Doubt (2008)

The horrible, horrible nun turns out to be---well, not "nice", but actively opposed to child molestation. Not to the point that she would pick up the phone and call the police, but she was against it. Her terrible personality turns out to be of some use as she confronts the vaguely hip priest she suspects of abusing the Catholic school's first Black student in the 1960's.

Calling the Catholic-laden NYPD might not have done much good anyway, and she did have other reasons not to after meeting with the kid's mother.

Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Viola Davis, Amy Adams.

The Verdict (Sidney Lumet, 1982)

Paul Newman as a once-prominent Boston lawyer now a washed up alcoholic. His friend, Jack Warden, has sent an easy case his way. A Catholic hospital gave a woman the wrong anesthetic and reduced her to a persistent vegetative state. All he has to do is accept a check from the insurance company but he's so outraged that he turns the money down without consulting his clients and goes to trial against the Catholic Church that has James Mason as their lawyer.

It seemed like a crap shoot. The trial really didn't go well for him, and the ending seemed like sheer chance.

Real trials aren't that dramatic. There was a civil trial I went to. The better lawyer in the case spoke calmly, especially when making objections so the jury wouldn't think he was desperate to keep them from hearing something.

But a lawyer taking a chance by going to court and the trial not being as dull as a real trial aren't valid criticisms of a courtroom drama. Is a less-stressful, low stakes story really what you want? They might have given Paul Newman clearer motivation. He gazes at the woman in the hospital and just seeing her in her state is enough to change his personality.

The doctors' conduct and that of the church's law firm was worse than it first appeared. 

Directed by Sidney Lumet, written by David Mamet. 

Larry King, Karla Faye Tucker

 I haven't changed my mind, but since I pretty much attacked Larry King after he died, here's something from Jeffrey St Clair on Counterpunch:

+ Larry King’s death row interview with Karla Faye Tucker brought the the moral depravity of the death penalty into the homes of millions of Americans and also punctured George W’s brand of “passionate conservatism,” as Bush was caught snickering and smirking at Tucker’s pleas for clemency. She was just another number in his mad rush toward killing 157 inmates.

The Defense of New Haven (2016)

It wasn't as cute as it might have been, which isn't a bad thing. A Christian movie, a military thriller performed entirely by children. A lot of the boys had beards or mustaches and seemed to play more than one role.

The kids weren't in the same age group. Most of them seemed to be about ten but there were also six-year-olds playing adults so it was like The Flintstones where Fred was twice as tall as Barney. Then they had a scene with a toddler who was actually playing a toddler. But since the adults were ten, she was a gigantic toddler.

I'm sure kids would like it. They were running around on elaborate kid-sized sets. They had steam powered boats and canals or waterways within the city. Their being armed with crossbows was perhaps less disturbing than having them shoot each other with guns. There were a couple of killings, but they didn't go overboard. Which was good. It can be confusing when they try to obscure the violence.

Like the old 1970's film Bugsy Malone, a gangster musical performed entirely by children. It took me a while watching that movie to realize that a kid being hit in the face with a pie was supposed to represent him being killed. Once you figured it out, it didn't make the murders any less disturbing. It'd be like having a spanking machine as a substitute for the electric chair but still having the kid die in it.

Free with Amazon Prime.

Coup de Torchon (Bertrand Tavernier, 1981)

 

It's been years since I read the novel Pop 1280 by Jim Thompson. The novel was set in Texas before World War One; this movie, based on it, is in French West Africa in 1938. They see World War Two looming on the horizon, but they assume it will be a repeat of World War One. The novel had the added element of the Sheriff having to run for re-election. 

Lucien Cordier, the only police officer in a small town in French colonial Africa, is lazy and ineffectual. He's physically humiliated by local pimps and by police in a nearby town who he turns to for advice. His wife is sleeping with a man she claims is her brother who lives with them. 

Lucien turns out to be a violent manipulative psychopath which is kind of nice at first. He's the least racist white character in the movie, but he does pretty much nothing for Africans. 

Available on the Criterion Channel.

Corpus Christi (Poland, 2019)

Poland is drab enough. At least people see it that way. This movie's desaturated color makes it worse. Movies with prison scenes are bad enough as it is. Most of it had kind of an interesting setting, a small Polish town.

Youthful offender Daniel gets out of juvenile prison where he served a sentence for second degree murder. He found religion there, which in Poland means he became devoutly Catholic. The priest tells him they don't let ex-convicts into seminaries. Which may be just as well since he has a sex scene in a restroom as soon as he's out of prison. I guess I can also tell you that headbutting is the young fellow's fighting technique of choice.

Daniel travels to a small town where a job awaits him at a sawmill. Instead, he puts on a clerical collar and claims to be an itinerant priest. He's asked to take over at the parish while the regular priest goes for medical treatment. He becomes popular for his unorthodox style but alienates much of the town when he takes an unpopular stand on a local tragedy.

Maybe it would make a double feature with Catch Me if You Can although, in Spielberg's movie, the imposter does nothing for anyone, steals millions of dollars and endangers people's lives. And yet that film would be the upbeat one.

Available on the Criterion Channel.

Kirk Cameron fleeing California

Remember when Kirk Cameron was humiliated by Christian movie producers? He had starred in a movie based on the "Left Behind" series and just a few years later, obviously realizing their mistake, they did a remake without him starring Nicolas Cage. 

Then there was the Saving Christmas fiasco. It was a terrible movie. It was the exact opposite of A Charlie Brown Christmas. At one point, Cameron says that materialism is good because Christ was MADE out of material. It's hard to imagine very many Christians being moved or touched by this.

That was 2014. Since then, Cameron's been in two short films and had a bit part in one feature.

Mainstream stars like Greg Kinnear, Jennifer Garner and Ewan McGregor are doing Christian movies now and making a monkey out of washed up "celebrities" like Cameron.

From The Hollywood Reporter:

Once the domain of Christian conservatives with dwindling name value like Kirk Cameron and Kevin Sorbo, faith-based films no longer are radioactive. They may not yet be attracting the Brad Pitts, but they are featuring actors who are not without choices — and these days, faith-based movies are a viable choice. David Oyelowo and Kate Mara teamed in 2015's Captive, a thriller in which they discover redemption. Ewan McGregor lent his name to the upcoming Last Days in the Desert, in which he plays Jesus. Also on the horizon, Renee Zellweger headlines Paramount's Same Kind of Different as Me, in which she plays a dying woman whose husband makes a spiritual connection. Such films hope to build on their appeal to Christian audiences — with marketing that courts influential pastors and church groups — by adding more familiar stars. [emphasis added]

I wish they'd just say "religious" instead of "faith-based".

You know how, when they have royal weddings, English aristocrats who don't get invitations leave town so if anyone asks they can say they couldn't attend because they were out of town?

Well, Kirk Cameron is moving to Texas. "I can't be in movies. I live in Texas," he'll soon tell people.

Cameron wrote somewhere:

"While there are many beautiful aspects of California, there are also some... not so great factors. and recently I've been tossing around the idea of looking for a new property and some land in another state, where taxes are lower, patriotism is higher, and biblical values of faith and family are celebrated."

I really don't see how patriotism jibes with religiosity, devotion to family or lower taxes.

He had a pretty good run. Stretched things out far longer than other former teen idols. Christianity really paid off for him. We'll see if he can keep it going and how he gets along with the Texans.