eponymous Xerxes, star as another royal jerk, this time some kind of dark elf.  He looked so weird in that movie that I wondered if he was some kind of lost cat-human hybrid.  His strange looks probably work better for him in this film.  

Anyway, this week we had our latest episode reviewing The Appointment, we highlighted a wonderful installation artwork that breathes new life into one of the world's most famous paintings(The Last Supper), and we linked to the first review of Fireproof.  

One other thing of note today.  Christians in Cinema has a nice write up reminding people not to forget the pioneers of Christian films.  Billy Graham's World Wide Pictures is highlighted, and we've loved a couple of their movies.  

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Fireproof - First review!

I've found the first review online for Fireproof!  

Of course faithful readers know about the new movie from the Kendrick Brothers, and while this might not technically be the first online review(the Internet is a big place after all), it is the first that I've seen.  

Mikel Wisler reviewed the film on his own blog,  based on a preview screening he was lucky enough to attend.  He has some good thoughts, and it sounds like an even handed review, although he does a lot of the typical "pretty good for a Christian movie" justifications.

Rest assured, dear reader, we will not make any such excuses.  I'm hugely excited to see Fireproof, but we will live up to the name of our show/blog and tell it to you straight.  I know that we've had these kind of justifications before, especially with a lot of the emotional romances(where we hate the entire genre so much we have to qualify any comment with, "for this type of film"), but this is the AAA level of Christian movies.  This is the movie that makes or breaks the Kendrick Brothers.  Flywheel was a low budget, under the radar success.  Facing the Giants exploded out of nowhere.  This is the one that everyone will see; that everyone has been looking forward to.  It won't be enough to be as good as Facing the Giants; this has to be better.

No pressure or anything.  

(Mikel Wisler review)
(I originally found this review through another website that was posting mostly old Fireproof news)

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The Last Supper - The Light & Sound Spectacular

A pseudo movie related post, but something that I think it is important to share. Peter Greenway, director of The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, has created a impressive installation piece using Leonardo Da Vinci's famous painting, "The Last Supper." Having secured permission from the managers of the painting's site, Greenway and his team installed multiple projectors and a sound system to create a dynamic light & sound experience. The video, avaialbe at the Guardian link, is hugely impressive, even if it is only a portion of the performance. The lighting effects give the painting a tremendous dimensionality, and the moving lights add life to an image that everyone has seen a thousand times. This is an incrediable way of giving a 21st century perspective on classical artwork, and I only regret that it is an installation piece tied to the dining hall of a church in Italy, although the article does mention a possible re-staging using a replica painting. This is the type of art that Christians need to be working on. Heck, this is the kind of art everyone needs to be working on. Save This Page

Episode Thirty - The Appointment

We're back with a slight change of schedule.  As you can see, a new podcast is being posted on Monday instead of Friday/Saturday.  Enjoy!

This week we review The Appointment, directed by Rich Christiano of Time Changer fame here at the SuperCandid Podcast.  

The Appointment is a 1991 movie about a cynical reporter who gets a message from God telling her the moment of her death.  If you've seen this movie, tell me if you think that the 2002 Angelina Jolie movie Life, or Something Like it kind of ripped it off.   Although the "you will die next thursday" type stories are pretty old.

----NOTES----

The other, Nancy Drew-esque artwork for this film.

You can listen to the intro and outro to this episode on our muxtape.  

Catch us in a couple weeks for our next episode, and keep up with the blog!  Congrats to our contest winner!

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Listen to the show through your favorite podcast grabber, through iTunes, or catch the direct download here.  

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Post-Rapture Email

Nothing movie related here, although it might make a cool premise for a Christian sci-fi story.  I mainly thought it was just fun.

There is a service available, for the low fee of $40 a year, that will send an email to your friends and relatives after you are taken up with the rapture.  Presumably this is for people who are very poor witnesses, or who just have lots of non-Christian friends.  The creator of the site mentions several reasons that this might be a good idea, including making the transfer of property more streamlined in a post-rapture world.  

Which leads to a couple of questions:  If the rapture occurred, and it truly was the END OF THE WORLD, then would questions of probate court really be a priority on anyone's mind?  Wouldn't this be the time that people take up their shotguns, get on their motorcycles and ride the wastelands?  Not a time to be concerned with powers of attorney and other legal nonsense?  
Moreover, the service works by automatically sending the emails if 3 of their 5 staff workers fail to log into their accounts for 6 days.  So, when this service goes out of business, as it almost inevitably will, will rapture emails go flooding out?

The only real point that I can see to this service would be sending mocking "I told you so" notes to your friends.  Except that the person who signs up for that sort of thing might not be taken up in the rapture anyway.   

(Wired Threat Level Blog)

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The Oath version 1.0

Richard Ramsey recently posted some photos from the theatrical version of The Oath of the Desmoreau on his blog.

We liked the movie well enough, and I love seeing stuff like this, from early, embryonic versions of stories.  



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More on Expelled

More info on the much talked about Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.

Stein makes more contradictory statments in an interview with the Toronto Star.  He says that he didn't have any opinons on intelligent design before making the film, but he also says that he was "intrigued by the idea of making a movie that would implicitly connect Darwinism with the Holocaust," so he can hardly be called "un-biased."  

I'm kind of tired of hearing about this film, so unless there is some really big news I think this'll be our last Expelled post.  

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