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Reviews
Go-Big Show (2021)
Uhhhh....
Okay, it's like the Gong Show, but sometimes with live ammo or monster trucks. What's sad is that with a few changes this show could have been a little better. The acts that competed against each other, for instance, were often so different that it was like comparing apples and drywall. A person who literally put his life on the line might be set against a person doing a more artistic act or a sideshow routine. To make matters even worse, there was apparently no objective rubric for scoring. It's always nice to know how the judges reached their decisions, and what's the deal with the weird scoring meter? It makes no sense. I charitably give this show 2 stars because it was created and filmed during Covid.
Bird Box (2018)
Not a bad movie, all-in-all
This isn't a bad movie, all-in-all. I felt that many members of the cast did an excellent job and were very believable in their (slightly overdrawn perhaps) characters. The sets were nicely done. The special effects were not cheesy, and while the plot seemed to spend a long time focusing on the interplay of characters in the first house, it still kept my interest. All of this makes the movie certainly watchable...especially if you, like me, have a bad cold and are looking for something new and interesting.
Now for the cons. Sorry that I'm being nit-picky here. I KNOW it's hard for an author to write a believable story; it's much easier to pick one apart. However, I've seen other movies based on a similar concept (sound), but I had a harder time suspending disbelief that people could somehow function in a post-apocalyptic world without the use of vision. The "string" method used by the heroine to retrace her steps was clever, but I live in a rural area, and walking through the woods and avoiding snakes, holes, and fallen limbs even WITH eyesight can be a challenge. I have had rather poor vision since childhood, and it would be slightly dangerous for me to take a walk even without my glasses, and even sighted people often get lost. Just one wrong step and you'd find yourself sliding down a hill, stepping on some dangerous piece of debris, or smacking into a tree. Yet somehow these people are walking through woods, getting a boat into a river, planting a little garden (!). Could it be done? Possibly, but it wouldn't be easy. Just flip over that boat and there's a good chance a snake is going to be underneath it! Driving the car seemed equally unbelievable. With all the debris on the road, the car would have had a flat pretty quickly, and what's the chance that a random car would have all those proximity warning lights? Okay, okay....nice house, wealthy family probably has a new car, etc.
There is also a matter about the blindfolds. They would have to be just the right fabric. If the fabric is too loosely-woven, you may be able to actually see through the holes in the fabric. Again, I have rather poor eyesight. As a child, I found it funny that looking through the small holes in loosely-woven fabric actually helped my eyes focus a little better. Maybe that's just my vision, and that wearing a blindfold might actually be WORSE for me in such a world.
Finally, the ending just dropped the ball a bit. Okay, they're in a school for the visually impaired. Great place to be. It's full of people. Great. Where's the food to feed all those folks coming from? Where's the water coming from? What happens when the "bandits" attack? There are still the same basic survival problems that the people faced in the house. Who are the monsters and what exactly makes a person one of their minions, anyway? (We get a hint of this, but no solid answers.)
So, to sum up. I really DID enjoy this movie. I felt that acting was VERY well done, and I'd watch it again.
Welcome to Paradise (2007)
What Can I Say?
To preface, this is a for-the-most-part wholesome, family-type movie. It puts forth some good values and topics for family conversation: respect for everyone, flexibility, Christian love, worth of all people, the plight of the homeless, and the materialism of the modern Church. I heard "butt" a few times ...which is completely out of place in a Christian movie.
The acting was okay...some better than others. I found the plot a little boring and hackneyed. It's the same story and topics that you've seen on every family show from Little House on the Prairie to Touched by an Angel. Here, the bad, bigoted, formal, legalistic Christians (who really aren't very Christian) have to be awakened to the "real" meaning of Christian love by Debbie a non-traditional female minister. The main male ministers portrayed in the show tend to be materialistic, ambitious and egotistical while Debbie is seen as a loving friend to the homeless, minorities, etc.
Some of her parishioners scoff at having a woman minister, yet there is no place in the movie where anyone intelligently brings up the Apostle Paul or the Biblical reasons why some churches reject women ministers. The preference for male ministers is just seen as provincial (i.e. red neck) ignorance, chauvinism or traditionalism. There is no discussion about how churches interpret the Bible differently, and how they place different weight on Biblical texts. Debbie quotes the Bible to chastise her congregation about their attitude toward a minority musician, but she doesn't quote verses that would conflict with her role as ordained minister, widow, or that as a woman she should cultivate a "gentle and quiet" spirit.
The movie does show that the widowed Debbie has been negligent in her role as mother to her son. The son has talents and problems that Debbie does not even know about. It's the teachers at the boy's public school that find out about these. When the son is brought home by a male basketball coach from school, Debbie does not even question who the strange older man (she doesn't know he's the coach) is and why her son is in the car with him.
All in all, I would not worry about my family seeing this movie, but I do feel that it panders a little toward the popular "right-brained" informal, touchy-feely, emotional Christianity and neglects less popular but important topics such as Biblical scholarship and theology. Dealing with the fact that even churches have bills to pay and need money isn't popular or fun. But it has to be done.
There was also a few "holes" in the story: one place is where a homeless woman has to spend the night in the rain on the church porch. I come from a much smaller home-church than "Paradise" and even we had funds set aside for people in emergency situations who needed housing or food. Also, this same homeless character supposedly lost her house due to medical bills after her ill husband's death. Under bankruptcy laws and homestead exemption, the woman should have been able to at least keep her house. My husband, a CPA, caught this...yet these holes are minor and keep the plot going and get sympathy for the character.
Anyway, I don't think there is anything that most Christian families would really worry about in this movie, provided there was some discussion afterwards.