Veterans' Month Week 1: Forrest Gump

Forrest Gump (1994)

The central figure of this 1994 Best Picture Winner, Forrest Gump, is many things. He is a football star, a sloganeer, a table tennis champion, a fisherman, an entrepreneur, a multimillionaire, by most definitions a moron, and most importantly for this month, a veteran. Because we in the United States celebrate Veterans Day this month (on November 11th), all month we at Movie Churches will be looking at films that feature veterans, soldiers, churches, and/or clergy.

Based on the novel of the same name by Winston Groom, Forrest Gump also won Oscars for director Robert Zemeckis, screenwriter Eric Roth, and the film’s star, Tom Hanks. It was a huge box office success and received generally favorable reviews. It's on the American Film Institute’s list of Best American Films. Over the years, it has become a subject of debate, with some disgruntled movie buffs complaining about the film beating Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption. Still, there has also been a great deal of debate over the politics of the film.

Throughout the film, Forrest the simpleton seems to be at the heart of every tumultuous event that takes place in America in the 1960s and 1970s. He follows his girlfriend Jenny (Robin Wright) to a rally in the National Mall protesting the Vietnam war. The anti-war protest leaders are presented as petty, squabbling, and scheming, and many have taken the film to be a critique of the political left.

Forrest epitomizes many conservative values -- like faith, love of country, and love of family -- that were being questioned in the era depicted in the film. Did the filmmakers intended to spoof those values by embodying the values in a fool, or was the fool used to show up the emptiness of the values of the protest movements of the time?

Fortunately, here at Movie Churches, we don’t need to answer such questions. We just need to look at how churches and clergy are depicted in the film, but it a long, circuitous route that eventually takes Forrest to church.

When Forrest is drafted into the army, he meets another soldier, Bubba, who is, um, slow. Bubba tells Forrest about his dream of owning a shrimping boat. Forrest and Bubba are shipped overseas to serve in Vietnam. During one devastating battle, almost all of the men in Forrest’s unit are killed or injured, and Forrest carries every man, dead or alive, off the field (reminiscent of the real-life WWII exploits of Desmond Doss depicted in the film Hacksaw Ridge.)

Bubba dies in that battle, but Forrest does rescue his commanding officer, Lieutenant Dan Taylor (Gary Sinise). Lieutenant Dan is not happy about being rescued because he lost his legs. “I should have died in the jungle. I was supposed to die in the field with honor, but you cheated me. This was not supposed to happen," he tells Forrest.

While still in the service, Forrest becomes an expert in table tennis, earning fame playing against the Chinese National Team. After he's discharged from the military, an endorsement of ping pong paddles makes him enough money to buy a shrimping boat in Bubba’s honor.

Lieutenant Dan fulfills his promise to Forrest to work on the shrimping boat, but their initial outings are not successful. Dan mocks Forrest for his optimism and says the only hope he has is supernatural, “Maybe you should just pray for shrimp.”

Forrest takes this advice seriously and begins attending an African American congregation, the Foursquare Baptist Church. It has a lively choir singing Pray that I’m Homeward Bound. Forrest narrates, “So I went to church every Sunday. Lt. Dan came sometimes too, though I think he left the praying up to me.” (Dan seems drunk in the back pew of the church.) The sign in front of the church reads, 10:30 AM Sunday School and 12:30 service. (That is one late service.)

In spite of going to church and praying, the fishing doesn’t get better. Dan again mocks Forrest, “Where the hell’s this God of yours?”

Again we hear Forrest’s narration, “It’s funny Lt. Dan said that, because just then, God showed up.” Dan curses God, yelling, “It’s time for a showdown!” God shows up in the form of Hurricane Carmen while Forrest and Dan are at sea. 

But what is a disaster for most, is a blessing for Forrest. His boat, The Jenny, is the only shrimping boat to survive the storm. His business prospers, and he and Dan become very rich men. They are even featured on the cover of Fortune Magazine. Forrest’s choir sums things up with their song, There Will Be a Great Bounty.

Lieutenant Dan becomes a changed man, thanking Forrest for saving his life. Forrest says Dan “never actually said so, but I think he made his peace with God.”

Forrest tells about how he uses his fortune. He says, “Now Mama said there’s only so much fortune a man really needs, and the rest is for showing off. So I gave a whole bunch to the Foursquare Gospel Church.” And a very nice building project is seen in a montage as the choir sings, “I’ve got a new hope.”

The church seems to a good one: it changes the lives of two veterans. I’m giving it our highest Movie Churches rating of Four Steeples.

Take Me Down to Vatican City Month: Angels and Demons

Angels and Demons (2009)

Early in Ron Howard’s Angels and Demons, Professor Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks), accompanied by a member of the Vatican police, notices something about the statues they are passing as they walk through the Vatican. The Professor launches into a lecture (because he always launches into lectures) about “the Great Castration” performed by Pope Pius IX who had all the male statues in Vatican City “de-manned.” The officer, Inspector Olivetti, asks, “Are you anti-Catholic, Professor Langdon?” 

He responds, “No. I’m anti-vandalism.”

Both of Langdon's statements prove to be rather questionable. 

This 2009 film is a sequel to 2006's The Da Vinci Code (which we looked at earlier this year). In that film, the Catholic Church is a vile institution that employs assassins and knowingly hides the truth. If everything in the first film was true, then Langdon would have to be demented himself not to be anti-Catholic.

To make things more clear (or perhaps more murky), though the film Angels and Demons is a sequel to The Da Vinci Code, The Da Vinci Code novel by Dan Brown is a sequel to Angels and Demons, an earlier novel by Dan Brown. It's possible for the protagonist to go through the events of Angels and Demons without hating the Catholic church, but I don’t see how anyone could go through the events of The Da Vinci Code and still have warm fuzzies about the Church.

At the beginning of the film, Langdon is approached by a representative from the Vatican. Langdon thinks it must have something to do with his request to visit the Vatican Archives. He has already written one book about the Illuminati, but his request to visit the Vatican Archives (which he needs to do to write a sequel) has been denied seven times.

Actually, Langdon is being recruited to help with a crisis at the Vatican. The pope has died and the four Cardinals who are the leading papal candidates have been kidnapped and threatened with execution. The Vatican police believe Langdon might be able to help because they believe the Illuminati may be responsible for the crimes.

This, of course, leads to one of Langdon’s impromptu lectures -- this one about the Illuminati. Langdon claims it is an organization formed in the time of Galileo. The church persecuted scientists for teaching “heretical” things, such as a heliocentric solar system, so they formed a secret organization called the Illuminati.

When Langdon arrives at Rome, he learns that someone also stole “anti-matter” from a lab and plans to blow up the Vatican after the four Cardinals are kidnapped. Langdon claims that in order to track down the fiends, he will need to do research in the Vatican Archives, but he is told that he can only do so with papal approval and there is no pope.

Langdon counters that he knows that during the “days of the empty throne,” the time before the conclave elects a pope, papal authority is invested in the “Camelengo.” Langdon goes to see the Camerlengo (Ewan McGregor), who asks Langdon if he believes in God. Langdon answers, “I’m an academic. My mind tells me I will never understand God.” 

Huh. Thomas Aquinas and C.S. Lewis seemed to carry off being both theists and academics.

Anyway, the Camerlengo lets Langdon into the Archives along with the anti-matter scientist, Vittoria Vetra (Ayelet Zurer). He just asks them to treat the Archives with respect. Langdon develops the theory that the Cardinals will be executed at four different cathedrals, each representing one of the Four Elements, which the Illuminati honor. (I thought that was strange; the Greek teaching on the elements had a basis in philosophy but not at all in science.)

Langdon believes one of the books in the Archives contains a clue, and he asks Vittoria to copy the information. Instead, Vittoria tears the page out of the book. Which is vandalism. 

Why don't I think Langdon is really anti-vandalism? Langdon just smirks at this. Later in the film, Langdon finds himself trapped in the Archives and to escape, he knocks down bookshelves and wildly fires a gun. He places his own life over securing the archives. He’s a vandal.

But we're not here to cite the hypocrisy of Professor Langdon. How are the church and clergy presented?

Commander Richter (Stellan Skarsgard), the chief of the Vatican police, makes the one good defense of the Roman Catholic Church. When Langdon makes what the commander considers a disparaging remark about the church, Richter lectures, “My church comforts the sick and dying. My church feeds the hungry. What does your church do, Professor?”

The great crowds around the Vatican as the Conclave meets to elect a new Pope indicate that the Catholic Church has a lot of fans in the film.

So how does the clergy come across in the film? We mainly see the Camerlengo. He seems like a good guy initially. He gives the professor what he needs to investigate the crimes. When it looks like the Vatican may blow up, he urges the Conclave to break and go to safely. And what appears to be his most heroic act; when the anti-matter bomb is discovered, the Camerlengo snatches the bomb and all alone takes it up in a helicopter where the bomb can safely explode, and he parachutes safely to the ground.

After that desperate act, it looks like the Camerlengo will win the Papacy by acclamation, even though he's only a priest and not a Cardinal. But then we learn the Big Twist. 

(As they say, spoilers) 

There was no resurgence of the Illuminati. There were no outside conspirators. The Camerlengo has put together the whole diabolic scheme to get himself elected pope, including murdering the previous pope, apparently, so he can oppose science. (His reasoning is never very clear.) 

This is a pretty risky plot. It doesn’t go as planned, because Langdon does manage to save one of the bishops. How could the Camerlengo be so sure he’d survive the anti-matter explosion? Since there had never been such an event before, how can he be so sure anyone could survive the antimatter explosion?

When the Camerlengo’s plan fails, he lights himself on fire (which causes white smoke to billow from the Vatican smokestack).

The Cardinal who takes the job of Pope names himself Luke, as the physician represents “science.” He seems like he might be a good guy. But that Camerlengo certainly rates our lowest Movie Churches rating of One Steeple. 

European Vacation Week 1: The Genius is Stupid

The Da Vinci Code (2006)

For a long time, I thought the God’s Not Dead trilogy had a secure place as the stupidest film series I’d view for Movie Churches. Sure, there were those Christian Slater direct-to-DVDs which pushed dumb thriller cliches to the limit, and yet… I think The Da Vinci Code may be stupider than any of them. What gives this film a special edge is that everyone is supposed to be super-smart, ultra-genius-level masters in their fields, but… no… just no.

I know I’m late getting to this. Dan Brown’s novel, The Da Vinci Code, debuted in 2003, and it was a best seller that everyone was talking about. Aside from the work of J. K. Rowlings, there just aren’t many novels that become part of the national conversation. It took just three years for director Ron Howard to bring the first adventure of “symbologist” Robert Langdon (in the person of Tom Hanks) to the screen.

The stupid of this film (and the novel) begins with the title. Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci, the historical figure -- great artist, inventor, and scientist -- is most commonly referred to as “Leonardo da Vinci” or “Leonardo.” “Da Vinci” refers to the place the man was from. It's the same way that Jesus Christ is sometimes referred to as “Jesus of Nazareth.” While He was, on rare occasions, referred to as “The Nazarene,” if you talked about Him as “of Nazareth” as in “I follow the teachings of ‘Of Nazareth,’” people would definitely look at you funny. But instead of referring to "The Leonardo Code," Dan Brown essentially called his book The of Vinci Code.

The movie tells the story of Harvard professor Langdon, who investigates a murder at the Louvre in Paris and is drawn into a battle between two ancient organizations. The Priory of Sion represents Pagans, while Opus Dei (not to be confused with Otis Day) represents the Roman Catholic Church. Ultimately, his involvement becomes a search for the Holy Grail, which is quite a different thing than one would expect from Arthurian legend.

I do need to talk about the church and clergy in the film because that's why we’re here, but first I need to unburden myself of some of the film’s stupid. For instance, Langdon goes to London to see his former mentor, Sir Leigh Teabing -- an expert on the Holy Grail. And Teabing says to Langdon, “I trust you know The Last Supper, the great fresco by Da Vinci…” This is like one New Yorker saying to another, “Have you ever heard of the Empire State Building?” Or one film critic saying to another, “Are you acquainted with series of science fiction films known as Star Wars?”

A little later in the film, they discover secret backward writing (Leonardo's notes on his sketches are generally written right to left. It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone). Langdon has something like a photographic memory. His expertise is in “symbols,” and he has studied a number of languages, codes, and ciphers. Yet he needs a mirror to read the backward writing. Backward writing isn’t such a great challenge if you practice just a little. These people do not seem like experts in their fields.

The central conceit of the film is all kinds of stupid: Leonardo's painting of The Last Supper, Jesus' final meal with his disciples, has a secret message, you see. In the painting, according to our experts, the apostle John isn't the one sitting at Jesus' right. It's Mary Magdalene. According to the film's symbologist, Leonardo intended people looking at the painting to realize this because they'd know that Mary was the “companion” of Jesus. (Teabing explains “back then ‘companion’ meant ‘spouse.’” In what language? Aramaic? Greek? Latin? And what language would Leonardo have been interpreting anyway?)

So we are to take the clues of this painting, created a millennium and a half after the life of Christ (and painted on the wall of a monastery dining room), for information about Jesus. We're supposed to believe an artist's interpretation over the manuscripts of the Gospels and the Epistles, some of which have survived intact from as early as the first century. Teabing argues there is additional evidence to prove that Jesus wasn’t divine and that he fathered a child by Mary, citing the Gospel of Philip, which he claims is a true gospel despite being discredited at the Council of Nicea.

The fact is, there is a huge body of textual and historical evidence that the Gospels of the traditional canon were written much earlier than Gnostic Gospels (like the Gospel of Philip) that support unorthodox views of Christology.

And the basic argument of the film is just so stupid. It argues that the Holy Grail is not a cup. It is the Sarcophagus of Mary Magdalene, and the Roman Catholic Church has -- through the centuries -- been trying to hide this evidence. There are descendants of Jesus, and they could be proved by comparing DNA within the coffin. Which makes no sense, because we don’t have “Jesus DNA.”

Here are the alternatives offered: the traditional Christian position that Jesus is the unique Son who offers salvation through His death on the Cross paid for our sins (represented by the Cup of communion) or the pagan view (presented in the film) that salvation comes through sex, and the evidence that Jesus was just human can be found through this proof that he had offspring.

But here's my biggest problem with the premise of the film. If Jesus wasn’t God and Man, fully human and fully divine, then who gives a rip about his descendants? If he was just a good teacher, who cares about whether he was married or not, had offspring or not?

As C. S. Lewis argued, Jesus left us three options. He was the Lord, a liar, or a lunatic. Pagan Pioneer and husband and dad aren't among those options.

There are plenty of sound, intelligent arguments against the Christian faith. The Church has been engaged in such debates for centuries, but this film doesn’t present sound, intelligent arguments against the Gospel.

As to the presentation of the clergy and the church in the film -- most of the clergy are murderous scum. There are exceptions, a nice nun here or there, but, pretty much the Roman Catholic hierarchy is just awful.

The film opens with an albino monk, Silas (Paul Bettany), chasing a man through the Louvre. He says to the man, “Is there a secret you would die for? As you wish,” as he shoots the man. This monk is an assassin for Odus Dei. You know, I’ve worked for a number of churches and none of them had contract killers on staff.

Silas works for Bishop Manuel (Alfred Molina), who is able to have the gendarmerie do his bidding through police who have an allegiance to Opus Dei. The leaders of the Catholic Church all seem to know that Jesus wasn’t really God, but they’re covering up to keep their power (unlike those nice pagans who, through the centuries, were always, ever nice and unconcerned about power).

So, the clergy and church in this film receive our lowest rating of One Steeple. And the film will probably hold a secure place as the stupidest film in the Movie Churches archives. Unless -- maybe -- it’s topped by Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons. But I’ll need to give myself a rest before that ever happens.

(If you would like to see a more intelligent, realistic film about the Holy Grail, I'd suggest Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Even the Havard professor is cooler.)

On the Big Screen in Minnesota

Sully, AMC Theater, Southdale Mall, Edina

Sully, the Clint Eastwood directed film about pilot Chesley Sullenberger and the “miracle” landing on the Hudson River, is many things. One of those things is a celebration of mustaches. Tom Hanks as an experienced pilot sports a very healthy but gray ‘stache, but it is overshadowed by the enormous and rich dark garden of hair found on the face of Aaron Eckhart as co-pilot Jeff Skiles. Back in the day, the big screen was rich in manly mustaches, from Clark Gable in Gone with the Wind to Robert Redford in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. But after the gold standard of Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer, Sam Elliott, and Bill Paxton in Tombstone, leading man mustaches on the big screen are rare.

But really, there was no choice about whether to feature mustaches in telling this tale, because that’s what the actual men looked like. The film also presents them as men of character, which is one of the wonderful things about the film: it truly shows ordinary people doing extraordinary things based on such values as truth and experience and moral clarity.

There isn’t much of a church presence in the film, though Sully does jog pass a neon cross in front of a church in the streets of New York City. But this true story is presented in a compelling way, in such a way that Christian filmmakers should watch it and learn.

Oh, and there is another important reference to a mustache in the film. We see members of a NYPD special teams force discussing baseball, and one of the team members says, “Dennis Eckersley was the greatest relief pitcher ever.”

Another team member says, “You just love his mustache.”

The first man responds, “You’re just jealous because he’s not a Yankee.” Praise for an Oakland A’s player and disdain for the Yankees are important values that need to be addressed more in the popular culture.

Restroom repair sign

Notice that I have said nothing about the theater experience itself. We went to an AMC theater that was like many other AMC theaters which are like other Regal theaters and -- there’s just not much to say. It’s like comparing the merits of various Burger Kings. But that’s all okay when Clint and Tom Hanks are doing their jobs right.

Illinois Movies on the Small Screen

Not only are there too many Illinois films to cover in one post, there are too many films made in the city of Chicago to cover. Perhaps only New York City has been the location of more films than Chicago, but since one of our goals this year is to visit a bar in every state, we thought we’d remember a time in our nation when such a task would have been more difficult and far less legal. We’re limiting our films to those set in the Prohibition Era in Chicago. And there are plenty.

Brian DePalma’s 1987 film, The Untouchables, is really based more on the popular TV show than the true story of Treasury Agent Eliot Ness’ battle against bootlegger Al Capone. If someone doesn’t mind how the film strays a bit from the truth (Ness didn’t cold bloodedly kill Frank Netti, who lived on in Chicago for years after Ness left), this is a rousing film, an urban Western. Kevin Costner is great as Ness, as is Robert DeNiro as Capone, but it was Sean Connery who won an Oscar for playing a fictitious policeman. David Mamet wrote a screenplay full of memorable lines and interactions. Ennio Morricone’s score is stirring and similar to his music for spaghetti Westerns. But best of all is DePalma’s direction of a number of memorable set pieces including a wonderful steal of Sergei Eisenstein’s staircase montage from Battleship Potemkin.

There are even some Movie Church connections in the film. Connery’s famous “Chicago Way” speech to Costner takes place in a church (the one place that seems free from the city’s corruption). Connery’s cop, Jimmy Malone, keeps a St. Jude medal to honor the saint of lost causes and policemen. We get to see Ness with his little girl saying her bedtime prayers. And there are, of course, the wise words of Eliot Ness: “Let’s do some good!”

Capone’s Chicago days have provided material for a number of films. In 1959’s Al Capone, the gangster was played by Rod Steiger (if you were a member of our household, you would remember him as the protagonist of the film Oklahoma). In 1975’s Capone, Ben Gazzara played the famous thug. An unusual choice in making that film was also showing Capone in the years following his imprisonment.

In 1967’s The Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre, Jason Robards played Capone in a film which focused on Al’s slaughter of the Bugs Moran gang on the day that is supposed to be all about love. That awful event is recreated in a very different setting in Billy Wilder’s classic 1959 comedy, Some Like It Hot, in which musicians Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis witness the killings and go into hiding as members of an all girls band.

Sometimes pseudonyms were used for a Capone-like character. The mobster was still alive in 1932 when Howard Hawks made Scarface. “Scarface” was a nickname for Capone, but Paul Muni plays a character named “Tony.” The film is set in Chicago, but when the film was remade in 1983, Brian De Palma used Florida as the setting and made it about the prohibition of drugs rather than alcohol.

Two classic gangster films were made the year before the first Scarface which were also set in the Windy City: Little Caesar, launching the career of Edward G. Robinson; and The Public Enemy, which was Jimmy Cagney’s big break. All three of these films were very popular -- but also were considered very violent. There was a concern in the government, the press, and the church that these films glorified the life of the gangster. Along with the early Universal horror films, these helped usher in the censorship of the Hayes Code.

The gangster life during those prohibition years in Chicago has continued to be a popular theme. In 2002’s Road to Perdition, Tom Hanks and Paul Newman played hoods in a story based on a graphic novel. Perhaps the strangest film of all time set in this place and era is 1976’s G-rated musical, Bugsy Malone. All of the roles, including the gangsters and molls, are played by child actors (such as Scott Baio and Jodie Foster). To keep that G rating, the guns in the film shoot whipped cream instead of bullets.

A couple of other films set in the time of prohibition are not about gangsters, but are still about criminals. 2002’s Oscar winner for Best Picture, Chicago, is about murderesses in the early 1920’s who were heroines in the tabloid press. The movie musical was based on a Bob Fosse musical and won five additional Oscars, including Best Supporting Actress for Catherine Zeta-Jones.

But the story told in that musical had been told on the screen before. In 1942, Ginger Rogers played Roxie Hart in a film that featured her trial on the charge of murder. Because of the Hayes Code brought about by those gangster films, a movie couldn’t portray someone getting away with murder. So Roxie, in the film, was innocent. We sometimes think of the past as a more innocent time…but Prohibition Era Chicago…not so much.

Rhode Island Movies on the Big Screen

 “How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?” This question was asked in the commercial running before our film in Misquamicut, Rhode Island. I’ve complained this year about ads before movies, but usually these have been ads for Geico or Hulu that are currently running on television and Youtube. The ads before the drive-in screening of 1994’s Forrest Gump were not exactly timely, which made them much more tolerable.

The group that organizes the drive-in screenings (most obviously not the Regal Corporation, as this was a community run function) decided to play a number of commercials from four decades ago. Along with a variety of “Let’s all go to the lobby” commercials, there was the one about a boy asking the wise owl for an answer to candy mysteries. They also played the “I’d like to teach the world to sing” Coke ad (which was also used in the series finale of Mad Men). I was most amused by the single tear Indian public service announcement about littering (back in the day there was a brouhaha when it was revealed the actor was not actually a Native American).

For all I know, they might always screen these same ads before films (the next night they were showing Jurassic World), but I hope not. The ads made a certain sense playing with Gump which is partially set in the 1960’s. Of course, their thinking may be that the ads fit the nostalgic mood of drive-ins in general, which makes a kind of sense as well. Looking at the schedule of films, the earliest film on the summer calendar is 1975’s Jaws. Many of their featured films are from the eighties (such as Dirty Dancing and The Goonies).

Forrest Gump was, and continues to be, immensely popular. It won the Academy Award for Best Picture and Tom Hanks received his second Best Actor Oscar. It spawned a slew of catchphrases and a real life seafood chain. But best of all for us, it features a church with a wonderful Gospel choir. Gump finds encouragement in the church, and in my favorite subplot of the film, Lieutenant Dan finds hope in God.

So a good time was had at the drive-in. I just wish they’d showed a Bugs Bunny cartoon. That's a big part of the drive-in experience in my book.