Blue Like Jazz: Christianity Without Religion

Disclaimer:  I am blessed to go to a biblically sound, Christ-centered church.  None of my remarks in this review are directed towards anyone there.

Here's the PR summary for Blue Like Jazz, outspoken Christian Steve Taylor's 2012 indie: "Don, a nineteen-year-old sophomore at a Texas junior college, tries to escape his Bible Belt upbringing for life in the Pacific Northwest at Reed, the most godless campus in America."

We all know what's going to happen next:  Our hero finds himself persecuted at said college and changes his beliefs in order to fit in.  However, after a personal tragedy, he attends youth group and decides to turn his life around.  We then watch a montage of the character volunteering at soup kitchens, inviting his heathen friends to church [all set to popular Christian music], bringing the youth group together, and basically being the nicest guy on the planet.  The film ends with the youth group [and a few of the now-redeemed heathens] celebrating their togetherness during a worship service.

Except that's not what happens.  

Or there's the other scenario:  The hero holds on to his Christian beliefs for a while...until he meets a free-spirited girl and fun-loving guy who show him the beauty of 'individuality'.  Throwing his beliefs to the wind, the character engages in every kind of hedonism possible, finding freedom without rules.  At the end, he apologizes to all of his newfound friends for being an intolerant Christian and they all go out for drinks.

Except that's not what happens either.

Except in a way, both happen.

Let me explain.

Blue Like Jazz is a little film that most people haven't heard of.  After reading a glowing review, I wondered why it wasn't better known.  So I did a little digging.  First of all, it's based on a book:  Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality.  And I got my answer.  The reason?  Well, with all the superheroes, presidents and singing beggars running around Hollywood as of late, it's fairly easy to fall under the radar.  I then turned to the Christian community.  Although it's admittedly crowded with football teams and crime-fighting dads, the problem isn't that Blue Like Jazz fell under the church's radar; the problem is that the film has been disowned by the Christian filmmaking community.  With some more digging, I found out that Sherwood Pictures [the company behind Facing the Giants, Fireproof, and Courageous] has actually forbidden anyone who worked on BLJ to work with them in the future!  

I had to find out what the fuss was all about.  And so I turned to Netflix, which just happened to have the movie in its 'new releases' section.

The hour and forty-five minutes following would impact me like no movie has done in a while.

My Rating:  8/10

The Good:  First of all, many of the things I liked are reasons why Blue Like Jazz has been excommunicated from the Christian filmmaking world.  Now that we've got that out of the way....

1)  Realism.  So often in Christian movies, when characters are exposed to "the world", the worst they experience is a recovering alcoholic or someone who cheats on tests.  But that's not how real life is, and that's certainly not how college is.  BLJ doesn't gloss over that.  Don, our hero, gets drunk.  He defaces public property.  He attends frat parties.  He cusses.  None of these are things I encourage by any measure.  But they're things that actually go on in the big bad world.  Don's experience shows us that everyone is susceptible to sin.  Furthermore, main characters include a homosexual and a guy who goes around campus dressed as the pope.  As much as the Church doesn't want to admit it, these people exist.  And not just as stereotypes.  They're just as broken and, ultimately, just as human as any of us.  At the end of the day, the movie presents an accurate portrayal of the struggles every human being experiences--and the church as well.  It deals with real issues, not ones sanitized for the sake of being family-friendly.

2)  Showing [not telling].  Also in Christian movies, characters learn most about Christian life by listening to sermons--sermons that we as viewers are also privy to.  And while I am certainly an advocate of churchgoing, church does not a good film make.  As Don explains near the beginning of the movie, "Life needs to be experienced".  And so he does: Don experiences every bit of life, from clichéd youth group lock-ins, to alcohol-filled parties, to a lighter, more redemptive church service.  The key, however, is not that Don experiences all these things; it's that we experience them right alongside him.  Don and his friends' search for meaning is not as much told through lines as it is shown through clever symbolism and actions.  And that makes for a beautiful film indeed.

3)  Satire.  Ever since the days of Socrates, satire has been one of the most effective storytelling tools.  Blue Like Jazz, whatever else it may be, is a satire--and an absurdly hilarious one at that.  At the beginning of the film, viewers are treated to a snippet of church life almost everyone can relate to, as Taylor satirizes the cliché brand of worship sweeping across America today.  Then, as Don transitions to Reed, the satire moves to college life, complete with outrageous student clubs, wild parties, and more stereotypes than High School Musical.  Although both scenarios produce amusing and often hilarious scenes, they bely a deeper truth: somewhere along the line, both parties went wrong [something we'll get to deeper in a moment].


The Bad:  Fun fact:  Steve Taylor, director and co-writer, is best known for being a rocker.  Fun fact #2:  A great rocker does not a master filmmaker make.  Taylor tries.  Oh, he does.  But the script still falls short in many ways.  The low budget is apparent.  And the actors are mostly forgettable [although each are believable enough].

And yet somehow, none of that really matters by the time the credits roll.


The Message:  Based on a book of essays, Blue Like Jazz conveys several different messages:

1)  We're all at fault.  In our culture, Hollywood sneers at the church while the church declares Hollywood to be the devil incarnate.  Gay rights activists accuse Christians of being intolerant while Christians accuse liberals of having no souls.  Mainstream movies make fun of Jesus Christ and His followers while Christian movies portray secular people as evil heathens.  Think back to our two opening scenarios.  The first is your typical Christian movie.  The second, your typical Hollywood comedy.  But rather than take a side, Blue Like Jazz points fingers.  At everyone.  It calls Christians out for hypocrisy, while chastising unbelievers for making Christians into a caricature. And that leads me to the second message...

2)  We're all broken.  Before the film began, Don was abandoned by his pothead father [known only as The Hobo].  Near the middle of the film, he's again devastated by a surprise announcement from his mother and his former youth pastor.  Pretty activist Penny has been hurt by her mentally insane mother.  We later find out that the reason Don's pope lookalike classmate hates God so much is because he was abused by the church.  Even Russian transfer student Yuri experienced the execution of his grandfather.  Everyone in the film has been hurt by something or someone.

3)  We all have value.  Not only has everyone in Blue Like Jazz been hurt and broken; everyone also as value.  Don wants to find purpose and love others.  Penny wants to alleviate poverty.  Lauryn [Don's lesbian friend] wants love [even if it is the wrong kind].  Yuri wants to find a better life than his grandfather's.  The Pope, we're told, wants to spare others from the kind of abuse he endured.  And Don's childhood friend Jordan?  Well, he wants to leave behind his life of tobacco-chewing, drinking, and partying, and find meaning.  Speaking of which...

4) We're all searching for meaning.  Ultimately, Blue Like Jazz is all about man's struggle to find meaning.  This is represented in Don, the everyman, as he searches for that meaning. He doesn't find it as a youth pastor's assistant, as he encourages kids to beat down cross-shaped piñatas and preaches Jesus to be merely an amigo.  So he goes to Reed, and attempts to find meaning in social nonconformity.  But that doesn't work either.  So he tries hedonism.  But that only lands him stuck in a latrine.  Symbolically, Don can't find the beginning of any meaning until he is quite literally rescued by a kindly priest whose church he has tormented.  That night, he ponders his father's words, that life is "like jazz, because it doesn't resolve."  But that's not enough.  Don then goes on to wonder, "...but what if we're not alone?  What if [the stars] are notes on a page of music written by God, swirling in the blue... like jazz?"  It is then that Don finds meaning.

5)  The church is not the answer.  As I've mentioned several times, characters in Christian movies have a tendency to only get their problems solved...when they go to church.  The hero is often the youth pastor, with the worship leader [guy or girl] as the love interest.  But Blue Like Jazz takes that cliché and turns it upside down, instead exposing the hypocrisy found in the American church of today.  If there's a 'villain', it's Don's former youth pastor.  There's also a tendency, not only in Christian movies, but in Christian churches as well, to have a mentality of sticking together as Christians and staying safe in churches.  Of course, the inherent problem with this M.O. is that, should we as the bearers of the Gospel stay in church and never get out into the world, the world will never hear the Gospel.  This is another issue that BLJ tackles head-on.  Don and Penny live in the real world.  But by the end of the film, it's apparent that the two of them are able to minister more than the former youth pastor.  Finally, it should be noted that the church is not portrayed as being intrinsically evil; one of the most sympathetic characters is the unnamed priest of the church next to Reed [the one who rescues Don].  Although he appears less than 5 times throughout the entire film and has the least lines of possibly anyone, it is this priest [along with Penny] who teaches Don what it truly means to be a follower of Christ.


The Bottom Line:  When Don is pondering whether to attend Reed or a Christian college, his father tells him to "improvise.  Write your own...story."  In a way, that's what Steve Taylor and company do with Blue Like Jazz.  Rather than conforming to the norms of Christians films, BLJ goes its own way.  Actually, it is in no way a Christian film.  Not only because it is neither family-friendly nor superficially sentimental, but because it portrays Christianity as something woven in to everyday life--not something separate from the rest of life.  Rather than glossing over church hypocrisy, Blue Like Jazz exposes it.  Rather than sanitizing college problems, Blue Like Jazz gives an acute portrayal.  It calls out both sides of the culture war, encouraging Christians that the way to bring others to Christ is through love, all the while encouraging nonbelievers to love Christians. 

And yes, Blue Like Jazz is getting lots of flak.  It will continue to do so.  It's not for everybody and certainly not for children.  But for me, it works.  In fact, it's so good that, if you have Netflix, you need to watch it right this moment.  If there's a Redbox or a library nearby, go immediately.  You won't be sorry.

At different turns hilarious, profane, relatable, and heartwarming, Blue Like Jazz ultimately points to a God whose aim is not to help teams win football championships or save marriages, but to use broken, everyday people as part of His Story.

And that gives me a jazzy feeling indeed.

Zero Dark Thirty: An Epic Tale of Hide & Seek

They say the top 3 hide & seek champions of all time are Waldo, car keys, and Osama Bin Laden.  Since Waldo belongs in books and a movie about car keys would be incredibly boring, it seems natural that someone would want to make a movie about what has been dubbed the greatest manhunt of all time.  Academy Award-winning director Kathryn Bigelow was up to the challenge.  And thus we get the Oscar-nominated film Zero Dark Thirty, telling the real story of the hunt for Osama Bin Laden.

My Rating:  8/10

The Good:  Many critics have sung the praises of ZOD, and I would like to concur.  Although there's a lot to appreciate here, there are 3 main things that make it work:

 

1)  The Acting.  Without a strong leading lady, ZOD would be simply forgettable.  Mercifully, this is not the case here.  Jessica Chastain may have lost to Katniss—I mean, Jennifer Lawrence—in the race for Best Actress, but her performance as headstrong CIA operative Maya is Oscar-worthy.  Chastain carries the weight of the entire film, all the while making us believe that she will find Osama Bin Laden.  And when she does, we celebrate with her.  But Chastain's not the only expert here.  Her mission to catch Bin Laden is helped along by strong showings by Jennifer Ehle {yeah, tis the season for ladies with J names} as Maya's doomed co-worker and Jason Clarke as foul-mouthed CIA agent Dan.  Basically, everyone puts their best foot forward and makes the entire operation completely believable.

 

2)  The Mission.  Perhaps the final 45 minutes-1 hour of Zero Dark Thirty is spent solely on SEAL Team 6 and the planning and carrying out of the actual mission to kill Bin Laden.  Was it exaggerated for dramatic effect?  Probably.  Do I mind?  Not really.  Maybe it's a small thing, but watching the SEALs bravely risk their lives gave me a sense of pride in the United States, especially knowing that they do such things every day.  The special forces don't get enough gratitude in the national media, and it was refreshing to find them thrust into a positive spotlight here.

 

3)  The Realism.  The film begins with a completely black screen, save for the words "September 11, 2001".  We see nothing else.  Rather, we listen as a myriad of frightened victims, family members, and 911 operators make calls.  It's an artsy move; a mature one; and most of all, an effective one.  This simple sequence sets the tone for the entire film.  Many a respectable filmmaker would have succumbed to the temptation to over-sentimentalize the hunt for Osama Bin Laden.  But not Kathryn Bigelow.  She takes a less-is-more approach that actually makes the entire movie more dramatic.  The understated music provides a believable, while never overwhelming, backdrop.  The camerawork, though at times shaky in the popular style, remains mostly stable.  The characters, while fully fleshed-out, tend not to over-emote.  And the script, rather than wasting time with emotional scenes, is straightforward.  All this makes the scenes with lots of emotion more dramatic.  The best part, however, is that this approach is carried through even to the end.  We all know how this story ends: the SEALS kill Bin Laden, Maya is vindicated; you would expect a celebratory ending with swelling music followed by slides of what happened to the characters afterwards set to an inspiring song.  Instead, Bigelow just ends it.  That's all.  There is no inspirational song, no celebration.  It's fitting for a film that centers on the killing of a notorious terrorist.   And it is this realism, carried throughout all of Zero Dark Thirty, that make it, while not exactly enjoyable, realistic.  

The Bad:  Of course, this realism isn't always a good thing.  Which leads me to 2 things I didn't particularly like:

 

1)  A slow middle.  This is a minor quibble, but it bears repeating nonetheless.  Yes, the hunt for Osama Bin Laden is naturally an exciting subject.  ZDT begins with a fascinating angle and ends with the actual mission.  But in the middle, things get rather slow.  I couldn't even tell you what happened during this time.  However, things pick back up once the SEALs come onscreen and it's definitely not something that would keep me from watching.

 

2)  The Realism, Redux.  Realism in a film is almost always a blessing and a curse, and Zero Dark Thirty is a prime example.  And while realism is a great thing in a movie like this, Bigelow at times takes it too far.  A man is brutally tortured.  People are blown up.  And the SEALs take no prisoners.  The camera looks on unflinchingly as all of this occurs.  I get that it's all true-to-life and don't doubt that it actually happens.  But that doesn't mean we need to see it all.

The Message:  One incredibly interesting thing about Zero Dark Thirty is that there really is no message.  It remains melancholy to the end, never overtly celebrating Bin Laden's death.  Normally, that would bug me.  But here, what message could you really send?  And so it works.  Bigelow doesn't as much give the audience life lessons as she does give everyone something to think about.  And that is an effective tool.  Although, with all this said, it should be noted that Maya's stubbornness and refusal to give up despite the worst of circumstances is admirable.  Likewise, the SEALs' courage gives the viewer patriotic pride.

The Bottom Line:  Kathryn Bigelow set out to tell the story of the greatest manhunt on earth.  She succeeded.  By going for melancholy and realistic, rather than sentimental and over-the-top, Bigelow creates a dramatic effect.  Add in some Oscar-worthy showings from the cast and a thrilling second act, and you have a truly exciting true story.  

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go find Waldo.

Salutations, Introductions, & a Disclaimer

As a little girl, I loved movies.  I was never happier than when I was watching a Disney movie. As I grew older, my parents introduced me to Indiana Jones, the Sound of Music, Christmas Vacation, and other such classics.  Now, as a 16 year-old, I still love movies.  Why?  Because I've discovered that, when made correctly, a movie is so much more than just a movie.  Movies entertain us.  They make us cry and the next minute make us laugh.  They enlighten us and make us think deeply about murky issues.  They educate us and parody everything around us.  Most of all, movies inspire us. 

 

And that's one of the reasons that I started this blog.  Because, as a follower of Jesus Christ, I believe that changing the world can be done...with movies. 

 

I also believe that many fine, upstanding Christian movie critics are missing the point of movies.  It seems that most of their reviews these days are to the tune of "this movie has no depth beyond telling us that friendship is good, but it's rated G and so everybody should see it" or "this movie has an incredible message and is wonderfully made, but it has an f-word and so nobody should see it".

 

But that's not the point.

 

My other reason for this blog is to review movies for people who want to know what can be learned from a given film or how well-made it is.

 

This is where I should probably add a disclaimer:  I will not be reviewing movies based off of "adult" content.  I will be reviewing them based off of artistic merit and the overall message.  If you're a parent, older sibling, or babysitter looking for films to watch with children, I highly recommend Plugged In {by Focus on the Family}.  Do I necessarily like it when directors feel the need to have their actors cuss and engage in unbiblical behavior?  No.  Do I necessarily believe that should keep someone from watching and learning from a film?  No.  {I'll probably get some heat for that last answer...}  Now, obviously there comes a point when 175 f-words and nonstop gory violence becomes a problem.  I try and stay away from those movies.  But I will also say that, should I somehow watch a film where the content becomes a distraction, I will put that in my review.  It just won't be the main point of most of my reviews.

 

With all this said, I hope you'll take this journey with me as we explore the wonderful, scary {wonderfully scary?  Scarily wonderful?} world of the cinema.

 

Carpe diem!

~Elle