Five Films

Jesus Camp

Definitely a very interesting look at American evangelical Christianity. This film looks at a camp called "Kids on Fire School of Ministry." The film is not looking at evangelicalism as a whole but rather putting this specific camp and it's administrators under the microscope. I found the movie to be well made and well organized. I was disapointed when they included radio interviews from the talk show host Mike Papantonio. If they would have left him out, the movie would have been very objective and would have caused more people to question the way Christianity is constructed in the US. But because he is in it, Conservatives have cast this movie aside as liberal propaganda. Nonetheless, I still liked it. Matthew's grade: B

Mr. Death

This film chronicles the rise and fall of Fred Leuchter. Leuchter is a man who designs execution equipment for a living. He has designed electric chairs, gas chambers, and lethal injection machines for America's prisons despite not having a formal training in any of these fields. The bulk of the film speaks about how Leuchter was hired to study the gas chambers of Aushwitz. Leuchter comes to the conclusion that there were no gas chambers at the death camp. The film maker, Errol Morris, interviews holocaust deniers, and shows Leuchter's experients and basically persuades his audience how absurd these notions are. The interviews are incredible. Matthew's grade: B+

Inglourious Basterds

This could have been a blog in itself. Tarantino finally finished the project he has been obsessing over for the past decade. He calls it his masterpiece. While I loved the film, it was not as great as Pulp Fiction. However, the characters are fully realized, the plot over the top as you should expect, and plenty of Taratino dialogue to go around. I was particullary struck by the performance of Christoph Watz as "The Jew Hunter." I think he might win an oscar. Matthew's grade: B+

Earth

For those of you familiar with the Planet Earth TV series, this is what I would call the condensed version. While I have not seen all of the Planet Earth episodes, this film certainly sparked more interest. Basically this film take snips from the series and forms it into a ninety minute film. The British version is narrated by Patrick Stewart (Professor Xavier) and the American version by James Earl Jones (Vader). We went the Professor Xavier route and were not disappointed. After the film was over I talked about the Great White Shark eating a seal for about 36 hours straight. Katie was got really annoyed. Matthew's grade: A

Young @ Heart

If you like light-hearted documentaries this is a must must see. It is about about senior citizens who are in a rock n' roll choir. They sing a diverse diet of music, ranging from The Clash, to John Lennon, to MoTown, to Sonic Youth, to Coldplay. One of the choir members, Fred Knittle, sings Coldplay's "Fix You," which pretty much changed my life. Matthew's grade: A-


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