Bölümler
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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.
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Eksik bölüm mü var?
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In the 1990s, filmmakers and audiences seemed obsessed with “magic men” who caused chaos in their communities while teaching everyone an important lesson. Some of these men were angels; some of them were just weird little freaks who made a big difference. Some examples of this: POWDER, MEET JOE BLACK, PHENOMENON, and another John Travolta starring film called MICHAEL. MICHAEL is an interesting hybrid magic man/religious film where this “magic man” archetype is also the archangel Michael from the Bible. This device allows the film to be safe-religious while not directly invoking Jesus, a storytelling technique also used by popular Y2K-era television show TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL. In the film, Michael is an angel discovered living in Iowa by tabloid reporters who specialize on documenting unexplained phenomena. When they travel to meet Michael, they find out he is indeed a real angel, but not in the way that most of us would expect to experience one. He is sweet, but with bad manners, and prone to seducing earth women because he’s very interested in sex with them. Michael also introduces new rules of angel encounters on earth: for instance, angels are only allowed to visit earth 26 times and they can only perform small miracles. Inventing fake angel tropes outside of the Bible is a very common device of these safe religious 90s films, usually used to tie up plot continuity issues. In the end, Michael’s secret mission is to unite the characters Frank (played by William Hurt) and Dorothy (played by Andie MacDowell) in a romantic love they will treasure forever. Although it’s a sweet but ultimately quite stupid film that uses half-baked angel powers as a cop out, MICHAEL is an extremely interesting study in trends of biblical imagery in mainstream pop culture of the recent past.
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This infamous sci-fi film is perhaps the church of Scientology’s biggest attempt to ingratiate itself with mainstream culture. BATTLEFIELD EARTH is based on a novel by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, whose end goal was to adapt this book into a Hollywood film. Hubbard made an attempt in the mid-1980s to produce the adaptation himself, but it failed, and Hubbard died in 1986. Hubbard had hinted to John Travolta, a prominent Scientologist, that Hubbard would have liked Travolta to star in the film. Travolta took it upon himself to bring BATTLEFIELD EARTH to life in the mid-90s, eventually co-producing and starring as Terl, the dreadlocked 9-foot-tall antagonist of the film. Travolta’s character Terl is a “Psychlo”, a colonial race of humanoid aliens on a universe-wide mission to strip less powerful planets of their resources. 3000 years in the future, earth is one of these planets. Johnny Goodboy is a human “man-animal” living like a post apocalyptic caveman and being hunted by the Psychlos. When Terl meets Johnny, Terl enslaves the human, thinking him inferior, but Johnny quickly adapts to Psychlo civilization and reads the historical Declaration of Independence which inspires him to thwart his captors with a daring escape. Although BATTLEFIELD EARTH doesn’t demonstrate much about the Scientologist doctrine, perhaps it proves that Hubbard’s main spiritual goal was aimed at the lowest heights possible — achieve fame and attention in the Hollywood system.
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We’re back with coverage of TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL, the television series that may hold the key to understanding the American psyche once and for all. The popular 90s and 2000s era show uses an “angel of the week” format as each story is about different angels inflicting themselves upon the lives of hapless humans. This week we focus on SIGN OF THE DOVE, a dueling angel experience which interweaves stories of Andrew (angel of death, portrayed by John Dye) and Monica (the show’s protagonist, played by Roma Downey) helping two humans whose life paths have woven for generations. Andrew tells us the story of a human family he’s been taking to heaven since the 1200s, including delightful time travel skits in period costumes (such as Revolutionary War-era powdered wigs.) Ben Mason is the last of this family; unfortunately he doesn’t know he’s about to perish in a bombing by his neighbor Nick Freeman, who doesn’t mean harm to Ben but wants to collect insurance money and will kill Ben by accident. The history of a freed African American slave could be the key that unlocks Nick’s humanity and prevents him from setting the fateful bomb. While we’re waiting at the edge of our seats, we ponder the angel logic of TBAA. Why don’t angels drink alcohol? Why do they make themselves visible to some humans but not all? What is it they can really do? TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL reviews have become our favorite fodder for podcast episodes because they are so dense with insane moments and inconsistent world building. Hopefully our review of “The Sign of the Dove” will be one you write about in your family Bible to remember forever.
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This stylized post-apocalyptic thriller is a unique example of a mainstream Hollywood blockbuster with overtly Christian themes, even if it stops just short of a true Christian message. Directed by the Hughes Brothers (MENACE II SOCIETY, DEAD PRESIDENTS, FROM HELL) and starring beloved leading man Denzel Washington, THE BOOK OF ELI depicts the Bible as a source of tremendous power in a fallen world. Eli (Denzel Washington) is a survivor of a nuclear holocaust, wandering westward on a mysterious mission with few possessions except for a large book that he treasures. When Eli crosses paths with local warlord Carnegie (Gary Oldman), Carnegie suspects that Eli’s book may be the Bible, which Carnegie himself has been seeking because he believes reading it will give him the power to control large groups of people. Carnegie is perhaps a metaphor for hypocritical conmen religious leaders who use Christianity as a way to acquire power and money, whereas Eli could represent Christ or even just a true honest believer who has made it his mission to spread faith into the world. This metaphor becomes even more clear when Eli’s quest is revealed to be delivery of the Bible to an enclave of secret archivists who will reprint and preserve it forever. The authenticity of Eli’s faith becomes even more clear when Carnegie does steal the Bible, only to be upset to find it is written in Braille, revealing Eli to have been blind the whole time. Despite being mortally wounded by Carnegie, Eli makes it to the archivists in time to speak the entire Bible to them as an oral tradition, ensuring its preservation. In the final scene of the movie, we see the archivists putting the newly reprinted Bible on a shelf alongside the Torah and the Quran. This ending, which is obviously inspired by the novel FAHRENHEIT 451 by Ray Bradbury, shows that THE BOOK OF ELI is not a truly Christian genre film — few faith-based films would equate the Bible and the Quran. To view THE BOOK OF ELI through the lens of faith-based film criticism is to see it as a religious cop out; hinting that the Bible is the source of spiritual truth but ultimately dismissing it as “just another book on a shelf.”
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We dip into cinematic classics of the silent age (before people learned how to talk) with 1923 classic SALOMÉ, co-directed by married couple Charles Bryant and Alla Nazimova. The latter stars as the titular SALOMÉ, a Bible character who has achieved historical infamy despite not being officially referred to by her first name. The story is provocative: a teenage princess dances seductively for her stepfather King Herod who promises her anything in reward; she picks the head of prophet John the Baptist, who is summarily executed and presented to her on a platter. Bryant and Nazimova’s SALOMÉ takes cues from the Oscar Wilde play on the subject, adding extra-historical depth to the characters to portray Herod's throne in the throes of self destructive decadence. Male characters are simpering and devilishly gay (note that Alla Nazimova herself was openly bisexual, so this feels like intentional camp rather than homophobia.) Fashions are extravagant and imaginative, seeming both historical and futuristic. Physical acting is taken to extremes: SALOMÉ is a truly exciting watch, showcasing how much depth of character is possible from a silent film. To watch SALOMÉ is to not only experience an avant-garde take on Bible story, but also to see human ingenuity on full display with no boundaries to self expression despite limitations by emerging technology. Unrelated, in this episode the Bible Boys also discuss our new obsessions in ultra contemporary media: Harmony Korine’s BABY INVASION and teen orthodox Jewish influencer Flynn Goldstein.
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If we had to nominate one piece of broadcast media to be “the best episode of television of all time”, in the shortlist would be this compelling TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL episode about human cloning, with a cameo by (an actor portraying) the legendary Albert Einstein. TBAA (as our listeners are well aware by this point) is a famous y2k era TV drama where a Greek chorus of angels inflict themselves upon humans going through moral crises. In this episode, a genetic scientist named Dr. Conover (portrayed by Annabella Sciorra who notably plays Gloria Trillo in THE SOPRANOS) is desperate for a child to call her own, so she fuses her personal longings with work and decides to give birth to a baby cloned from Albert Einstein. This doesn’t sit right with our favorite angels, Monica, Tess, and Andrew, who see human cloning as sacrilegious means for humans to “play God.” Monica becomes a bioethicist to monitor the doctor closely; meanwhile Andrew and Tess go back in time to tend to the dying Albert Einstein in his final days of life, to show Dr. Conover that even a brilliant man like her idol Einstein would be conflicted by the harmful effects caused by his life’s work. Like most TBAA episodes, “The Face of God” takes a hard ideological stance using incredibly convoluted evidence written by humans and delivered by fictional angels as a means to completely eschew narrative continuity and moral consistency. But UNLIKE most TBAA episodes, this one is the origin of the character Gloria (Valerie Bertinelli) who is by far our favorite angel and is created by God out of thin air in this episode as a “flex” by humans for wanting to make cloned animals. Get good!
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This Christian feature film about an aspiring DJ feels like a remake of the 2015 Zac Efron-fronted EDM movie WE ARE YOUR FRIENDS, but unfortunately is lacking a lot of substance both in its spiritual and musical themes. FACE THE BEAT is the story of Zack aka “ZDJ Grey”, a teenager who wants to escape the rat race by kickstarting his career as a DJ and music producer. The film uses a lot of EDM stock music to represent Zack’s creative output, which confusingly runs the gamut from chill house to lo-fi hiphop. Zack’s support system includes his divorced parents (a working-class nurse mother and a father who works in the music industry), his rich playboy friend Cooper who books him for gigs, and his vocalist girlfriend Ava who is played by notable Christian singer V. Rose. Zack feels discouraged in realizing his dream as a successful DJ, but eventually his dedication (and some crucial financial support from his father and Cooper) pay off to being discovered by a “music influencer” and artist representative at his first big gig, hinting toward a successful future in Christian music. You would think a movie like this would explore the sacrifices one must make to preserve personal faith in a secular industry, but it really doesn’t do anything like that at all. However, the film did inspire us to ruminate on what it takes to actually be a career DJ. Our DJ friend Pretty R1cky (@sobasedsopretty) joined us in the studio to discuss Los Angeles DJ politics, music as a force that comes directly from God, and their viral crucifixion tattoo that has earned them internet infamy.
Stream "DJ" by Pretty R1cky feat. Ash Nerve on Spotify
Follow Pretty R1cky on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sobasedsopretty/
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We were very intrigued to find out just how deep this cartoon anthology series of Bible stories would go into the story of Sodom. GREATEST HEROES AND LEGENDS OF THE BIBLE is a y2k era animated series of biblical stories tied together by live action segments hosted by none other than the legendary Charlton Heston. Heston is well known for his portrayal of Moses in THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, one of the most famous Bible adaptations in American film history, so he’s the closest thing we have to a primary source for life in Bible times. Heston delivers his narrator lines with the poise of an aged Hollywood legend, but the cartoons themselves are unremarkable and low budget, clearly cutting on key frames to save time and money. The low quality animation does a huge disservice to the tale of Abraham, one of the most notable characters in biblical history, who rejected idol worship and did the first circumcision. But all would have been redeemed if the cartoon were brave enough to condemn Sodom directly for the sin of homosexuality. Unfortunately, it does not — the most wickedness we see in Sodom is a man laughing at another man being whipped (non-sexually.) But the director of this series, William R. Kowalchuk, has a sexy secret: his only feature film credit is on an obscure Canadian soft core porn comedy called SUMMERLUST, which looks extremely stupid and is about two men going on a sexy fishing trip (finding hot babes, not fucking each other.) When will God destroy Canada for its sins of lust and pornography?
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Veteran Christian film director Rich Christiano is back with a riveting parable about a magician named Dexter whose life story is obviously meant to represent the life of Jesus. Dexter is a stage performer specializing in mentalism, drawing huge crowds with his special trick where he guesses audience members’ secret words and then gives them extremely specific life advice. Dexter’s advice is so good that audiences have started to believe he is a miracle worker. This draws the ire of the Pharisee-like Magicians’ Association, an elite club trying to maintain the sanctity of stage magic, who believe Dexter is tainting the art form by refusing to deny claims of his own supernatural ability. The Association ambushes Dexter with a public test, which he passes, but is punished anyway in a shocking plot twist. We recommend fans of Rich Christiano (and his brother Dave) tune into this genuinely entertaining new drama to enjoy the surprise for themselves, but we at Boys’ Bible Study will reveal that Rich Christiano is still in top form after over three decades of regular output in the faith-based movie space. We were a bit disappointed with 2020’s PLAY THE FLUTE but thought MINDREADER was an exciting new entry in the virtuoso director’s catalog. Joining us to review MINDREADER is our friend Brad Roelandt, a longtime associate of ours in the Los Angeles found footage comedy scene, whose feature-length found footage film IMG0000 (2023, co-directed with Collin Lapinsky) creates thrilling associations between thousands of unrelated unlabeled YouTube videos uploaded from phone cameras with default titles. Fast-paced editing weaves together the self-documented life stories of thousands of ordinary people, finding joy and order in the hilariously mundane chaos of human existence, the way a magician might reach into an empty hat and find a rabbit.
Watch IMG0000: https://bradroelandt.com/img-0000
Watch JOEY EARNS REWARDS USING THE MCDONALD'S MOBILE APP: https://www.nobudge.com/videos/joey-earns-rewards-using-the-mcdonalds-mobile-app-megh-and-clev-discuss-their-future-together
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THE GUARDIAN (2012) & FOSTER CARE (2013)
Inspired by our rediscovery of one of our favorite Christian directors on our episode last week with guest Louise Weard, we decided to spend this week immersing ourselves once again in Barbara Sundstrom’s work, getting a few notches closer to having watched her entire catalog. Barbara Sundstrom is a Texas-based former youth film ministry director with a career spanning several features and shorts, primarily focused on empowering a youth cast and crew by giving teens real film production experience. Each one of Sundstrom’s Cross Wind Productions films has a very unique story but tends to focus on “social realism” themes of sin and suffering among ordinary people. Sometimes, they dip into the supernatural: for example, 20 minute short film THE GUARDIAN, which is written by a film student of Sundstrom’s, portrays a miracle that occurs when a “hobo” might be an angel in disguise. Christian teen Tara loses her father in a car crash but gets a second chance to say goodbye when she meets the homeless Leroy who coincidentally received Tara’s father’s eyes in a cornea transplant after the fateful accident. Faith also brings an orphaned teen to unlikely protectors in FOSTER CARE, a story by Sundstrom about how Christians’ good intentions need follow-through to make a positive impact. When teen Bridgette is suddenly orphaned by her mother’s intentional drug overdose, she is taken in by a family at her local church who aren’t ready for the commitment they agreed to when housing a troubled teen. Bridgette fortunately is able to find herself with yet another more suitable couple in church, which has got to be one of the luckiest stories about the foster system ever told. Blurring the line between stark realism and complete fantasy, Barbara Sundstrom remains the kind of compelling voice in faith-based film that keeps us as Christian film podcasters hunting for the next big thing.
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This dark, gripping teen drama about a girl suffering from an eating disorder begins with a surreal carnival dream sequence where protagonist Nicole sees herself distorted in a funhouse mirror, seemingly instigating a pattern of binge-eating candy and purging. Stuck traveling in between the houses of her divorced parents, Nicole’s disorder becomes life-threatening after an electrolyte imbalance causes her to faint while horseback riding on her father’s remote ranch. Director Barbara Sundstrom is a lesser known but accomplished Christian film ministry director whose work we’ve celebrated for years on our podcast, especially her 2007 magnum opus THE SABER (about a marine recruit battling porn addiction.) Sundstrom does not shy away from intense themes in her work, which primarily stars the teenagers who work with her as a part of her film ministry project Cross Wind Productions. Teens deal with intense emotions, so Sundstrom must feel that teens can handle powerful artistic truths. The dark subject matter of IN THE MIRROR DIMLY combined with its forays into the surreal, sometimes intentionally and other times unintentionally through bizarre visual storytelling, make the film an essential watch for anyone who appreciates unique film experiences. Joining us for this week’s review is another singular filmmaker, but from a very different realm: Canadian edgelord auteur Louise Weard, whose star is rising with the recent success of her crowdfunding campaign for upcoming feature CASTRATION MOVIE PT. II. This will be a sequel to CASTRATION MOVIE PT. I, which last weekend drew two nights of sold out crowds at screenings in the Los Angeles area. Taking a break from her touring schedule to join us in the studio, Louise discussed the parallels between IN THE MIRROR DIMLY and her own work (mainly, tons of vomit sequences) and also dropped hints that Christian influences might creep into her upcoming CASTRATION MOVIE sequel.
Download Louise Weard's films CASTRATION MOVIE and COMPUTER HEARTS on Gumroad: http://louiseweard.gumroad.com
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We’re getting deeper into our exploration of popular American TV with Christian themes, now scraping into this seemingly forgotten spinoff series of TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL, also created by TBAA executive producer Martha Williamson. PROMISED LAND launched with a “backdoor pilot” in the third season of TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL where audiences met their new favorite family: the Greenes (Dad Russell, mom Claire, son Josh, daughter Dinah, mother Hattie, and roguish redheaded nephew Nathaniel.) Recently homeless, the family decides to nomadically drive their trailer around America after being told by an angel that their purpose is to help others. The American promise is a major theme of PROMISED LAND, leaning more heavily into an explicit endorsement of American values than TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL ever does. In fact, pilot episode “The Expatriate” centers around the Greene family helping a man who is moving from America to New Zealand after suffering a spinal injury from gun violence. It seems reasonable that a man who suffered a traumatic injury might want a change of scenery, but the Greenes (and thereby the logic of the show’s writers) seem to think it’s a sin to abandon America. It’s “ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country” taken to an extreme and delusional degree, with the Greenes adding value to America by inflicting themselves on average people’s lives who hold reasonable opinions. To get a broader sense of the vibe of PROMISED LAND, we also watch a late series episode where the show has completely abandoned the trailer-roaming angle of the show and the Greenes have settled down in Denver, CO. In the episode “What’s in a Word?” Nathaniel overhears cool black teenagers saying the “soft ‘a’ n-word” among themselves and, innocently not understanding the racial context, repeats this word to his own black friend in school the next day. This causes a massive stir within his community and ignites a conversation, poorly handled by the show’s writers, about racial dynamics in America. The conclusion? America is the greatest country on earth, no matter the cost.
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Prayer, Love, Unity, Respect: in this topical episode of popular 90s/y2k era TV drama TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL, angel-in-training Gloria goes to a rave and actually does ecstasy with the human teen boy she’s supposed to be protecting. Raves were a huge point of anxiety in pop culture in the y2k era. Although their colorful futurism and utopian optimism inspired a generation of media and fashion, people also had safety concerns about the newfound popularity of club drugs like ecstasy, leading to a large-scale moral panic. In the U.S. in 2003, then-Senator Joe Biden co-sponsored the RAVE Act (Reducing American’s Vulnerability to Ecstasy) aimed at bringing harsh legal punishment not just to drug dealers but also party promotors. It’s no wonder then that the writers of TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL felt they had to get the angels to mission to ravers directly: rave media is great fodder for exploitation, titillating with radical imagery only to deliver an anti-fun message. In HEAVEN’S PORTAL, angels Tess, Monica, Andrew, and Gloria meet a teen named Nick who is upset with his parents’ separation and has taken to smoking weed and looking at websites about techno. When he gets info about rave 40 miles away, he drives there with the gullible Gloria, who was only crated by God recently and knows little about the world. Immediately, friendly ravers in silly costumes hand them pills to try. What happens when an angel takes ecstasy? Does the world end? We invite our good friend Woodrow White, an artist and scholar of rave-themed media, to return to the show to debate moral dilemmas about raves, pleasure, and sin.
Follow Woodrow on Instagram: https://instagram.com/woodrow_white/
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Our new favorite classic television series is WALKER, TEXAS RANGER, a thrilling and campy show starring action film hero Chuck Norris in one of his most legendary roles. It’s a police procedural with the unique twist of depicting Texas Rangers as being skilled in martial arts and frequently involved in supernatural or otherwise extraordinary plots involving elements such as hostile Native American ghosts, white supremacist gangs, time travel, and deadly poison gas. We at Boys’ Bible Study have also recently been TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL, an intriguing companion piece because both shows were extremely popular 90s/y2k era franchises that blend conservative cultural values with pulpy, supernatural plot lines. This is evident in the WALKER episode we focus on for this week’s review: PARADISE TRAIL is a story where Walker and friends are being read a story about a 19th century bounty hunter in the Old West guiding a wagon crew of Mormon settlers crossing treacherous wilderness to get to Utah. The WALKER cast imagine themselves in various roles of the story, singing hymns and cooking meals with their pure and extremely Aryan-looking Mormon friends. The episode actually borrows plot points from real historic episodes involving Mormon settlers in the U.S., but like all good propaganda, misrepresents and distorts information to protect the honor of its sympathetic subjects; in this case, white American Christians. WALKER, TEXAS RANGER is much more successful than the Christian movies we usually watch at distilling Christian conservative values while still having broad cultural appeal.
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We are so thrilled to celebrate the 5 year anniversary of Boys’ Bible Study with you that nothing could hold us back — not even all the plagues and natural disasters God could throw at us as if to say, “It is not a very good idea for you spend this much time on your blasphemous podcast.” We attempted to record this episode two weeks ago, and right as we went to take a break, the power went off at Ash’s apartment, which led to a saga where Julian and Ash and many of our fellow Los Angeles friends had to evacuate the city to flee wildfires. But like Job, we endured our hardships and came back with our faith restored, ready to ask the hard questions that came up from yet another year of watching Christian films. For instance: what ultra-specific sect of Christianity can I join to further alienate me from my friends and loved ones? If Christ is dead, then why did He hug me in the bathroom? Should I install the “kill kill kill command” in my brand new robot? As is our tradition for celebrating another lap around the sun as a podcast, we spend the first half of the episode discussing the major themes we encountered in the previous year’s viewing, and then we honor Christian film excellence by giving out Golden Calf Awards in categories of our own choosing. Stay tuned to the 2nd half of the episode to see who won our 2024 Best Picture award. For those who dutifully tuned into the show over the past year, we think you’ll agree with our decision.
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As we await the great new Christian film of 2025, we realize there are still quite a few new offerings from last year that we at Boys’ Bible Study haven’t yet reviewed. Meet director Mignon Pinson, a faith-based film auteur as of yet unfamiliar to us, who seems to have begun her career in 2020 with a series of shorts and then a string of features primarily focusing on black Christian family life. MY PRIVATE LINE TO GOD is her latest film, which appears to be inspired by the famous verses Matthew 18-20 “Where two or three are gathered in the name…” It uses an adoption story to enforce key themes about the power of prayer and the importance of nuclear families attending church together. Married Christian couple Janice and Calvin are overjoyed to adopt their daughter, Joy, after being unable to have a child themselves. Joy is the answer to all of their prayers, but it seems that settling into life as parents causes them to take their blessings for granted. The couple start bickering about relatively minor things such as how many guests to invite to Joy’s 7th birthday party. Janice stops going to church because she becomes convinced the pastor “only cares about the tithes.” This confuses Joy, who retreats into prayer by calling God directly on the brand new phone she receives as a birthday gift. MY PRIVATE LINE TO GOD ends up being a film about how the precocious and sincere prayers of a faithful little girl can work real world miracles. It’s a wholesome Christian family film, but not without its narrative inconsistencies: Janice and Calvin’s fights are completely arbitrary and their stated viewpoints are frequently conflicting dialogue from earlier in the film. Dialogue is often delivered in a stilted tone that feels inhuman and unrealistic. Still, we’re always excited and intrigued to add a new directorial voice to the BBS “pantheon” and think Ms. Pinson has a lot to contribute to the faith-based film scene as a contemporary 2020s voice.
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Due to evacuating from the Los Angeles fires, for the first time ever in our 5 year run as a show, we were unable to deliver a new weekly episode. Instead, please enjoy this unlocked bonus episode from our Patreon vaults of one of our favorite things we watched in 2024. We are actually working on our special 5 year anniversary roundup/clip show, so we'll be back soon with brand new content. Thanks so much for your support!
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One of the most bizarre and singular pieces of Christian media we’ve ever watched is this dreamlike documentary from the minds of father/daughter writer/director team Derek and Vanessa Frank, who assembled some of the biggest names in Christian film history to shake the Protestant Reformation down to the “demonic conspiracy” at its very core: the anti-Semitic teachings of Martin Luther and John Calvin. In LET THE LION ROAR, Kevin Sorbo, Stephen Baldwin, Eric Roberts, John Schneider, and young up-and-comer Ben Davies star as 16th-century European historical figures who don funny hats and monologue their virulently anti-Semitic views to the camera for extended scenes, some lasting for several minutes at a time. Writer Derek Frank believes that the major weakness that plagues Protestantism is its insufficient respect for the Jewish faith and an unwillingness for the Christian church to become fully “grafted into Israel.” Mr. Frank has written five more “theses,” to add to Martin Luther’s famous 95 Theses of 1517, that propose full deference to Jews from Protestants that he hopes will heal Christianity and save it from vague, unitarian sluggishness that he reads as weakness. This is an ambitious and extremely boring goal to try to sell to an audience, but the Franks make it fun with uncanny corporate stock footage and a series of costume changes that make Derek Frank look like the Architect from The Matrix, if that character were a hardcore Zionist. In general, Derek Frank’s extreme passion for his case of “finishing” the Protestant Reformation is what sells this documentary — he gazes directly at the audience severely like a cat that has just cornered a mouse and wants to talk to it about Israel for an hour before dealing the death blow that will wipe it out of existence forever. The Lion of Judah is a lion after all, and Derek Frank teaches us that to hammer your point home, you must approach your argument with the ferocity of an apex predator.
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There’s a chance that the long-running CBS drama TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL is responsible for the contemporary American spiritual sickness as it manifests today. (Even if that’s not true, it feels true, and that’s what’s important.) The extremely popular y2k era TV show depicts a troupe of angels trying to help humans on earth while adhering to a weird corporate power structure that dominates life in heaven. Tess (Della Reese) is the mother angel; Monica (Roma Downey) is a “search and rescue” angel who reports to her; Gloria (Valerie Bertinelli) is training for life on 21st century earth and is really bad at it; Andrew (John Dye) is an angel of death. Together they are case workers helping humans in need. We’ve previously reviewed another season 8 episode “Chutzpah” where the gang of angels meet a self-hating Jewish antisemitic cartoonist. Today we review “Minute by Minute”, where a nun with a dark past must prevent a Columbine-style bombing of a Catholic school before it’s too late. Time is of the essence, but you wouldn’t know it from the angels in this episode, who spend tons of time frittering away at the local diner or refusing to use their powers to even encourage a human to pull the fire alarm or call the police. The lore of how angels are allowed to interfere with human lives in this show is incredibly confusing, especially noticeable when trying to prevent a mass casualty event. That’s why MINUTE BY MINUTE is an incredible piece of television that has undeniably influenced the way Americans view Christianity. Angels in American life are beautiful and wholesome yet ideologically confused, clumsy poltergeists.
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