Tag Archives: dvd

Interview with Erin Bethea

Posted on by
2

Note: This post and interview is cross posted at Hollywoodjesus.com. 

“What is the highlight of your career?”

JA08_3505_colorErin Bethea paused for a few seconds, unsure how to answer the question. Some might argue that it was starring opposite Kirk Cameron in the independent film Fireproof. And they may be right. The role as Cameron’s wife changed Bethea’s career path. Others might say it was landing her first professional appearance as sportscaster Alicia Houston in the hit Facing the Giants. Or, it could have been the four years she was Belle from Beauty and the Beast at Walt Disney’s Magic Kingdom.

Born and raised in South Georgia, Bethea got her start in professional acting after graduating from the University of Mobile with a Bachelor of Arts in Theater. Her role as Alicia in Facing the Giants was her first professional gig.

The pause before Bethea’s answer does not evince uncertainty about her work, but a humble heart. “I have been privileged to work with some awesome people,” she finally says. And that privilege has led her to starring in the film This Is Our Time.

this-is-our-time-posterThe film is the interwoven stories of Luke (T. J. Dalyrmple) and Ale (Erin Bethea), who marry right after college and move to India to serve as missionaries in a leprosy village; Catherine (Kate Cobb) is an aspiring financier who joins a prestigious financial institution with the determination of changing corporate America; Ryder (Matthew Florida) lands an incredible job in social media and is eager to use the powerful medium for a greater good; and finally, Ethan (Shawn-Caulin Young), who serves as the odd-man-out character, struggles to find his vocation in life.

Vocation is what the film is all about. Each of the characters struggle with discerning who they are in a post-graduation world. Even when they think they have found out what they are to do, they bump up against different barriers. What they each discover is that God instills a calling in all our lives. Indeed, Bethea feels that God gives us two callings: “The first is God calls us to some path, plan, or action. It could be ministry, medical, or education. The second is the call to who we are as faithful and obedient followers.”

The film’s theme of calling is something that Bethea hopes viewers will connect with. She does. She has come to understand her own calling in the medium of film: “God gives me these gifts and passions, so I go in that direction.” She thinks the film could be a great conversation starter for young people who are discerning what direction their lives will take. She hopes it will help them consider in what ways God is calling them to fulfill a purpose. And, as Bethea points out, “It may not be what we intended it to be, but it’s all for God’s glory.”

Possibly the most amazing part of the film are the scenes at the leper colony in India. Bethea said that those days shooting there were life-changing and educational. “It was like something back in the Bible,” she remembers. The movie-makers worked with the organization Embrace a Village. Embrace a Village is a Christian based, non-profit organization that transforms the lives of those affected by leprosy by raising the standards of living.

Bethea remembers with great fondness meeting one older lady in the village. She was only about sixty pound and had neither hands, feet, nor nose. “She didn’t look human,” Bethea recalls. But despite her small size and her handicaps, during the singing of praise songs, she sat in the front row and her voice rang loudest. While this woman is unlikely to have survived, Bethea finds peace in the knowledge that she is no longer in pain.

This humble meeting with a woman whose name we may never know might just be the highlight of her career.

Seuss on the Loose (1973)

Posted on by
Reply

The new DVD/Blu-ray Green Eggs and Ham and Other Stories gives us the TV short Dr. Seuss on the Loose.  This DVD/Blu-ray combo brings to a new generation the rhyming Seuss-parables.  The Cat in the Hat serves as the host for this 1973 TV special, a short 25 minutes in total length.  It features three Seuss stories, “The Sneetches,” “The Zax,” and “Green Eggs and Ham.”

The animation has been remastered for this new medium.  It is classic in every sense of the word.  The animation seems to jump right out of the Dr. Seuss books (who was involved in the making of this short).  The simplicity of the animation, unlike the animation in a lot of current cartoons, is not so overwhelming that it is distracting from the story.  The creators managed to squeeze into these short 24 minutes, musical numbers to reinforce the stories being told.  It’s almost as if the produces sat down with Dr. Seuss and gave him the opportunity to add more to his classic tales. While the animation and the music is clever, unique, and distinctly Seuss, it is the parable is the focal point.

Dr. Seuss has always managed to tell parables for the 20th century.  While his characters appear to be kid-friendly (and they are), his stories and morals are very much adult-needed. Dr. Seuss knew how to tell a story, and knew how to preach a sermon.

In “The Sneetches,” there are Sneetches with stars on their bellies and those without. The Sneetches without stars feel different and they long to be like the Sneetches with stars.  We can relate. There are those of us to appear to have it all and walk around with our noses in the air and teach our children to do the same.  Then there are those of us who long day after day to be like those others.  Wouldn’t life be so much better if we were?  Then, there are those in society who capitalize on our desires to be like others. Our media is filled with advertisements for things that will change our bodies, change our minds, change our wardrobe, and so forth. The lesson of “The Sneetches” is that you do not have to change yourself to be like everyone else, nor do you have to treat others poorly because they are not like you.

In “The Zax,” the North-bound Zax and the South-bound Zax bump into each other and neither will budge for the other.  This parable ends with roads being built around them.  Here in this parable, change is necessary. As Eric Erickson implies in his work, change happens. The world is changing constantly.  Are we going to be a part of that change, or are we going to dig our heels in the sand and not budge?

In “Green Eggs and Ham”, Sam I Am is endlessly trying to get the man to try his dish.  He refuses because he does not like it, though he’s never tried it.  How often we claim that we do not like something – a new style of worship, a new way of preaching, a new ministry – and yet, we haven’t tried it. Once the green eggs and ham are tried, they are loved.  You don’t know if you like, till you try it.

For those of us who claim the Christian faith, we claim a Savior who advocated for change.  The societal attitude that you must change to be like me, Jesus said needed to change. Because of Jesus, we no longer need to dig our heels into the religious rites and traditions that are empty and without meaning. Through the Holy Spirit, we can experience a change and new life in our traditions and transform ourselves and the world around us.

Read more hollywoodjesus.com reviews.

Franklin & Bash Season One

Posted on by
Reply

In 2008 the kooky legal drama genre took a hit when David E. Kelley’s Boston Legal was cancelled.  A short two years later, Franklin & Bash premiered on TNT, proving that the kooky legal drama genre is not solely in the hands of David E. Kelley. The first season is now available on DVD.  The DVD comes with an underwhelming handful of extras that include featurettes with brief interviews with the cast and the crew.

Franklin & Bash is about two young lawyers who are longtime friends: Jared Franklin (Breckin Meyer) and Peter Bash (Mark-Paul Gosselear). These two lawyers’ unconventional way of lawyering reminds us of Kelley’s now classic Ally McBeal and Boston Legal.  They do everything you would never imagine a lawyer doing.  As partners in their own law firm, they answer only to themselves. As the pilot episode unfolds, the pair win a case against the prestigious law firm Infield Daniels. As such, Stanton Infield (Malcolm McDowell), the firm’s major partner, recruits the duo despite the cries of the firm’s other lawyers, to work for him. They accept and the antics begin.

Peter Bash and Jared Franklin are to Franklin & Bash what Alan Shore and Denny Crane were to Boston Legal, which brings us to the other genre that this television show branches into, that of the bromance.  The bromance genre seems to have experienced a resurrection. In 1 Samuel of the Hebrew Bible we read about the friendship of David and Jonathan. David is the young man who would be king, and Jonathan was the current prince. An unlikely friendship, but one based on loyalty.

The French writer and thinker, Albert Camus, has said, “Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and by my friend.” Characters like Alan Shore and Denny Crane and Jared Franklin and Peter Bash remind us of the need for friendship.  We all need a friend we can talk to about the chaotic parts of life; someone who understands us when no one else does; someone to walk beside us in those chaotic moments; and someone to be crazy with.

If you’ve missed Boston Legal and its kookiness and bromanceness, Franklin & Bash will fill that void.

Team Snoopy

Posted on by
1

Team Snoopy is a moderate collection of Peanuts cartoons that focus on sports, mainly baseball. The DVD features the 2003 TV short “Lucy Must Be Traded, Charlie Brown,” where Charlie Brown painstaking has to decide what to do with Lucy, his committed yet dreadful right-fielder. The DVD also includes an episode from the shortly-lived Saturday morning cartoon show The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show from the mid-1980s. The episode includes Charlie Brown getting stuck as the mascot for Peppermint Patty’s baseball team… as a pelican. While Linus waits for the Great Pumpkin, the rest of the gang visit a bowling alley where Charlie Brown learns a new sport, and finally a cat from the neighborhood meets his match when Spike, Snoopy’s older brother, comes into town.

If ever there was a character from pop culture that embodies the struggles of humanity, it is Charlie Brown. We have all had moments where we felt like Charlie Brown. We can never quite seem to kick that football. We are walking in the shadow of someone else’s charisma. When we feel like a win is coming, the game gets rained out.

In the beginning of the Book of Habakkuk in the Hebrew Bible (Christian Old Testament), the prophet cries out to God about all the bad things that are happening. His cries are with a certain level of expectation. As in Habakkuk expects God to do something about it. In essence what he is saying is, “If you are God, you should be able to handle this.” With each crying out from Habakkuk, God responses that Habakkuk needs to wait. “I am doing something,” God says, “it might not be in your time, but it’ll be in my time.” Habakkuk was having a Charlie Brown moment.

In this DVD collection we learn from Charlie Brown the importance of staying in the game. Poor Charlie Brown never seems to get a win. In “Lucy Must be Traded, Charlie Brown,” he does his best to form a winning team, even going so far as to trade Snoopy! But at the end he realizes that winning isn’t that important. We see a Charlie Brown who recognizes that playing the game is more important than winning the game. Charlie Brown seems to adopt the attitude that Habakkuk does at the end of his Book.

Though the fig tree does not blossom, and no fruit is on the vines; though the produce of the olive fails, and the fields yield no food; though the flock is cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the God of my salvation. (3:17-18)

The lesson of Charlie Brown is that no matter what happens, even though it rains on your ball game; even though you wear an awful pelican costume; even though you… fill in the blank…; even though all of that stuff happens, we can still rejoice and exult and praise God. Why? Because no matter what we’re going through God is still there working in the midst of our struggles in God’s time.

If you’re having a rough day, remember Habakkuk, remember Charlie Brown. Hang in there, stay in the game, rejoice in God’s glory.

For more movie and DVD reviews, visit my blog on hollywoodjesus.com.

In the Land of Blood and Honey (2011)

Posted on by
Reply

A recent hollywoodjesus.com review.

In the Bible we see the tension between the Jews and the Samaritans. Jesus even used this tension in his storytelling (Parable of the Good Samaritan) and in teachable moments (the woman at the well). The tension between the Christian Serbs and the Muslim Serbs during the Bosnian War in the early 1990s has its share of similarities. Somehow hatred becomes so great that one does not see the humanity in the other. This is what writer-director Angelia Jolie serves us in her directorial debut of In the Land of Blood and Honey.

Set during the Bosnian war, the film follows Danijel (Goran Kostic), a Serbian solider, as he re-encounters Ajla (Zane Marjanovic), a Bosnian Muslim artist who is a new captive in the camp Danijel oversees. Their bond is greater than any distance between the two. Before the war, Bosnia was one of the most diverse countries in Europe. After one bomb, sides were created. And suddenly, there were differences that were not okay.  The relationship between Danijel and Ajla becomes a metaphor in itself for the war. Their struggles to maintain a relationship with each other resembles the struggle (and the madness) of the two sides fighting this war.

Just as Danijel and Ajla began a relationship before the war started, throughout the film we see evidence of friends on opposing sides.  After his general father tells Danijel to get rid of Ajla, he comes to her in tears asking, “Can I trust you?” This sums up the feelings of many of the characters during the war. Trust is a luxury no one can afford when in war.

The film is brilliantly made. The film was shot in both the authentic language version (which was released in theaters) and the never-before-seen English language version (both versions are available on the Blu-ray and DVD).  Jolie keeps the film in constant motion, brisk while holding the viewer’s attention. She swiftly moves into the realities of war from the onset. And she does not apologize for it.  War is hell. And Jolie captures that hell with respect and grace.

More importantly, perhaps for Jolie, the film gives voice to those so often overlooked in war and in war films: the women.

Danijel says at one point in the film, “Camps are an ugly part of war.” So true as Jolie shows us in an opening scene. Women have been captured and as their possessions are being taken from them, they are asked who can cook. Two women, thinking they can possibly get on the soldiers’ good side, offer what they can do.  One is a doctor, another can sew.  The latter is asked by a soldier about her sexual abilities. Before the woman can answer, she is taken and raped in front of the other women. We are jarred into the reality of war for women. The act of rape is a common instrument of war throughout history.  This act rattles the movie, and rightly so, as it rattles the viewers. Yet, this scene, and others like it, tug at the viewer’s heartstrings in way that causes us to keep watching, as ugly as it can get.

There seems to be an understanding that men in uniform have a license to rape. As if violence against neighbor is not bad enough, there has to be violence against women as well. Jolie is one of the few actresses who have been to Bosnia, and other countries, for more than just a photo op.  She has been on the ground and seen the injustice and oppression that women have faced. We can only imagine that these troubling scenes come from stories that she has heard or witnessed.

Just as there is a long history of the tension between Jews and Samaritans that some argue is evidenced in the Hebrew Bible, the tension between the Serbs and Muslims is long and rich. Most likely unknown by the average viewer, some Serbian history slips into Jolie’s film. Early in the film, Danijel’s father, the General (Rade Serbedzija), instructs Danijl in military matters. As he does so, he provides a short history lesson on the region that helps explain some of the tensions. Jolie sprinkles these history lessons throughout the film.  Some have complained that this move was unnecessary and disrupted the flow of the film. I found it extremely helpful and thought that the way in which she handled it was perfect. There was no flow disruption here.

Jesus in John 4 did the same when he spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well. This woman had three strikes against her.  She was a woman, she was a Samaritan, and she was known for sleeping around. All three were good reasons for a respected Jewish teacher like Jesus not to be seen with her, much less talk to her. But Jesus did it anyway. Jesus’ actions here challenge us to care for the “other”; to see a bit a humanity in the “other.”

But this is not an easy thing to do.

Danijel represents this ethical struggle. Why does he save Ajla?  Because deep down he is fundamentally a good person and it is the right thing to do? Or because his current circumstances have made him a bit selfish? This very human struggle paints the film as the Serbia army prepares to face NATO. And it is this struggle that brings the film to an unexpected close.

The DVD/Blu-ray features include a making-of featurette and deleted scenes. An extra bonus on the Blu-ray includes a Q & A with Angelina Jolie and actress Vanesa Glodjo.

For more of my hollywoodjesus.com reviews, click here.