Boys' Bible Study Boys' Bible Study

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We continue our study of the great Kenya Cagle’s filmography with this psychological thriller about the most dysfunctional family to ever live… and die. Stacy’s family is haunted by tragic violence, from the disappearance of her mother to the imprisonment of her brother Leroy in a mental institution after he killed their father. Stacy now hides with her grandma “Momma” in a remote cabin in Long Island, but their plans to lay low are thwarted one dark and stormy night when Leroy shockingly turns up at their door, having escaped the institution. Leroy fixes himself a sandwich in an excruciatingly long scene as Stacy and Momma plan their escape. Guns are drawn, tires are slashed, and a helpful policemen is stabbed as the grandma/daughter duo attempt to reason with Leroy, who they’re worried could kill them in a confused rage. But is Leroy really the danger here? Food related memories, from Leroy’s bologna sandwich to Stacy and Leroy’s favorite gumbo as a child, could unlock the secret to twisted family history. This “Caglevision” film is barely a Christian movie, but it’s worth a watch to experience yet another one of Cagle’s overwrought family dramas where a mother figure is painted as the ultimate evil. Kenya Cagle is a truly inventive storyteller who directs compelling performances out of amateur actors, and even though he has a tendency to “lose the plot” and focus on story details we as viewers really don’t care about at all, it’s always impressive and entertaining to see what he can accomplish on a shoestring budget.
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To celebrate Father Dads’ day, we watched another film by the genius Kenya Cagle, the auteur behind the extremely watchable faith-based films THE BOY WHO SAW CHRIST and MY KING. We’ve noticed that all of Mr. Cagle’s films have in common that they are not afraid to show edgy adult themes in the context of presenting a faith-based message. FATHER DAD is no exception — it’s the first Christian film we can ever remember watching with an extensive rape scene. In the film, Madge has remarried a kindly man her kids call “Father Dad” after healing from her previous relationship with the evil Lucius, who until recently has been in prison for attempted murder. Lucius is out now and will do anything in his power to destroy Madge’s new life to get his kids back. Lucius’s evil schemes reveal dark truths about the prison system, mainly that many inmates are having gay sex with each other behind bars and becoming infected with HIV, endangering the women they pursue once they are free men. It’s a thrilling tale about sex, lies, and intrigue that never lets up its breakneck pace for the entire 2 hour runtime, a very rare quality in Christian films, so we can’t recommend FATHER DAD enough. Show it to your father who stepped up on this special Sunday.
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Happy NBA Finals! Helmut Brink is a little German boy who wants nothing more than to play the brand new sport called “basketball”. I know what you’re thinking. Didn’t we just fight a World War against the Germans? Why would we let them enjoy our (second) national pastime? But Helmut is a special little boy — he and his sister Brigitte were adopted as war refugees by a kindly Reverend of a little farming town in Washington, USA. They do their chores and say the Pledge of Allegiance like any other American schoolchildren, so they are allowed to have a little basketball as a treat. That’s the philosophy of school teacher Martin Conlon (played by Peter Coyote) in THE BASKET, a feature film for families released theatrically in the year 2000. Martin sees the men of his town struggling to pool their finances together to buy a new harvester machine, so he hatches the crazy scheme of putting together an amateur basketball team to compete for a tournament’s cash prize, having been trained in the exotic art by none other than basketball inventor James Naismith himself. Christians seem to love movie plots about people playing old timey sports — we’re reminded of SPIRIT OF THE GAME, a more recent Kevin Sorbo-fronted film about an early basketball tournament set in Australia. But THE BASKET goes beyond sportsmanship to weave a surprisingly complex plot with themes of war and immigration, set around the story of a fictitious opera DER KORB that was actually originally written and composed for this film. It’s still hard to imagine a film like this would ever have broad enough popular appeal to be released in theaters — it’s slow, goofy, pastoral, and much of the dialogue is delivered in a fake German accent. It speaks to a bygone pop cultural era where Christian stories were accepted in secular contexts because people appreciated their overt wholesomeness. Although THE BASKET may not be the most exciting sports film, it does feature one of the most shocking endings to a basketball game ever imagined. We can only hope James Naismith is smiling down at this film from heaven — in between teaching Jesus how to land the perfect free throw.
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Since the beginning of recorded history, it has never been possible for people with opposing viewpoints to agree on anything — until now. Los Angeles-based media company Jubilee Media describes their extremely popular MIDDLE GROUND YouTube series as a “social experiment” bringing together individuals with opposing identities or viewpoints for some civilized discussion (for a change.) Some of these matchups that were viewed millions of times include “Flat Earthers vs. Scientists”, “Men’s Rights vs. Feminism”, and “Millionaires vs. Minimum Wage Workers”. These are all juicy concepts, but this week Ash and Julian choose to review MIDDLE GROUND’s format by discussing their episode “Progressive Christians vs. Conservative Christians”, where Biblical literalists and deconstructionists smack down over discussion topics like abortion, LGBT rights, Black Lives Matter, and more.  We notice that MIDDLE GROUND’s flawed format is actually a great way for both sides to reveal their own classic biases and fallacies. Conservative Christians tend to claim their favorite Bible passages are literally true while blatantly ignoring others; meanwhile, progressive Christians love to just make stuff up that sounds nice and claim Jesus would support it. We spin our wheels about this for a while before moving on to a debate between Polyamorists vs. Monogamists, for no reason other than to gawk at its participants. We conclude that Jubilee Media, like Dhar Mann (another popular YouTube media production company who we have studied in multiple Boys’ Bible Study episodes), thrives on creating emotionally exploitative content that disguises itself as wholesome and balanced. No matter who wins on MIDDLE GROUND, we lose!
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God wants you to be kidnapped! Or at the very least, Christians are particularly equipped to endure a kidnapping because their faith in God keeps them patient and strong. This is the experience of Ruth Peterman, an ordinary Minnesotan woman whose life was turned upside down when she was kidnapped by two incompetent thugs who used her as bait to try to procure money from her husband, who works at a bank. We can’t find a lot of information on Ruth and her alleged kidnapping, nor can we find much of any info about the production of the film HELD FOR RANSOM, which is loosely based on her story. Her character has been renamed Eunice for some reason. Eunice is abducted from her own driveway in broad daylight and held for days by two criminals she names “Bill” and “Jerry”, who are continually stunned by her calmness and strength while being kept prisoner in a farmhouse in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She engages her kidnappers in lively conversation, attempts to convert them to Christ, and listens to hymns on the radio, while her faithful husband works with the FBI to ensure her safe return. Most of the dialogue in the film appears to be improvised for some reason, lending a weird gonzo tone to an eerily calm crime film set in the ultra-polite northern midwest region of the USA. There is a 20 minute section of the film that seems to be barely connected shots of cars driving around Minneapolis at night. It would be an otherwise straightforward crime film with an inspirational message, but bizarre production choices such as these and a luridly saturated color correction that make HELD FOR RANSOM a strange artifact of faith-based filmmaking. The message of the film is that faithful Christians need do no more than sit back, relax, and pray through the toughest moments in their life. Apparently Ruth’s faith was so inspiring it caused her real life kidnappers to write to her from prison, begging for her forgiveness; you’ll be begging Ruth for forgiveness too if you don’t add HELD FOR RANSOM to your watchlist!
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This Christian thriller shows how even a situation as scary and inconvenient as a bus hijacking can become a one-way ticket to salvation. Izzy is a privileged yet rebellious goth teen with a streak of dye in her hair, much to the disappointment of her Christian parents, who accidentally reveal to Izzy that she is adopted during a heated family discussion. Izzy’s life suddenly becomes a quest to find her birth parents. Fortunately, her boyfriend Grayson has an uncle Rex who is a private investigator and is able to locate Izzy’s mom, inspiring Izzy and Grayson to hop on a bus to meet her. Suddenly, a nightmare becomes reality — the bus is hijacked by a group of goons who kidnap Izzy, Grayson, and other passengers, demanding Izzy’s father pay  $2 million for her safe return. The psychological torment the kidnappers inflict on the passengers is the focus of most of SENSE OF URGENCY, and a series of bizarre plot twists transpire that would surely keep viewers on the edge of their seats if any of the surprises followed a coherent internal plot logic. Since none of them do, the final shocking reveal that spurs our protagonists to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior is way more insane than inspiring. Still, SENSE OF URGENCY is a fun and watchable faith-based film because it understands that a lurid story about domestic terrorism is more exciting than a dull chamber drama of people talking to each other about God. But what if I wanted a dull chamber drama about God? Don’t worry — since every character is trapped on a bus for an hour, we have plenty of time (and hostages) to kill.
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