Top Fives: Christian Movies

0:00 Well, hey there, everybody. Welcome into the Film and Whiskey Podcast. I'm Bob Book. I'm Brad G. And we're coming at you with another special bonus episode. BA BA BA bonus. Episode Brad. It is almost Resurrection Sunday in the Christian Church. It's almost Easter. It sure is. Man, this is without a doubt the biggest holiday in the world of Christianity and we thought what better way to celebrate then drinking 17 different whiskeys and reviewing them on this podcast. Yeah, we did scrap that original idea, which was let's get drunk to celebrate the resurrection. But in lieu of that, Brad, you know, we've talked many, many times over the course of this podcast about our upbringings being raised in the church or around at the church, if you were me.

0:51 We went to seminary. We're both Christians. We try to inflect a lot of our analysis of these movies with what these mean to us on a spiritual level. And we've never actually broken down like movies that help form our faith. And I thought the best way to get into that, Brad, is to talk about this current craze that is sweeping movies everywhere. And it's these quote, UN quote Christian movies. Now, folks, I don't mean like movies about Christianity or movies that deal with issues of faith. These have been fixtures in cinema since the very beginning. You know, we've looked at Cecil B DeMille movies on this podcast before. We watched Ben Hur last season that way.

1:31 I mean that talk about a movie that deals with Jesus. What a chariot race. Setting the Jesus aside, what a what a chariot race. But specifically I would say over the last 15, almost 20 years now, there has been popping up these media companies that produce media by Christians for Christians. It is a subculture that has taken root, especially in the evangelical world. You know, very similar to what happened in the 1990s with the contemporary Christian music movement. And folks, I have to say, as a guy who watches a lot of movies, 99% of these things truly, truly suck. They are terrible movies. You know how you can watch like an HBO show and then, you know, change the channel and have like a rerun of Days of Our Lives? Yes.

2:21 Like and you immediately know within two seconds like just based on the camera like. Shot the production values everything about. It you go, oh, this is a soap opera And you know right away that's the level of difference between like a top tier Denny Venne film and Christian media often times. Often times I will say the the, the bridge, the gap is narrowing a little bit, which is good to see, you know, to give a brief history of this whole thing. Brad, the first one that I can really remember breaking through now back in the the early early 2000s you had Kirk Cameron producing Left Behind movies. Yeah you did that were I believe shot on a camcorder somewhere and those did, those swept the subculture. But the first one that I remember people being like, oh this is like a real movie, was this truly God awful movie back in like 06.

3:17 It was called Facing the Giants, and it was a movie about a Christian football team. And God, does that movie suck. But the people? Who is that are like fireproof? So yeah, the people that made that movie then were like, we got money from this football movie, let's make a bigger budget movie. And they made this movie called Fireproof where they got Kirk Cameron again to play a firefighter. And then they made this movie called Courageous where they were all cops and it was like all these movies. I can't remember the name of the company that produced all these movies and thank God they're not the big name in the area anymore. But that's what really jump started this whole craze. And I remember specifically Brad going to church one Sunday and someone knowing that I was a movie fan and asking me if I'd seen Fireproof. And I said absolutely not.

4:02 And I swear to God, this person said, if you just set aside how bad the acting is and like, the camera works, not good. And like, it's really cheesy and it's really tacky if you can just get past all that, like, the message is so good, man. And I remember thinking, like, OK, so if I set aside all the things that make this a movie, it it's a good sermon. That's what you're saying, right? Yeah, I can. I can learn that it's important to be faithful to my wife without a terrible movie teaching it. I. Don't need to waste two hours on that. Thank you so much, Kirk Cameron, But luckily in the intervening 15 years, I know that we have kind of pushed this genre aside with all of the gods not deads of the world and things like that. I have watched quite a few of these movies and there are some, Brad, that are like surprisingly good, but then also legitimately well made movies and I've recommended them to people a lot because they are on par with Hollywood productions. Now again, they're not, you know, it's not Avatar we're talking about here.

5:05 But like you don't notice the, the cheapness of these movies. And I think that they are not only good examples of Christian movies, they're good movies. And so, Brad, I'm going to break down my top five today. And then you also wanted to talk about a piece of quote, UN quote Christian media that's been really important to you as well. Yeah. And I'm excited to hear your top five partially to hear you answer the question, Bob, like what keeps you coming back? Because obviously it did not start in a good place. But as somebody who watches a lot of movies, like what kept you in this place of saying, you know, I'm going to try one more, just one more. We'll see where they're going.

5:47 It's not even that so much as, like, you really do it when you're a guy who reviews movies. You know, almost for a living at this point, Brad, Like, you got to keep up with the zeitgeist a little bit. You got to know what people are watching. I did the same thing, you know, 5-6 years ago when The Greatest Showman came out. That movie also sucks, but I had to go see it because it's like I couldn't have conversations with people if I never saw that movie. So yeah, yeah, it's it's the same thing now. I went and saw that Sound of Freedom movie last year that was had everybody up in arms and like, it was neither as good or as bad as anyone said it was. It was just a perfectly fine movie that had Jim Caviezel. It was like your average CBS, you know, Without a Trace episode. By Jim Caviezel, do you mean Evangelical Jesus? I do, I do OK.

6:31 Good, Good, Good. All right, man. Before we go any further, I want to hear this piece of media that you've been telling me all about and that you want to share with our audience. Oh man, if y'all haven't watched The Chosen yet, The Chosen is a television series that's been crowdfunded, which, like, is the worst way of introducing the level of quality. It's like, hey, you know how Alex Jones stays on the air? That's how they did this show. Honestly, take that, take that into your first viewing of this and you'll be blown away because the production value on this, on this TV series, The Chosen is out of this world.

7:14 I mean, at the start of I think the second season there's an episode where there's a 12 minute Warner and you're just like following the disciples around the campfire and see like observing how they are experiencing the ministry of Jesus in such a naturalistic way. I I have been blown away there. There's a great John Mulaney comedy sketch where he talks about Ice Cube understanding what sexual addiction is and how he compares it to a bunch of different things. Right Bob, you you turn me on to this I and and John Mulaney is like I the the episode goes on but I could just watch him describe different addictions for 45 minutes and then fade to black.

8:03 I could watch the Chosen depict Jesus healing people for an hour straight and fade to black. I mean, it is just the most incredible portrayal of the Gospels that I think I've ever seen. You know, I've never gotten around to watching it. I've never watched one episode of The Chosen. But don't don't be offended by it because I don't think I've watched one episode of television that's not a rerun of, like, The Office in eight years. All right, Brad, if it's OK with you, I'm going to go ahead and get into my top five here. Now again, folks, we are talking about quote, UN quote Christian movies or quote UN quote, faith-based movies. You would recognize some of these production companies if you saw them. Angel Studios is a big one right now. I'm not going to be talking about like Scorsese's silence or something like that.

8:52 You know, that's a mainstream Hollywood movie that deals in issues of faith. But I'm trying to shine a light on some of these, like, Christian subculture movies that I actually think are worth watching. So the first one is one that got very little fanfare when it came out in 2018. And it's a movie called Paul, Apostle of Christ. It is a biopic, more or less, of the apostle Paul when he is in captivity and getting ready to be executed. And the disciple, the apostle Luke comes to Paul and is kind of taking down all of his dictation as he's writing his New Testament epistles. And it's really cool and I love the way they do it. And a lot of these Christian movies are very smart in not depicting exactly what's in the Bible, like they're fleshing out the world of the Bible. And this one's just like that.

9:40 You know, you have Luke coming on the scene, learning from Paul, but then you get a lot of the behind the scenes politics of Rome. You know, when it actually does come time for Paul to be executed. Like it's a very beautiful sequence. That kind of stuff's not in the Bible. So it's really cool to see them making movies that are a little bit extra biblical that way. Not contradicting, not undermining the text, but just kind of shining a little bit of historical, I don't know, fantasy on this situation and I really love this movie. It's got great performances, really well shot. So yeah, I'd recommend it. It's called Paul, Apostle of Christ. Oh, I I am fascinated. Bob.

10:20 As you should be, Brad. All right, I'm gonna give in. I'm gonna give my #4. This is a movie that came out just last year, I think was this 23/20/23. It's it was like the number one movie in America for a couple weeks. It was called Jesus Revolution. It's set in California. It's true story from the 1970s about a movement called the Jesus People movement. Basically like the hippies in Socal got turned on to Jesus and then started some of the biggest churches in America as a result of it. It's really cool. And I think one of the things I really liked about this movie is that it didn't shy away from a lot of the flaws of the key figures of this movement. Because, you know, as the years went on, there were leadership flaws and, you know, not, I don't wanna say scandals, but like inappropriate workplace stuff. Like one of the these guys was just a butthole to a bunch of people and they kind of depict that like the early seeds of one of these guys.

11:18 It kind of goes to his head a little bit and you see the seeds of him being authoritarian. And so, like, it's great that these historical documents are not just depicting, Like, isn't it so great that we follow Jesus, I think if you're a fan of, like a if you're a fan of period pieces, they do the 1970s really, really well in this movie. But it's also, it's full of really good performances. The guy that plays Jesus in the chosen, Brad is kind of the lead of this movie, well worth a watch. And, like, it kind of breezed by and it ended. And I was like, Oh my gosh, like, this is at least a 7 1/2 out of 10. This is like, I kept expecting like somewhere along the line this thing's going to tank, right, Because too many people like it.

12:01 And then it ended and it was a really good movie. So there you go, Jesus Revolution. 7.5 Glowing recommendation from Bob. Hey, listen, maybe The Revolution is just let's make a passable movie. I mean, we've been talking for a long time about how desperately Hollywood needs to be OK with like C plus to B movies that make, you know, 50 million at the box office. So here, here we are. Jesus Revolution, baby. Would you consider a 7 1/2 AC plus like a three out of four-star movie? That's a 75 out of 100. Yeah, I'd be see. Like, listen, I don't know that I grade like whiskeys and movies the same way.

12:45 Like the American education system. Sure. Great. Like you know, a three star movie is like, this is worth going to the theater to see. Like, it's not. It might not be a great movie, but like, we had a good time seeing it and it was worthwhile and I'll probably recommend it to people. Would you say that it's a passing grade? I would, but I wouldn't like if I went into work the next Monday and said like dude, I saw a really good C Plus movie, you should check it out. Like I would never be tempted to go spend money on AC Plus. Yeah, no, you're you're not wrong. All right, Brad, my #3 is a movie called The Case for Christ. Now this was an adaptation of a book written by a guy named Lee Strobel.

13:25 If you grew up in or around Christian circles in the 1990s, the case for Christ was like a big deal. And my guy Lee Strobel wrote like a 1,000,000 sequels. The case for God, the case for creation, like. So he started as an investigative journalist and he got invited to this church in Chicago and basically decided, like, it was gonna make it his mission to disprove God using his investigative reporting skills and in conversations with the pastor at this church and in doing his own research and reading the Bible for himself. He came to be a believer. And so his book is a really interesting look into his own insights into, you know, how he came to these conclusions.

14:08 The movie itself is a lot more about what a mess this guy's life was at the time. And again it's it's I love that the movies shine light on different things than just they could have made a documentary Out of the Case for Christ book. They didn't do that. They wanted to tell the story of the guy that wrote the book and his personal encounters with faith. I I thought this movie was super compelling. It has a lot more of a brain than any of these other Christian movies do you know I like I felt like I had to argue with the atheists in my life. Brad, for a long time about God's not dead. And I'm like, dude, like, really like this? You're gonna take God's not dead as, like, the best depiction of the Christian faith. Come on.

14:52 Yeah. So I mean that's like that's like trying to use, you know, certain popular pastors as like a defense of the faith versus like ACS Lewis. I'll never forget, you know, like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins and all the guys in the New Atheism were like the big bad guys on the block for such a long time. And then I actually read Dawkins, The God Delusion. And I was like, I'm a sophomore in college and I feel like I can debunk everything in this book or like at least have a counter to it. And it's kind of like that. It's like just because it's the most popular thing that the Christians like doesn't mean that it's the best at encapsulating what they actually believe. And I I also wouldn't say The Case for Christ is like a doctoral level thesis on Christianity.

15:36 But it's a lot. It takes a lot more seriously the intellectual side of the faith. I really liked the movie Brad. Yeah. What's next on the list, Bob? Next on the list is one that I I feel like I've told you about this one 100 times, Brad. It's a movie called Risen. It came out, oh, I don't know, 2015 or so. And again, it it tells a fictional story that is like Bible adjacent. It's the story of a Roman centurion who has been tasked with finding the body of Jesus after it goes missing on a very specific Sunday. And so over the course of like a week, you watch this guy give the shakedown to a bunch of people that have been in and out of Jesus's life, obviously culminating in him seeing the resurrected Jesus and having his own encounter. And dude, I I have to be honest with you, It sounds like a contrived plot.

16:27 It sounds manipulative. It's actually like if you're going to have like an entry point into OK, in the world of this movie, Jesus is real and Jesus is resurrected. This is like the best, most grounded way to do it. It's like it is a boots on the ground movie. You're following one guy as he deals with his own struggles and doubts and insecurities. And I like I had a moment at the end of this movie where I was reduced to tears because it the way that they do. The payoff with Jesus is so emotionally earned by the movie constructing A believable world and then taking that world seriously. I like it's it might be my favorite faith-based movie that I've ever seen. Brad.

17:13 Oh man, you. You have talked to me about that one multiple times. I have an ability to watch it, and I'm going to do it sometime soon, probably maybe even this weekend. There you go. It's Easter it. Sure is. There's like, if you're gonna do it, Brad, that was the time. Don't wait until, like, September. Yeah. All right. Finally, and then I'll stop talking. So Brad, you can talk a little bit more. There's a movie that just came out, oh gosh, two months ago, three months ago. It's a movie that they were advertising for a long time. I think it was originally slated for a 2023 release. And then it got bumped. It's called Ordinary Angels. And the thing about this movie, Brad, is that it stars two time Academy Award winner Hilary Swank. And here's the cheat code for Christian movies. Hire good actors.

18:03 It's very helpful. Kirk Cameron is not the best you can do, folks. You can get two time Academy Award winner Hilary Swank now. Like you can watch this movie and look for evidence that Hilary Swank needed a job and wanted a paycheck. And I'm going to be honest with you, I did not see evidence of that in the performance itself. Super committed performance. Again, based on a true story about a guy who loses his wife and then his daughter comes down with a almost incurable disease that she ends up needing a transplant for. They get her on the transplant list and it's about his own financial hardships and this woman in his life that just saw their story on the news, played by Hilary Swank. She's an alcoholic.

18:46 Her life is falling apart and the efforts that she takes to help this family and address the demons in her life at the same time. The thing about this movie, Brad, is that it is like Christian movie adjacent, but they only talk about God in like 2 scenes of the movie. So it's kind of weird because it's produced by this big Christian company and a church plays a big role in the movie. But like, it's the least overtly Jesusy of any of these movies. But it's got that, Like it's a wonderful life type feeling where you know what I mean? Like it's, you know, there's no supernatural elements or anything like that. But the same way that, like, George Bailey and all the people around him embody the virtues that we talk about in Christianity, that kind of thing's happening here.

19:34 I was the only person in the movie theater that saw this a few weeks ago, 'cause it had been out for a month or two. I wept like I cried hard at this movie frat. Didn't have a. Didn't have a Coco experience. I no, it wasn't. It wasn't like audible sobs, but I probably cried at like 3 different parts of this movie. Just a really, truly life affirming good ass movie. It was really good, dude. Yeah, I mean it makes sense for Hilary Swank though, 'cause they they made it seem like Clint Eastwood killed her at the end of $1,000,000 baby. So if she's still alive, I would imagine she'd be an alcoholic. Brad, before we get out of here today, you know, before we press record, you did say that there were two movies that did not fit this mold that we were going for today.

20:21 And folks, this is probably not the only time we'll talk about important movies in our faith development. But I want to give you the floor just for a minute, because you also had two suggestions for movies that have been really important to you. Yeah, I mean, I I don't know if they've been like, like highly formative in my faith, but they've definitely made me think more deeply about it. And those would be Tree of Life and Silence Tree of Life that I watched for the podcast about five years ago, which is wild to think about that that man, oh man, like dealing with the subjects of grace and law in a incredibly grounded and experiential way. Like, it's like it's taking this heady, theological, metaphysical arguments that Paul can have in Romans and grounding it in the experience of a human being in a way that feels relatable. Man, what a great film, good movie. And silence.

21:22 We we watched Silence a few seasons back, and I I think that there are so many important questions that we ought to be asking about suffering and about the seeming distance of God in the face of suffering and what that means for our faith. And while I like, I don't necessarily agree with all the conclusions that Scorsese comes to, I think it's important that he's having the conversation. So I I think those are two movies that you easily should go watch, and then you should come back and listen to our episodes and reach out to us, have a conversation about it, because I think they're really important films. What do you guys have planned for Easter bread? Haley so Easter is not a federal holiday, which means it's. Sunday.

22:14 But like, you're right, they don't even observe it on Monday or anything. Yeah, yeah. It's not. It's not an observed federal holiday, which means that Haley does not, you know, like it doesn't fall into like a holiday rotation where she only has to work it every three or four years. So all that to say, my wife will be working all weekend, my parents are coming down, I'm preaching on Easter at our church, and we're just going to hang out with the kids and have a good time. There you go, man. I watch you guys. Kind of the same. My brother-in-law has a has a big extended family that hosts Easter for like many tangentially related families every year, and they have a big Easter egg hunt for kids in the backyard. Yeah, it's cool.

22:56 There's probably going to be like 50 people there, so we're going to go there on Easter. I get to debut my my new pair of K DS on on feet this Sunday at church. They are like a very very light green with a a pink sole. Your boys gonna look good. Basketball shoes, yeah. I sure am, man. To church. I'm gonna look great, dude. Do you even respect your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? There's the judgmental attitude. We've been trying to avoid people hearing about our Christian faith. Put some dress shoes on, you peasant. All right. Well, from us here at Film and Whiskey and especially Judgmental Brad, we want to say Happy Easter, whether you observe it or not, enjoy the weekend.

23:40 Please check out some of these movies that we recommended today. I think that more than a lot of stuff that's coming out today, they actually take the the idea of faith, the struggle of faith seriously. And I'd love to hear from you guys about which ones of these films speak to you. If you want to reach out to us, you can find us on all of our social medias Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok or YouTube at Film, Whiskey or. You can reach out to us on Discord. We are on there every single day talking to you guys, fans of the Film and Whiskey Podcast. So if you want to talk about Easter Christian related films, you can find a link to our Discord at the end of every single one of our show notes.

24:20 We'll be back on Tuesday with another regularly scheduled episode, but until then, I'm Bob Book. I'm Brad G. And we'll see you next time.