Some Film Recommendations

It goes without saying that people have been doing a lot of screen watching in days. A friend on Facebook recently asked for suggestions of things to watch, so I did some digging around for some options.

Since we don't review the movies here at Movie Churches (instead, we review clergy and churches in movies -- as you know), many, many of the films here aren't good. Some are almost painful to watch, but I do it for the good of you, dear readers. These, on the other hand, are films I enjoyed. Some of them I love dearly. They're divided into categories, and if you'd like to know more, click the title to go to the original post. Most are available on Amazon Prime.

Robert Duvall Trilogy
Duvall has made (IMHO) made three of the best films about the Christian faith. (And a couple of pretty awful ones as well, but that’s not what we’re talking about here.)
Get Low
Tender Mercies
The Apostle (language and violence)

Classics
Two of these films won the Oscar for Best Picture, and the other should have. (And all of the clergy did pretty well in their steeple ratings too.)
On the Waterfront (Adult themes)
A Man for All Seasons
The Quiet Man

Comedy
Frankly, there have been funnier films reviewed here, but the original request stressed that the films should be family-friendly. Still, these films did make me laugh.
Heaven’s Above
Millions (language)
O Brother Where Art Thou (language and sensuality)

Foreign
I know, I know, reading is hard. Subtitles. But worth it.
Au Revoir, Les Enfants
Joyeux Noel (violence)
We Are Brothers (strong language)

Musicals
The theology is rarely great in musicals, and these films aren’t exceptions. But they’re fun.
Cabin in the Sky
Guys and Dolls
The Sound of Music

Science Fiction/Horror
For some reason, people often think these genres are not Christian. But horror acknowledges the supernatural and science fiction often stresses that some things are beyond human understanding.
The Hunchback of Norte Dame
Signs (language, violence)
War of the Worlds (1953)

Worthy Christian Films
Christian films are, as a group, pretty bad. Too often they're nothing more than sappy propaganda. I’ve watched some really bad Christian films for this blog, but I enjoyed these.
The Case for Christ
Soul Surfer
Grace Unplugged

What about you? Looking for any movie recommendations? Let me know.

Iowa Films on the Small Screen

Though there is, of course, an urban side to Iowa, most Iowa films are set in rural areas and are about small town life. Filmmakers usually take one of two perspectives on life in the corn: rural life as an ideal or as the habitation of hypocrites and busibodies.

“Is this heaven?”

“No, this is Iowa.”

You know how I just wrote in the last paragraph that rural Iowa is generally presented as wonderful or awful? Well, Field of Dreams presents an Iowa farm as a place that can be mistaken for heaven. And it shows a small town PTA meeting full of censoring harpies.

Kevin Costner plays former hippie Ray Kinsella, who buys a farm and then hears a voice telling him he should plow under corn and build a baseball diamond. Then disgraced baseball legend “Shoeless” Joe Jackson will appear.

In other words, that same old plot Hollywood is always recycling.

It could be said that the film is about the clash of conservative and liberal values, particularly in families. But the film suggests that reconciliation and healing can be found in the American Pastime.

This year, when there is such great political division and strife, could everything be made right if the Cubbies win the World Series? Probably not. But in addition to being nominated for the Oscar for Best Film, Field of Dreams always leads the polls as the film that can make men teary eyed.

Back in 1933, when a far greater percentage of Americans lived on farms, rural life was more likely to be presented as a wonderful thing. State Fair presents the adventures of a farm family spending a week at the Iowa State Fair. Small town values are celebrated, perhaps most by Will Rogers, the great American cowboy humorist who stars in the film. State Fair was remade two times, in 1945 with Dana Andrews and music from Oscar Hammerstein and again in 1962 with Pat Boone and Ann-Margaret. Though all three films are set at the Iowa State Fair, only the 1933 version was filmed in Iowa.

The Iowa State Fair is featured again in 2011’s Butter, but in this film farm folk are far from idealized. The film is about butter sculpting, a competition at the fair. The subjects sculpted for the competition include the Last Supper, the Holy Grail, and a replication of JFK’s assassination. The film is a satire that presents locals as idiots and/or religious fanatics, and it isn’t even filmed in Iowa. It’s filmed in Louisiana, because really, what’s the difference between those flyover states?

A better satire is 1971’s Cold Turkey, in which Dick Van Dyke plays an Iowa pastor who tries to get his entire small town to quit smoking. Norman Lear used his success as the creator of TV’s All in the Family to make his debut as a feature director, but this was his only feature film. Small town life does not come off well in the film. (This film really deserves a post of its own in Movie Churches.) It was filmed in Iowa.

David Lynch has made many strange and depraved films about urban and rural life, but he’s only made one G rated film, 1999’s The Straight Story. It tells the true story of Alvin Straight (Richard Farnsworth), an old man who drove a lawnmower from Iowa to Wisconsin in order to reconcile with his brother. It is a tender story that did use actual Iowa locations.

Another film based on a true story that celebrates rural values is 1944’s The Fighting Sullivans (aka The Sullivans), the story of five brothers who grew up in Iowa, then went off to serve together in the Navy in World War II. Made while the war was still in progress, it was a story of tragedy with the intention of inspiration. But the film was made completely in Hollywood.

Another film meant to boost the spirits of the American public in WWII was 1943’s Happy Land. Set in Hartfield, Iowa, it tells the fictional story of a couple whose son is killed in the war. Fanciful visits from soldiers who have died in previous wars bring the couple hope and inspiration. This was not filmed in Iowa but in my hometown, Santa Rosa, California.

The Bridges of Madison County is not a film that would have been made during World War II or at anytime when tthe Hayes Code monitoried the moral content of films. Clint Eastwood directed himself and Meryl Streep in the story of a photographer who comes to Madison County to take pictures of covered bridges and has a brief affair with a local housewife.

Sometimes, instead of making Iowa into heaven, filmmakers have made Iowa into hell. A remake of a George Romero film, 2010’s The Crazies, was reset in Iowa rather Pennsylvania. In both films, murderous insanity hits a small town like a contagious plague. Not really a good film, but it does have Tim Olyphant of Justified and actual Iowa location filming.

Another film that makes Iowa an unpleasant place to be is the 1994 adaptation of the classic Robert Heinlein novel, The Puppet Masters. The story is similar to Invasion of the Body Snatchers, with aliens taking on human form. In much of the film, California replaces Iowa as aliens replace humans in the film, but there was a bit of filming in Des Moines.

But the idealized vision of Iowa has probably dominated the unpleasant Iowa in films, especially in the most optimistic of genres, the musical. 1957’s The Pajama Game, about a labor dispute at a sleepwear factory, is a satire, but Iowa must be a wonderful place if Doris Day lives there. (Sadly, it was all filmed in Hollywood.)

Of course, if there is one film that rivals Field of Dreams as The Iowa Film, it is the 1962 adaptation of Meredith Willson’s beloved musical, The Music Man. In this story, is Iowa heaven or is it hell? On the debit side there are such song lyrics as, “Oh there’s nothing halfway about the Iowa way to treat you, when we treat you, which we may not do at all.” But if you have the opportunity to sing along with such delightful music and be in the presence of someone as charming as Robert Preston’s Harold Hill and as lovely as Shirley Jones’ Marian the Librarian, then Iowa is a heavenly place.

Guys and Dolls (1955)

There are people who complain about musicals by saying that in real life, people just don’t break out into song. I guess being a churchgoer makes me view musicals in a more kindly way. For at least an hour a week, I’m surrounded by people breaking out in song, so it doesn’t seem so strange.

Now, street gangs dancing ballet in West Side Story? That might be pressing things. Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood as serenading prospectors in Paint Your Wagon might be pressing it further. Guys and Dolls might be stretching credibility even further with singing and dancing  gangsters and gamblers, but you won’t hear me complaining. The songs are hummable, and Damon Runyon’s jokes (adapted by Ben Hecht and Joseph Mankiewicz) are funny.

But how is the church in the film?

Or is there a church in the film? According to Sister Sarah Brown (played by Jean Simmons) , who runs it, the “Save a Soul Mission,” is a mission, not a church. But like many Salvation Army Missions, it sure seems like a church. And Sister Sarah preaches, so we’ll consider her clergy. So what are the pros and cons of the mission?

It gets points for locating in a neighborhood of New York where crooks and thieves are plentiful (Salvation Army General Cartwright says they’ve located among the Devil’s first line troops). Sarah is willing to go on the streets along with her band to take on all comers, but a con man selling $1.00 solid gold watches seems to attract more attention.

Another positive element about the mission is found in their signs. I’m not referring to the signs that proclaim Scripture, because, as gambler Sky Masterson notes, the references are wrong. (He correctly notes that “There is no peace for the wicked” comes from Isaiah, though the sign says it’s from Proverbs.) But the sign offering free donuts is a pretty great sign.

The mission eventually opens their doors to the most notorious gamblers of the neighborhood and makes a convert of a gambler named Nicely-Nicely Johnson (though how big a challenge it is to convert someone named “Nicely” is another story).

So there’s a lot to be said in favor of the Save A Soul Mission.

My problems are found in the person of Sister Sarah Brown.

As a single woman running the mission, she makes the dubious decision of accompanying Sky Masterson on a trip to Cuba, though she is, to some extent, tricked into it. I wouldn’t think it wise of a male clergyman to join a woman of reputation on a date in a foreign land. Then she gets herself into a drunken brawl (though, again, the drunkenness is the result of trickery). You know if that happened today, that fight would be on YouTube, and Sarah would have to be explaining herself to the general and press tout de suite.

My real problem with Sarah is something she says about the gamblers who sneak into the missions for a craps game. After the police chase them out, Sarah refers to those who were in the mission as “trash.” I think it’s safe to say that one isn’t who thinks of potential converts in this way is not following the example of Jesus, the Friend of sinners.

Eventually, she does look a bit more kindly to the gentlemen of the neighborhood. Even noted criminal Big Julie from Chicago calls her “a right broad.” (Julie had earlier stated, “If they hear back in Chicago I went to a prayer meeting, no decent people will talk to me.”)

And the Mission needs to expand their musical repertoire. Their only song seems to be an insipid piece called “Follow the Fold.”

Another worker in the Mission, Sarah’s Uncle Arvid seems to be a “right guy;” though I was puzzled when he concluded a wedding citing the authority of the city, county and state of New York, but not God.

So we’re giving the Mission Two Steeples.