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Life, Animated was recently nominated for an Oscar, and one of those films that was relatively easy to watch so I jumped right on it.

I knew it involved Disney in some way, I did not know the focus was on a specific individual, Owen Suskind. Based on a book written by his dad, Ron Suskind, it tells of Owen’s story growing up and his struggles.

You see, Owen was autistic. And around 2-3 years old he started to become very reserved. He didn’t talk as much as he used to, he had no real way to communicate with others. This was also at a time when autism was less understood and they assumed something terrible had taken over him.

But they noticed something. Owen loved Disney movies, he would watch them all the time, it was the only thing that made him seemingly happy. He would rewind certain scenes over and over again. And one time, while watching The Little Mermaid, during the Ursula song Poor, Unfortunate Souls, he eventually repeated a phrase “Just The Voice” and was the first sign of hope in a long long time.

They found out that he could learn the lines from the films and would use them in a correct context. And the first real conversation he had with his father is when he found an Iago puppet and talked to him from below his bed, using his best bird voice. And Owen was able to talk to Iago unlike his parents, including direct lines from the films as well.

This is pretty high up there on most parents lists of things they are willing to do for their kids.

The beginning of the documentary started out very powerful and put me in tears, twice. That is those fears coming to the forefront of my mind, given my own child is still under 2 years old and I worry about things like autism. The struggles the family went through and what Owen went through are powerful and probably similar to thousands of families across the world.

His backstory was shown intermittently with scenes of Owen growing up, about to graduate from a program before getting to live on his own in a condo. About finding a girlfriend, about getting a job, and about running his own Disney fan club and connecting with people all over the world. Hell, his story is so inspirational he was able to give speeches and meet some famous Disney voice actors.

But after the intro, my interest began to wane. I don’t think the documentary knew how to end. It just continued to show his life and doing things and then, yep, movie.

Owen has a powerful story, and listening to his parents talk about it is worth the price of admission. But the ending lacks the same luster and peters off until it just decides to end.

Now that it is February, we have the potential to get some good films again. Split was a January fluke, I am sure everything else that I didn’t see is bad. But this is February!

Last February we were blessed with Hail, Caesar! And before that we got The Lego Movie! So there is a lot of hope for finding the special film in the crowd, and A Cure For Wellness is carrying that flag (along with John Wick: Chapter 2).

I first heard about this film in December when some of my critic friends saw it at Butt-numb-a-thon, but all of their lips were silent as to why they enjoyed it. A mysterious film with a lot of creepy moments. Let’s do it.

Water? Nothing has ever been creepy about water.

Mr. Lockhart (Dane DeHaan) is a young, spry, wall street worker who just got a promotion after closing a big account. And he is ambitious. And he has also cheated on some of his deals. This does not look good, especially when his company is on the verge of a big merger. So the board gives him a task. To head to the Swiss Alps, to a little spa, where their CEO (Adrian Schiller, maybe? God, I hope it was him), has decided to extend his vacation forever and never return home. He hats Wall Street now.

So Lockhart heads to the spa, hoping to convince him right away. But he misses visitor hours, gets distracted by a mysterious woman (Mia Goth), and next thing he knows his driver (Ivo Nandi) gets into a car accident. Lockhart wakes up in the spa, a cast over his leg, with a spa retreat seemingly forced on himself as well in order for him to heal.

While there, Lockhart spends most of his time looking for and failing to talk to his CEO. Trying to discover why the water seemingly is addictive here. And wrap it all up with ancient legends of the place! Fun!

Also starring Jason Isaacs, Celia Imrie, and Judith Hoersch.

Oh man, it is so beautiful it is making me flip my shit.

A Cure For Wellness is not your normal “scary film.” At its core it is a psychological thriller meant to make you feel unnerved throughout its over two hour run time. Every shot is beautiful, showing off the lush Swiss (Well, it was filmed in Germany) landscapes and mountainsides. Rooms uniform to make you feel claustrophobic. Uniformity in the actions of the patrons. Long hallways, identical doors, and a seemingly labyrinth of corridors, the spa is both haunting and beautiful.

The mystery it weaves is a central figure and one that will have you picking up the clues it drops, the smaller references along the way, to build the complete story. Why the spa does what it does, how it does it, and our overall plot is wonderfully crafted and told to make sure you get enough for the average viewer to understand it all.

But in the last 15-20 minutes, they decide that instead of keeping it a smart film, they will dumb everything down, hold the viewers hand and make sure repetitively everyone understands ever little aspect. And it is its biggest failing point. It went from an intelligent film to a tacked on ending that feels normal for Hollywood films but is jarring for this one. It told us too much and also made sure there was no mystery left. It had a conclusion, the story is over, and it could have had many better endings if they just tacked off parts. It reminds me of Don’t Breathe in that regard.

DeHaan and (actors) give great performances. They really dive into these characters and no one is half assing this film. It is a pretty darn good film that people should see if they want to feel unnerved and can handle some body damage horror stuff. I had some pretty extreme cringes during this film, but they are all done in a way that serves a purpose and isn’t just for gore sake.

They just need to know when to end it.

I didn’t want to see Florence Foster Jenkins when it came out. And I am afraid my biases will show in this review.

Let it be known that I had no idea what the movie was about, never saw the trailer, but just the poster and it just seemed bad to me. It is so gold and happy. It looks like a low effort, low comedy film and is relying on star power more than anything to get itself seen.

From the director of Philomena? Shit, I liked Philomena. This is a movie that is going for a nostalgic look, the type of film someone might have wanted to see a decade ago. So no, no, I wasn’t going to see it.

Then the damn thing had to get nominated for a couple of Oscars. One of which prevented Amy Adams for a nomination for Arrival. Damn it.

No matter what Streep does, people want to give her awards.

The film happens to be about the titular named Florence Foster Jenkins (Meryl Streep) who is an Opera singer. But not just any Opera singer. Some have proclaimed her the worst opera singer of all time. How does one get to the level where they can call themselves an opera singer while also being bad at it? Money. She has a lot of it.

She also has St Clair Bayfield (Hugh Grant), her husband, a Shakespearean actor, who has fallen in love with her. More importantly, he has protected her from negative reviews. He pays critics with bribes. He keeps out the riff raff. They started their own music club to showcase her voice, and if they have to pay a lot of money for it, it must be good music. How else could she be famous!?

We are basically introduced to the characters through Cosmé McMoon (Simon Helberg), a pianist who applies for the job to work for her. He is getting paid a whole lot and was chosen just because he likes him. And then he quickly finds out the famed singer is actually terrible, the whole thing feels like a cruel joke and his own reputation is now on the line. But so much money…

Keeping up the farce is hard work, but when Carnegie Hall is coming and their product is sub par, just how will they all handle it?

Also featuring Rebecca Ferguson, Nina Arianda, and Stanley Townsend.

Thankfully, at least he is actually playing piano and not a recording of someone better.

Speaking of farces, I cannot believe this movie is winning awards, let alone being nominated for a few of them.

It is an extremely simple story and it is about real events. But on its own, there isn’t a lot that feels exceptional. The acting isn’t great, the story isn’t great, the cinematography is average, and I guess there is a lot of good costumes. But that does not a good movie make.

Helberg had some amusing moments of giggle fits, Grant seemed to be overplaying it, and Streep was just doing her normal thing.

This is a film that is, as predicted, only being talked about because of who is involved, not because of its high quality. It isn’t really funny, and it isn’t really an interesting story. People with lots of money get to do things others cannot because they have money, even if they aren’t qualified.

Story of America. And this movie is just dull.

(Insert introduction about meaning to watch this film sooner).*

I mean, shit, Mr. Church is supposed to be Eddie Murphy‘s comeback! Or at least that is what I heard one guy said. He can only voice the donkey so many times. And A Thousand Words was really, really bad.

What he really needs to do is to get into some good old fashioned NOT FAMILY comedy films again. They made him great, and he can still do it. This drama rut is slowing him down. But oh well, maybe Mr. Church will change my mind.

And let me drift off into the wind as I ponder this question.

Marie (Natascha McElhone) has cancer and is going to die in about six months. That is what the doctor told her. She has a young daughter, Charlie (Natalie Coughlin) who got randomly selected to be in a better school for rich kids, but their family is poor, and dying won’t help. But then, Mr. Church (Eddie Murphy) shows up in their kitchen.

Turns out he was hired by her ex, who is also now dead. He set aside money for Church to pay for groceries and small expenses. He just has to work there until she dies, and he gets money for the rest of his life. Apparently that dude was loaded. So Church spends a lot of time there cooking, reading, and making life enjoyable.

But that damn Marie just doesn’t die. She doesn’t die until senior year of high school, many years later. Now Charlie (Britt Robertson) is all grown up, still hanging out with Mr. Church and still okay with life.

Well, eventually she does die. And Charlie goes to college. But things go weird, and hey, at least she knows the secretive Mr. Church who is finally ready to live his life the way he wants. Oh man, these two are inseparable.

Also starring Xavier Samuel, Madison Wolfe, Lucy Fry, and Mckenna Grace.

Surprised that Mr. Church just didn’t put a pillow over her head after the first year.

Mr. Church is a very strange film. It is one that feels like it came a few decades too late.

It is also strange in that it feels like it was made to be emotional and perhaps bait some Oscars, but it forgot to tell an actual good story. If you watch it, sure, you might feel sad at some points. You might connect to the main girl character. But it lacks a lot of motivation and purpose for the story.

The story is about a mysterious colored gentlemen showing up at a poor white person’s house, to be their practical servant, who teaches them about goodness and great housekeeping. The mystery man is a savior and helps raise the potential of a little girl. And it just feels…I am not sure, but maybe insulting?

A story that has been told in dozens of ways before, and most of them better. But this film drags on, until Mr. Church will eventually die and in the third stage of Charlie’s life that we get to see. But thank goodness her character had Mr. Church to make all of her hardships go away, because now she knows how to cook like a pro.

* – Intentional bad joke.

The Legend of Tarzan came out in the coveted July 4th weekend, because…well, I don’t know why.

I guess generic action movies might make bank then. Well, it hit better than expected levels, given that it opened against The Purge: Election Year and The BFG, so there wasn’t a lot of real competition. It still failed to reach a positive number to break even given its extremely large budget and shit reviews.

And I avoided it because it just seemed extremely unappealing. It had that mostly-CGI lens behind it all, attempting to give a new retelling of an old story. It just made a lot of people shrug at its existence and ignoring it, not giving any fucks.

It is the sort of film that gives the bad name to summer blockbuster.

If we make it modern, we have to make it darker and edgier.

This takes place in Africa, during British colonial rule, specifically the Congo. Apparently the Belgians are close to bankruptcy, trying to bring roads and trains to the Congo, to get that sweet natural resource money. He sends down Léon Rom (Christoph Waltz) to secure the diamonds down there, but they are ambushed by a tribe, and the chieftain (Djimon Hounsou) will let him have the diamonds if they can bring him one man. You know. Tarzan

Turns out this story takes place after the normal Tarzan stories. Tarzan (Alexander Skarsgård) is now living in London with his wife, Jane (Margot Robbie). He finds out they want to send him down to the Congo to check on how things are going, as a sort of diplomatic trip, but Tarzan doesn’t want to go. Too dangerous. He is convinced by an American, George Washington Williams (Samuel L. Jackson), to go because he believes that the Belgians are abusing the Congo people as slaves in order to build developments, and Williams wants to find out.

Then of course eventually a raid happens, a trap! Jane is captured! Tarzan escapes with Williams! And they have to get her back, put a stop to the bad guys, and have some good old fashioned monkey fights.

Also featuring Jim Broadbent as the Prime Minister.

If I asked who represents Africa and who represents America here, would you know without context?

Reimagining a beloved character isn’t the worst thing ever. It can require creativity, but it always feels like a cheap story nonetheless. They are requiring the public to have certain thoughts and opinions on a subject so that they can be blown away. Reimagining so that a villain is a hero is usually shit. Reimagining in a modern context is usually lazy. But what about telling the story after the story? That can provide some interesting stories to discuss how things have changed and how the character continues their life in the world.

And theoretically, that is what this story is about. It could have led to amazing things! But you know what it led to? Tarzan, going back to the jungle, swinging on vines, fighting people, teaming up with apes, and standing shirtless rain or sun. What we got is a very standard Tarzan story, despit the premise of a different sort of Tarzan story.

And don’t worry. For those saying “Hey! It is different because we don’t see him growing up as a kid with the apes, learning to swing, meeting Jane for the first time!” Nope, we still get that. Because just in case you are unaware of Tarzan, they have flashbacks for us. Baby and young Tarzan. And meeting Jane. That makes this a regular Tarzan movie, plus some extra. You should definitely feel ripped off.

In addition to all of that, it looks terrible when they have to go full on CGI. The big fights with the apes. Swinging on the vines. Just background jungle scenes in general. It has a darker tone too.

I don’t want to compare this to The Legend of Hercules, because that film is definitely a far worse overall movie (and this one is at least coherent). But they are clearly going for the exact same market here, and that is probably the reason it has been so dumbed down and made so pointless.

The Legend of Tarzan is a waste of time, but not the worst thing in the world.

Turns out I actually missed quite a few horror films in 2016. And for that, I am sorry.

But if I am being truly honest, do I really need to see any of those ones after already seeing The Witch and The Conjuring 2? Yeah, probably not.

Lights Out is the last movie I missed thanks to going on vacation over the summer for a bit and one I only slightly even wanted to see. I had Don’t Breathe coming up and wasn’t sure if I would need any other sort of horror film around that time. (And of course I basically skipped all of the October ones).

But hey, I had 80 minutes to spare. A short film so even if it was terrible, at least I wouldn’t waste my whole day on it.

The worst films sometimes do feel like they take all day though.

The beginning of the film takes place in a theater or movie studio. I don’t know. But Paul (Billy Burke) is working there late, and next thing he knows, there is some shadowy figure in the dark trying to kill him, and it successfully does!

Paul left behind a wife, Sophie (Maria Bello), and a young son, Martin (Gabriel Bateman). After Martin is having problems at school, mostly staying awake, his older half sister is called, Rebecca (Teresa Palmer). Paul was not her dad, her own dad was killed when she was younger and she used to have problems as well.

And honestly, really quickly do we find out that this entity has a name. Diana (Alicia Vela-Bailey), something that Rebecca saw for some time as a kid and now it appears to be haunting Martin AND her again. There is a story behind all of this, and how Diana came to be, but it is too dumb to even want to spoil it.

Also featuring Alexander DiPersia as Rebecca’s serious boy friend.

Look into my eye dots and learn to fall in love.

From its onset, Lights Out isn’t a bad idea. But in the way they told the story, it definitely seems like something that would have been much better as a short, and not a full length film. Despite its small run time, it seems to go on too long. They put a lot of effort into it to tell us why it is all happening, backstory and all, but the plot points there are just so unexciting.

The other main issue with this film is that it ends up not being scary. Maybe by making Diana an entity named Diana? A real thing? Yeah, that is probably it. Although none of Diana’s powers really make too much sense either, despite the elaborate time spent on her backstory.

This film surprisingly features a couple of well known women in the roles and given the quality of the film, it isn’t too surprising to find them not giving their best performances. All of the men are almost laughable in their acting skills, but I find myself practically disappointed in the women because I know they have been in better.

Lights Out is a forgettable horror film that will thankfully have no sequels. IT WILL HAVE NO SEQUELS, I SAY! It didn’t even end with some shitty teaser that the Diana is still alive, it just ended like a normal film, thankfully.

What the world needs now is a strong female role model to look up to. Someone who is breaking grounds, doing what she wants, and kicking ass all at the same time.

What the world needs now is Aisholpan Nurgaiv. AKA The Eagle Huntress. AKA our new rallying cry.

The Eagle Huntress takes us to Mongolia, in the smaller villages and in the mountains, where natives have lived there for thousands of years. And that is where the great tradition of hunting foxes with trained eagles has been thriving for a very long time.

These proud and noble hunters are few and far in between, normally passing on the skills from father to son. Not everyone can hunt with eagles. It takes time, patience, and of course, being taught. Most people are farmers, or regular hunters, or people with real goddamn jobs.

And Aisholpah is the oldest child in her family, where her father, Rys Nurgaiv, is an eagle hunter. She has always been fascinated by the eagles and has helped raise a few with her dad. But now she is coming of age, she is 13, and she wants an Eagle of her own. She wants to train it, to hunt with it, and to enter competitions with it.

Spoilers

But of course, in her part of the world, everyone is very conservative. The “village elders” in there are shown to be very against the idea of a GIRL becoming a Hunter. Women are weak and frail. Women need to be farming and cooking. Women cannot handle the eagle or handle the cold. And all of that. They were all shown to be quite angry basically. It is great that Aisholpan lives in such a progressive for the area family.

And yeah, they say screw you. Aisholpan gets her own baby eagle with the help of her dad. She trains the eagle. She goes to competitions. And she goes on hunts with it. Not just women power. Power in goddamn general.

The documentary is narrated by Daisy Ridley, who is also the executive producer, and putting her Star Wars fame to good use right away.

I was awed by some of the scenes, wondering how they could get such great shots in the cold wintry mountains of Mongolia. Eagles taking flight, fighting with foxes. And shit, when she stole the eagle babies? That was downright terrifying and exciting all at the same time.

This documentary does what documentaries really need to start doing again. Telling a great story around the world for people to learn from and for us to get inspired by. If Aisholpan can fight the patriarchy all on her own, what can you do in your own first world home? If Aisholpan can achieve her dreams at such a young age, then why are you still on Reddit?

Go out and do awesome things. It is what Aisholpan would want of you.

And as of this movie, one of my goals is to get one of those super sweet fox pelt outfits that the hunters get. So goddamn sexy, if not warm.

I am so disappointed in myself for taking so long to see Deepwater Horizon. I am a goddamn geophysicist. And teacher. And movie reviewer. But geophysicist first.

And you know what? The BP oil spill in the Gulf was bad, it was terrible, but at the same time, certain aspects were completely overblown, public opinion was driven from emotions and not from science, and blame was thrown around all over the place.

But reality isn’t simple, a lot of people were involved, and a lot of processes and safe guards went wrong or were ignored to allow it to happen. And yeah, it sucked. But still, it happened only six years ago and doesn’t seem like the type of film to warrant a movie at all. Some shit went wrong, and some environment got fucked up.

Are they going to celebrate it? Fear monger it? What is the message? These are the questions I will ask myself and why I want to even see the movie.

I can confirm from my many years as an alive person that this is indeed a drill.

The day began like every other day for Mike Williams (Mark Wahlberg). Hours of passionate love making with his wife (Kate Hudson) and sausages for breakfast.

Just kidding, he woke up, talked to his kid, heard a report on oil drilling, then left to go to his job for the next three weeks. He is on a crew on the Deepwater Horizon which is working on a borehole in the Gulf of Mexico. His boss is Jimmy Harrell (Kurt Russell), head of safety supervisor guy, and he is angry when they land, as the Schlumberger crew is apparently heading home early. They didn’t do all the safety tests!

Apparently because they are behind schedule, BP is getting impatient, and the people they sent to check things out (John Malkovich and James DuMont) are getting antsy. Needless to say, things get rushed, bad things happen, and a few people die in the process.

Also featuring Jason Pine, Jason Kirkpatrick, Gina Rodriguez, Ethan Suplee, David Maldonado, Dylan O’Brien, Douglas M. Griffin, and Brad Leland.

Not to mention they get about 10% more dirty than normal.

It turns out that this movie had a few things they wanted to cover. That people died during this accident, and to honor them with this film. Also that the main crews who were working were not to blame and the entire thing is BP’s fault.

And there is where some of the major fault for this film lands. It is hard to not have biases against films based on real life, and this one decides to run with the bias that the average American has taken. It is not using the film to right wrongs or tell actual true events. It is just telling us events based on what people want to hear.

Unfortunately, those biases cannot get out of my head and the film ends up taking a ding for that.

On its own, the first half of the film is interesting enough. The beginning is a bit corny, but the lead up to the events, the characters, they felt like a bunch of real people not just potential victims. They had their own voices. It is what really helps sell the whole film.

Things start to fall apart in the film when things start to fall apart. The explosions, the saving, the pain, the people jumping into the sea and the rescue? They all just felt like noise, like filler. Given how recent the events were it felt like the film was almost celebrating the disaster by making it take half of the film.

Deepwater Horizon is a strange event to make a movie about, has its moments, but also has its biases and excessive flair.

This is a review of Gold, Jerry! Gold!

Gold is another film that sort of came out of nowhere for me. I might have heard about it once, but I never saw a trailer. The first real moment acknowledging its existence was when it went and got nominated for a Golden Globe award!

Not like, a really good one. Just Best Song, for a song named Gold in the movie Gold. And that on its own didn’t really matter, because everyone knew La La Land would crush that category, guaranteed.

But hey, I watched it anyways. Maybe it would secretly be great, since it is one of those 2016 films that decides to come out awkwardly in January 2017 for most of the American public.

Must have been some time zone confusion, what with them in an Asian jungle and all.

Technically Gold is inspired by a true story. I say that, because it isn’t at all like the true story. It is the idea of the true story, some parts true, but basically everything changed with some extra story in order to create a bigger complete story. Or at least that is what they want you to believe.

The film is about Kenny Wells (Matthew McConaughey), a man who runs a business about buying up land for its potential of minerals and selling it once they can confirm the minerals are there. His dad (Craig T. Nelson) started it, but after he suddenly passed, the last seven years Kenny has been bringing it down. Heck, the workers now basically make calls and sales over the phone in a bar now. His wife (Bryce Dallas Howard) has been keeping them afloat with her own job, not leaving him despite the promises of an amazing life.

Kenny is down to his last dollars. And he wants to bet it all on a hunch. He wants to talk to Michael Acosta (Edgar Ramirez), a famed geologist who found an incredibly big copper find. But since then, people still have not trusted his different way of thinking. They want to work together, to go to Indonesia, where Acosta believes they could find the biggest gold mine ever.

And when the results eventually start coming in, thinks start to sky rocket. But can their sudden success and amazing luck really all just be good news?

Also staring Toby Kebbell, Rachael Taylor, Bruce Greenwood, Corey Stoll, Bill Camp, and Stacy Keach.

They took beauty and the beast to a whole new level here.

(Potential spoilers)

Gold has the potential of being a really great film. But what they needed to do was try to take away the big twist in the latter half and spread it out more throughout the film. Because for the most part, this just feels like a rags to riches story. It has some set backs, they overcome it, some set backs, they overcome. And some back and forth business stuff.

But when we finally learn the twist officially, the whole thing feels sort of awkward. We aren’t given enough time to process it, and seeing more of the fallout from said twist would be a lot more entertaining and important than some of the minute details they put into getting the land and making sure they could secure it for a mine. The subplots kill the film and take away focus. Because damn it, the twist and scam IS the focus.

We only get the smallest of bits that it might be a scam for those going in blind based on eventually an FBI agent talking to Kenny, and realizing that Kenny is telling the story of the film. If the goal of the film is to tell the true-ish story of a real life scam, it is just odd to hide the fact that there even is a scam throughout most of the film.

It is just pulled in too many directions, where not enough of the pull is in the correct direction. The acting is fine, McConaughey looks disgusting, and there is a lot more geology in this film than I would have expected. But that alone is not enough for me to like it.

I’m Not Ashamed is likely not a movie you have heard about. If it wasn’t for this review, you would have never seen it or heard about it and your life would never be changed.

But I am here to change lives.

To be fair, I have only heard about this movie thanks to seeing a trailer for it in theaters. That’s right. Remember God’s Not Dead 2? A real movie in real theaters. It had real trailers, a lot of them religious ones, and this movie that came out in October.

From the trailer alone, I knew I would hate it, but knew I had to see it. I just had to wait until it was on VOD in January 2017, because I was not going to sit through another preachy religious film in the theaters in the same year.

Wanna know why I know she is religious?

17 years ago, we had Columbine, at the time the worst school shooting ever. Two guys went to their school, had bombs, shot up people in a library and then killed themselves. Since then, very little has changed when it comes to guns or mental health reform in America. School shootings still happen, people still get bullied, and parents still exploit their children for monetary gain.

Wait what?

This story is about Rachel Joy Scott (Masey McLain), who was actually the first one killed in the Columbine shootings. She was also a Christian, and according to people, she must have been killed for that reason. No no no. This is not Cassie Bernall, the one who died and the parents wrote She Said Yes and exploited her with many more books after it. This is a different person who died because of Christianity in the same shooting.

Sorry, getting off of movie topic here. This is basically about the last year an a half of her life. She grew up religious, but lost it, then gained it again, went hardcore with it, a boyfriend cheated on her, she lost her friends, started to turn things around, then got killed. Ah yes, what a happy last year and a half.

Starring Ben Davies as the homeless kind of guy who became her protective big brother, Cameron McKendry as the guy who broke her heart, Victoria Staley, Taylor Kalupa, and Emma Elle Roberts as her friends, Terri Minton as the mom, Mark Daugherty and Sadie Robertson as who knows what, and of course David Errigo Jr. and Cory Chapman as our shooters.

Which we get to see over and over again in their secret lair planning to kill the believers.

This film insults me on a personal level. This film should be insulting to everyone really, and you don’t even have to see it.

First of all, the entire thing is based on a lie. The girl as not killed for her faith. She wasn’t asked about Jesus before she was shot. She was just in the lawn when they started and they didn’t stop to chat along the way. But grief takes many forms, and the parents used their child’s death to try and inspire others. I cannot imagine losing a child so I don’t want to harp too much on it, but what in the fuck is wrong with them?

Most of the film is Rachel going in and out of Christianity. When she goes in, she goes in hardcore, but when she doesn’t she quits just as hard it seems. It makes her lose friends, a guy who wanted her for sex, and the other just…strange things. Overall, the story itself is a poor one literally. If they are going to make up some parts, they should have really spruced up this last year.

The goal is to portray Rachel as some sort of Martyr for Christianity, but it is a strange story because on its own it would convince anyone that they should become Christian. Because it makes being a Christian look like a terrible burden and everyone will hate you for it.

But really, the biggest issue about all of this? The extra scenes they add in of the shooters at their home or in the lunchroom. They make it seem like the reason Columbine happened was because one of the two kids was picked on by bullies on the first day, and then he immediately wanted to shoot up the school and spent all year planning for it. Not a slow build up, just immediate anger and thoughts of shooting everyone.

And in these scenes at home they go from true story to just “fuck you, this is our story” and putting words in their mouths. It is just disgusting in my mind. I am not anyway saying they are great people, but they definitely don’t deserve to be turned into some Christian film bad guy B movie villain. It is disrespectful to the reality, it is disrespectful to Rachel’s actual existence, and it is disrespectful to the school and students who were immediately affected by the tragedy.

Recent tragedies don’t need films made about them, but they certainly don’t need terrible films made either.