Month: April 2016

I Saw The Light

If you don’t know who Hank Williams is, then you are probably not an American. Or at least not a Southern American. Which is okay in either regards, we will take all readers here at Gorgon Reviews.

He was a pretty big deal in the country music industry, and since Walk The Line got to be a big deal, it makes sense to see other country legends getting their own biopics. Hell, even the titles are similar with I Saw The Light. Verb the Noun and titled after real songs.

Here is really what I know about this film. It was supposed to be a big deal, was liked in festivals, and supposed to come out during awards season last year. But it was delayed until April the next year. Something happened along the way and the people in charge no longer thought the film was as good as they had hoped. Real shame. More British people should be playing Country superstars, after all.

Couple
There’s an Avengers joke around here somewhere.

Let’s talk about Hank Williams (Tom Hiddleston), a young country singer from Alabama. The movie begins with him marrying Audrey (Elizabeth Olsen) at an auto shop. This is her second marriage and she already has a daughter, but this is real love. And besides, she is going to join him on some songs and on the radio show he gets to sing for.

Well, her singing ain’t as pretty as her face, and that causes some problems, including his own support for her dreams. But Hank has his own dreams. He wants to play at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville someday, his Carnegie Hall, basically. Yeah, sure, he is just 23 or so, but he thinks he can make it. He just has to get more publicity and hit songs. With Audrey as his manager, he gets some singles and CDs, but eventually gets the help of Fred Rose (Bradley Whitford), who helps get him to the Opry with his hit cover of Lovesick Blues.

And then everyone becomes a Hank Williams country fan! Everyone! Which means more alcohol problems for Hank. He also gets some back problems too, which leads to a bit of pain killer drug abuse. And all the constant traveling and depression puts strains on his relationships with his wife and children.

Uhh, yeah, and then the movie is about the problems Hank faced. Including his extra lady problems, including Billie (Maddie Hasson) and Bobbie (Wrenn Schmidt), his mother (Cherry Jones) and his favorite band mate friend guy (Wes Langlois).

Triple
Ladies loved Hank, but not as much as Hank loved the ladies.

Hank WIlliams is actually a tragic figure in the country scene. His life was short, but he did a whole lot in that life and helped shape country music forever. I Saw The Light could have been a pretty dark tale, with some great acting and hardships on the screen, with the occassional tune to keep us on our toes. But instead, I Saw The Light is just a mess of a film, dull and boring from the get go.

For sake of keeping things honest, there was a moment where I fell asleep during the film. It was early on when the film was going nowhere, at most I missed the amount a bathroom break would cause.

I really cannot comment on how much Hiddleston looks or sounds like the actual Hank Williams, but I will say Hiddleston had an impressive American Country voice that surprised me. The songs in the movie weren’t bad and probably the most enjoyable element. Hiddleston had a goofy grin most of the time and made everything look very fun.

I listened to the official soundtrack for the film however, and it is horrible. Half of the songs on it are not performed by Hiddleston, but background tracks in the movie. Because of that, not every song they actually sing in the film made it to the soundtrack. None of the songs that feature Audrey, not the beautiful Cold Cold Heart that opened the film, not even his version of Lovesick Blues. It is a travesty.

And one more thought on the music. This film is called I Saw The Light. It wasn’t made by Williams, but he did sing it and make it pretty famous. And you know what? Williams doesn’t sing the name sake song in the whole damn movie. Sure it shows up near the end. It is a good rendition too, but one that carries absolutely no emotional weight behind it thanks to the piss poor editing and story decisions the movie makers made.

Like I said. The music is mostly fine, but the story is choppy and the directing and editing decisions are bad. I don’t always know what is happening. It sometimes feels like a made for TV family bio film, then we get random boobs and Fuck to show that it is actually an R film. They can only imply an abortion and usually only imply infidelity. It is probably one of the worst examples of trying to show the bad sides of a celebrity while actively ignoring it at the same time.

This is not the film Hank Williams deserves.

1 out of 4.

God’s Not Dead 2

When God’s Not Dead came out in 2014, it was a complete joke. It was a very low budget Christian faith film. It was based on a shitty internet story, not any form of reality. It was supposed to be made and ignored but people flocked to see it so it became a wide release to get some of that sweet sweet money. It was a bad effort.

Needless to say, I and everyone else was extremely skeptical about news of a sequel. What would God’s Not Dead 2 be about? Would it be an unrelated different religious story or it would it be a direct follow up with our old main character destroying more professors? If it is a direct follow up, would it tie up any of the many loose ends of the first film?

Or would it just be a cash grab given the success of the first. The scariest option. More of the same. I shudder at the thought.

Stern
So does blank stare Sabrina.

Remember Martin (Paul Kwo), the Chinese student who had the nerve to learn about and believe in Jesus in the first film? Well he is back! So is Amy Ryan (Trisha LaFache) the liberal reporter who got the cancer, and of course Reverend Dave (David A.R. White) and Reverend Jude (Benjamin A. Onyango). But I won’t go into their back stories. Because we have a new hero.

Grace Wesley (Melissa Joan-Hart), an optimistic and great History teacher at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. High School (that’s relevant). In particular, she teachers AP History as well. One of her students, Brooke (Hayley Orrantia), has been having a hard time after her brother died six months ago. She cannot get over it and it is affecting her grades. Her parents (Carey Scott, Maria Canals-Barrera) have gotten over it however and it is because they are atheists. She isn’t Christian, she just doesn’t know. But she talks to Grace outside of school and finds out her brother had a bible. So she starts finding out about Jesus. Which is why during a lesson on MLK and Gandhi, Brooke asks (during class!) if it was the same non-violent approach mentioned by Jesus. And Grace answers. And everyone moves on.

Nope, just kidding. A student brings it up and a complaint is made. The principal (Robin Givens) can’t do anything about it, the school board just wants an apology, but Grace refuses because she does nothing wrong. There is nothing left to do but to go to trial over it then. Where the school board can watch and make decisions from it, because the ACLU has agreed to do this case because they want precedent to make sure God cannot be in schools ever again. Their lawyer (Ray Wise) is a bad bad dude.

So Grace gets a lawyer from her union, Tom (Jesse Metcalfe), a non religious man. And they have to argue that not only was she not preaching, but she was talking about the historical Jesus (and prove he existed) which is why he should be able to be mentioned in AP History. They just have to convince a very good jury who are out for blood.

Also featuring Pat Boone as Grace’s old father, Ernie Hudson as the judge, and Sadie Robertson as Brooke’s BFF.

Lawwww
The face you make when people are mean butts and you just want to not be there.

Harold Cronk, you beautiful genius. You drag us in with the first film by creating a phenomenon out of nowhere, just to build a fan base. Make that sweet sweet cash. He took all that money and wanted to build something bigger out of it. So for the sequel he has better cameras. Someone who knows the word cinematograhy. And better actors. Come on, Ernie Hudson as the judge is brilliant. And having Melissa Joan Hart, a person most well known for explaining things and being a witch, and making her become religious can only be described as genius. No one cared when Kevin Sorbo was an atheist professor, because that makes sense. He used to play a damn demi-god!

Not only are the cameras and cast better, but the script is better as well. The film brings back older characters to tie up the loose ends created in the first film. We now know why the Asian guy was initially afraid of Jesus. We know what happened to the reporter who got the cancer. We know that Duck Dynasty lived on to see another day. We don’t know what happened to the Muslim girl who became homeless due to changing religion, but eh, who cares, she used to be Muslim.

Last but not least, the court room drama. Never have I bit my nails so much. The tension was high as the two lawyers battled over jury dominance. Both sides argued so well, but the Jesus side argued much better. Everything they said was 100% right and factual. Based on the film, I can only hope that a case like this really does open up in the courts, because it would be a landslide victory for religion and its role in government. Fuck, it was so good I am basically a believer now.

Gods Not Dead 2 may be the most important film of the year and will change a lot of people’s minds about faith.

4 out of 4.