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We kick off football season with a review of a new film by prolific Christian director Jason Campbell. WE BELIEVE, which even features a cameo by former Superman actor Dean Cain, takes an impressionistic look at a real high school football community in St. Mary’s, West Virginia, centering on the inspirational story of coach Jodi Mote. Grounded in fact, the film makes odd leaps into seemingly fictional storylines about St. Mary’s students, an attempt to introduce conflict while staying inoffensive to the community. That tension becomes the film’s biggest weakness. WE BELIEVE was cowritten by Campbell, Jodi Mote, and his wife Brandy, so the Motes clearly have a personal stake in telling the story of Jodi’s sudden stroke, which left him unable to coach the St. Mary’s Blue Devils during a crucial season. He was temporarily replaced by Bill Hanlin, a local legend remembered for coaching an undefeated season in 1963. The film’s action drifts between Mote’s recovery (as his team and special ed students miss him), Hanlin instilling Christian values in the Blue Devils, and contrived side plots: a Danish freshman exchange student turned field-goal kicker, and a troubled teen named Trey whose broken home pushes him into drinking and sexual temptation. The Danish subplot is especially bizarre, since actor Addison Dattilo, tattooed and visibly closer to 28 than 14, plays the role with the vibe of a California surfer instead of a homesick exchange student. In general, it is disappointing that the only conflicts (underage drinking, divorce, high school politics) are fictionalized; meanwhile the true story is flattened. The film would be far more compelling if it explored Mote’s actual challenges. What did loneliness and frustration feel like for a devout Christian man whose body had failed him? To admit weakness, however, would cut against the film’s purpose: flattering its collaborators.

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While most Roblox gamers are busy with worldly pursuits such as “dressing to impress” or “stealing a brainrot,” MinisterMatt and his Robloxian Children of God Ministries are using the popular gaming platform to spread the word of God. We review an hour-long Christian narrative special created entirely in Roblox called STANDING WITH GOD, subdivided into three episodes: “Challenges,” “Trials and Faith,” and “I Believe.” The story follows a college-aged protagonist named John as he navigates the conflicts between personal faith and a secular world. Filmed entirely on location in the popular Roblox RP server Brookhaven, John begins his first term at Brookhaven School and immediately struggles with self-doubt. His new friends accept his faith but treat it as a curiosity, accusing him of being “abnormal” for requesting wine-free drinks at parties instead of getting drunk like the rest. Teachers at the school target Christian students by “preaching” pro-evolution lectures that are explicitly anti-God, while the looming threat of LGBTQ acceptance encroaches on everyday life, as rainbow-haired men go on dates with each other in full public view. What’s a Robloxian Christian to do? John seeks guidance from an older Christian mentor, a famous pastor whose program he follows on television. But more significant than the actual plot of STANDING WITH GOD (which is admittedly hard to follow thanks to the static Roblox animation and the unrelenting monotone of robot voices) is the sheer fact that a group of internet believers banded together to create a feature-length production using only the resources immediately available to them. The boundaries between film and performance, roleplay and acting, blur as the conventional movie set is digitized, and actors log into location (the RP server) in costume (avatar) to perform film ministry. STANDING WITH GOD proves that, just like “IRL” film production, it’s not the size of your Robux budget but the urgency of your message that makes for truly passionate filmmaking.

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We first fell in love with the film character Gramps and his anti-evolution hijinks when we watched GRAMPS GOES TO COLLEGE (2014), one of the most outrageous Christian films of all time. We knew we’d eventually explore the entire Gramps cinematic universe. We continue our journey with IN GRAMPS’ SHOES, the confident first entry in this series, which, based on its morbid ending, does not feel like it’s setting itself up for a sequel. Thankfully, writer Donald James Parker and director Chip Rosetti broke canon and persisted. Donald James Parker’s work as Gramps could be compared to Jacques Tati’s “Monsieur Hulot”: an archetypal clown character wandering through our overly complex modern society and exposing its foibles. In IN GRAMPS’ SHOES, Gramps heals the broken modern nuclear family by moving into his adult daughter’s house and making a positive male role model impression on her teenage son and daughter. Sixteen-year-old Scott has taken up smoking cigarettes, is curious about marijuana, and in general has a grumpy, antisocial teenage attitude that needs to be healed with Christ’s love. Gramps challenges Scott and his teenage cohorts to a footrace, which Gramps clears spectacularly, given that his passion is long-distance running. This inspires the whole family to take up cross-country racing, culminating in a climactic scene where Scott wins his high school cross-country meet and the heart of a Christian runner girl on the team, who he secures as his prom date. But it wouldn’t be a Gramps movie without hearing Gramps take aim at pop culture unrelated to the main events of the film; IN GRAMPS’ SHOES chooses to attack the HARRY POTTER series of books and films, saying they are “bait” to lure kids away from the church and toward a life of witchcraft and wizardry. Gramps states that things loved by many people are probably ungodly, because what God loves is not the same as what man loves. That’s good news for IN GRAMPS’ SHOES, because not a lot of people like this movie, so God probably loves it.

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The tension between faith and delusion builds to a thrilling climax in FRAILTY, the Bill Paxton-directed y2k crime drama with Christian themes. Matthew McConaughey, who we recently reviewed as a cast member of 1994’s ANGELS IN THE OUTFIELD, stars as a man recounting his troubled childhood as the son of a religiously-motivated murderer (Bill Paxton) to a detective (Powers Boothe) who is trying to solve the case of the God’s Hand killer. This killer, who McConaughey’s character Fenton believes is his own brother Adam, targets seemingly random victims who are allegedly demons in human form. According to Fenton, his brother Adam is carrying out the legacy of their father, who experienced religious psychosis that led to a series of murders carried out with an axe the man believed to be a magical weapon provided by God. Young Fenton and Adam react to their father’s passion for God and murder in different ways; Adam’s naive admiration for his father foils Fenton’s teenage skepticism. The two boys are possibly a metaphor for the human journey of faith and doubt, a reading supported by a surprising twist revealing the true nature of God’s prophecy. FRAILTY does a great job of exploring Christian themes in an edgy way that condemns blind faith while still understanding the importance of faith itself.

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TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL returns to our watchlist with another episode from its triumphant season 8, possibly one of the best runs in all of television history. Using its “human of the week” format, TBAA stars Roma Downey as Monica, Della Reese as Tess, John Dye as Andrew (the angel of death) and Valerie Bertinelli as the dumbass angel-in-training Gloria (our favorite character.) Gloria and Andrew figure prominently in “The Birthday Present”, the story of a mail carrier accidentally uncovering brutal child abuse in an idyllic suburban neighborhood. Mailman Chuck, portrayed by frequent Christian media star and former sitcom actor Kirk Cameron, is struggling with the death of his grandmother when he accidentally kills a boy with his mail truck after the boy suddenly runs into the road. When apologizing to the boy’s father, Chuck encounters a loaded gun carelessly disposed of in the front yard and realizes the young boy ordered it illegally off the internet to kill his father. Meanwhile, the boy’s sister is missing after hiding from her father’s abuse in a nearby nuclear bomb shelter (???) and being protected by Tess, who for some reason talks in baby voice the whole episode. In typical TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL fashion, human and angel stories weave together effortlessly to prove that God endlessly punishes the weak while enabling their oppressors — and this is a good thing. The addition of Kirk Cameron’s confident guest starring performance fully bridges the gap that TBAA straddles between niche Christian entertainment and mainstream pop culture.

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“And twins!” This Christian romantic thriller about identical twins performing emotional terrorism on a Christian woman will make you believe in love during this Valentines-Day-in-July season. 2 TO TANGLE is one of a few feature films created by the son/father team (respectively) of director Caleb Johnson and writer Jeff Johnson. Per Caleb Johnson’s self-written iMDb bio, Caleb directed his first film TIME COLLECTORS at the age of 17, before immediately moving onto 2 TO TANGLE, which won him international acclaim and was even sold at Walmart! 2 TO TANGLE is pretty accessible for a DIY faith-based film, mostly because the whirlwind plot is insanely stimulating. Young Christian woman Jess is on the rocks with her boyfriend Tom, an inventor/entrepreneur who doesn’t share her Christian faith. A struggling relationship is made even worse when Jess’s coworker finds Tom on a Christian dating website. Jess catfishes Tom by signing up for the website under the screen name “Pocahontas” and messages him in disguise; she ends up catching feelings for Tom’s online persona. But things are not what they seem when Jess learns the man she’s messaging is actually Tom’s secret twin brother Michael, who is also an inventor/entrepreneur for some reason. This kicks off a bizarre series of events involving car crashes, evil spirits (!!!) and a long makeover sequence. 2 TO TANGLE has the madcap precocious energy of DIY filmmakers wanting to put absolutely everything they can think of into their film. The barely coherent plot will keep you guessing until the final scene of the movie. 2 TO TANGLED is the fun type of Christian film where if you showed it to someone not hip to the genre, they would describe it as a train wreck, but if you watch faith-based films every week (as we do here at BBS) you would find it a delightful “breath of fresh air.”

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Do you ever reminisce about the good old days? We took a trip down memory lane to a time when political decisions were based on strong moral values, and when faith allowed men of consequence to weather tumultuous times. Our source material for this nostalgia sesh is GEORGE W. BUSH: FAITH IN THE WHITE HOUSE, a “documentary” (heavy emphasis on the scare quotes) produced by GRIZZLY ADAMS creator Charles E. Sellier Jr. and hosted by conservative radio host Janet Parshall. The thesis of the documentary is that the 43rd American president’s strong personal Christian faith is what gave him strength during the September 11th terrorist attacks, the toughest circumstances ever beset upon an American president since George Washington. On the DVD jacket for the documentary, it bills itself as alternative programming to Michael Moore’s FAHRENHEIT 9/11, a cultural product also from 2004 that argues active malice among politicians and the media class leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths in the Iraq War. Wanting to be more fair and balanced than Michael Moore, GEORGE W. BUSH: FAITH IN THE WHITE HOUSE takes the funny tone of pretending to present sides of praise and criticism of George W. Bush, but then immediately settling on the most maudlin stories of Bush giving great hugs and being caring to his staffers during hard times in their lives. The obvious point of view here is to launder Bush’s difficult and destructive political decisions through the lens of him being a real sweetie. The stories of Bush’s day-to-day demeanor may be true, but how does that explain his desire to enter the Iraq War? Did God guide Bush to the “lesser of two evils” that protected American lives and liberated the Islamic world? I guess we’ll never know for sure, because God hasn’t allowed us to live in the reality where we saw the other side. It could have been even worse! GEORGE W. BUSH: FAITH IN THE WHITE HOUSE assures us that is probably the case; after all, Bush’s is constantly seen praying in the Oval Office, always wears a suit, and donated money to the evangelical “crusades” of roving minister Arthur Blessitt, whom he met at a Holiday Inn. A guy like that is probably gonna do the right thing, so don’t worry about it!

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To celebrate Father’s Day, we spend time with the story of one of the most important Old Testament patriarchs as depicted by acclaimed American filmmaker Darren Aronofsky. NOAH takes great liberties with the biblical legend of Noah, adding elements inspired by the pseudepigraphical Book of Enoch. In Aronofsky’s NOAH, the harsh realities of day-to-day life in Bible times are exaggerated with high fantasy elements. The most notable addition to the story are the giant stone “Watchers”,  towering giants whose stone exteriors imprison the souls of fallen angels doomed to wander Earth. These Watchers have a relationship with Noah’s family, who they see as some of the last remaining humans on earth who care about doing God‘s will. Noah (Russell Crowe) hears the call of the Lord in a mysterious dream, which is later expanded upon when Noah’s grandfather Methuselah (Anthony Hopkins) feeds Noah an ayahuasca-like hallucinogen, revealing the Great Flood and its brutal cleansing of the earth. Methuselah also gives Noah a seed from the garden of Eden, allowing Noah to carry on the esoteric knowledge of the garden to the new family line he will begin once the earth is destroyed. However, Noah is apprehensive about repopulating the Earth with humans who are by their nature prone to sin. He vows to kill the twins carried by his daughter-in-law Ila (Emma Watson) if they turn out to be girls, so humans will go extinct. He also doesn’t let his incel son Ham (Logan Lerman) take a goth e-girl to be his wife. Fortunately, Noah’s innate sense of human decency prevails (at least with Ila), because if he had killed Ila’s babies, we wouldn’t be alive to have a podcast today. Aronofsky’s adaptation of Noah is similar to THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST in the fact that it executes a Bible story with a mixture of ambitious high fantasy and gritty realness. It’s admirable that Aronofsky is able to turn one of the most implausible Bible stories into something that feels real.

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Before there was TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL there was HIGHWAY TO HEAVEN, an 80s sitcom that may be the blueprint for the angel media craze that swept American pop culture at the end of the 20th century. HIGHWAY TO HEAVEN was created and directed by American television legend Michael Landon, who also stars in the series as the angel Jonathan Smith. Landon, known for his roles on all-American historical dramas BONANZA and LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE, enlisted his former LITTLE HOUSE… co-star Victor French to play Jonathan Smith’s buddy Mark Gordon, a retired policeman (and mortal human) who accompanies Jonathan on his weekly assignments to use angelic influence to improve people’s lives. God is referred to as “The Boss” in the series; this world-building is consistent with TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL’s commitment to never discussing Jesus’s sacrifice or the concept of sin on network television. Both series only refer to a faceless God and His angelic messengers who can impact earthly forces. This week on BBS, we chose to explore this historical television series in our ongoing study of angel media, focusing on an episode with a trope we love: body swap. On previous BBS episodes ME AGAIN and SWITCHED we discuss the sub-genre of Christian body swap stories, and HIGHWAY TO HEAVEN s1e20 “The Banker and the Bum” is a triumphant new entry in that category. When homeless man Willy the Waver (Ned Beatty) has 24 hours to live, he makes a simple wish to tell elitist mayoral candidate Melvin Rich (also played by Ned Beatty) to “be nice”. Angel Jonathan Smith grants this wish by swapping the two men’s positions, teaching Melvin Rich an important lesson on empathy for others. The character of Willy the Waver reminds us of a common trope in Christian media: the homeless person who does unnecessary “kindness” to others that no one asked for in order to prove his unfortunate life is cheerful (in this case, waving to random cars on the road on a strict schedule like it’s his job.) “The Banker and the Bum” is both a charming tale of acceptance and a reminder of the shallow understanding much Christian media has of homeless people.

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For the first time in the history of our podcast, we are reviewing a film in which we co-starred. This is CHI ANN BLAZE OF FURY, the brand new film by 3Angels Power, a Canadian film production company based in Cornwall, Ontario, Canada. In 2019, BBS co-host Julian struck up a friendship and artistic relationship with the Karam sisters (Gladys, Mona Lisa, and Jeanne d’arc) whose films he found by accident after misspelling a search term on YouTube. He was immediately captivated by the creative writing and directing of the sisters’ 2013 feature film FRANCESKA FINGER NAILZ, a 3 hour long epic about a misunderstood spirit wreaking havoc on a rural Canadian town. Julian wrote to the 3Angels, offering to film any script they sent to us with a troupe of actors. Weeks later, we had a script in hand for several scenes of a film that would become CHI ANN BLAZE OF FURY. We got about 20 of our friends together, drove to Marina del Rey and recorded a long scene on a beach in which a group of people discuss love and philosophy while fielding phone calls warning them to the existence of yet another evil spirit named Chi Ann. A long time passes and we are unsure about the status of the production; six years later, 3Angels surprise posts the film and we get to watch in its entirety. As fans and promoters of DIY filmmaking, it was so exciting to yield our will to filmmakers we admire and do whatever they asked us to do to realize their vision. 3Angels have a unique command of language and storytelling. No films look and sound like theirs. We’re proud to be involved, and we hope our review inspires lovers of film to watch CHI ANN BLAZE OF FURY, subscribe to 3Angels’ channel, and stay tuned to their electrifying updates.

Watch CHI ANN BLAZE OF FURY for free on YouTube: https://youtu.be/NWUde4NBhSM?si=9ptEXxdSHb2pN810

While watching, please like and subscribe 3Angels' channel to support creative DIY filmmaking.