The Last Movie You Watched

[Rev. Rye]

Well, I think I've mentioned my plans to watch a film from TVTropes' "So Bad It's Horrible/Film" page every week this year. Since I'm about to start Film #2 in this series, I may as well do a brief review of the film I used to start this: Kirk Cameron's Saving Christmas.

Well, I think a lot of us have heard of this film, and Brad Jones' Cinema Snob review of the film pretty much goes over most of the film's problems:



It's cheap as all fuck, and its plot basically involves Kirk Cameron convincing his brother-in-law Christian that all the materialistic, conspicuous consumption in Christmas these days is actually meant to be a reflection of Christian history, up to and including Santa being an ancient bishop who beat an opponent of the Trinity during the council of Nicea (which most historians agree is almost certainly a myth) and this final monologue:

"So, this is Christmas. Pull out your best dishes, your finest linens, your nicest silverware, the biggest ham, every side dish you can imagine, and the richest butter. It's time to feast. ... and don't buy into the complaint about materialism during Christmas. This is a celebration of the eternal God taking on a material body. So, it's right that our holiday is marked with material things. Things that we can look upon and touch with our hands."

Well, that monologue basically has our bases covered for Avarice and Gluttony. I think that much of this film is based on pride, and that story about Nicholas of Myra silencing Arias with his fist certainly would appear an endorsement of wrath. So, ironically for a Christian film, we got four of the Seven Deadly Sins being pretty explicitly endorsed.

Anything else to mention? Well, there's also sloth. I honestly can't remember watching a movie that was so filled with filler. That plot about Kirk Cameron convincing his brother-in-law about the true meaning of Christmas being everything cynical about the holiday that literally every other Christmas special admonishes against? It only gets going about 10 minutes in. It's over 50 minutes in. The movie is about 80 minutes long. And, of course, in between, there's this obviously-dubbed rant from a random conspiracy-minded motor-mouthed black guy about nothing in particular at one point. So, yes, this movie is over 50% filler. I'm pretty sure that makes five Deadly Sins this Christian movie is embracing.

Well, given that Kirk Cameron is infamous for refusing to do kissing scenes with any woman other than his wife, and it appears his sister (who also appears in the film and is NOT married to Christian IRL) has the same rules, so, even after he teases a big kiss scene, it doesn't happen. Well, at least we get spared one Deadly Sin.

So, why not imply the seventh with a piece of Christian media I remember from when I was actually a Christian?





Is there anything good about it? Well, Christian does seem like a vaguely compelling character, but that could be because of his looking like Walter White in Felina and the fact that he opposes Kirk's bullshit (and is actually fairly eloquent in the first scene he voices his qualms, though his speech quality does degrade as the argument goes on), but then again, he's played by Darren Doane, the film's director, so, yes, you know that he's given his approval to all this horseshit, including this dance scene:





I would like to point out that Doane has a history as a director of music videos (Wikipedia lists 126 and it still claims to be incomplete.) One would think he'd do something a bit more interesting. To be fair, I only recognised two of the songs on the Wikipedia list, and I don't remember their videos, but he did film Van Morrison's Astral Weeks concert film, which I know, is going to be a lot less physically intense, given that it's a 70-something man crooning into a microphone with an orchestra to back him up, but at least that one looked better than this.

Also, one little bit most reviews failed to mention: Mrs. Nicholas of Myra in her one line sort of reminds me of Kelly MacDonald. Well, it's a tiny thing, but it at least keeps it from turning into utter cinematic oblivion.

And honestly, I can only suppose that the next film in this traversal of cinematic shit will actually be better. Well, at least I know going in that it has at least one redeeming quality, and, surprisingly enough, it rhymes with Ass. Stay tuned to see me take on Fant4stic.