1.01.2005
brian dannelly's saved!
i just watched brian dannelly's saved!, that mandy moore movie about jesus and stuff. the movie's pretty bad (sorry ed, i know you liked it). it can't really make up its mind what it wants to be... it occupies this wishy-washy middle ground between cynicism and sincerity, resulting in an experience too cynical to be sweet and too sweet to be funny. macaulay culkin does a bad ferris bueller impression as a wise-cracking handicapped kid, proving that a few slutty photo sessions with harmony korine doesn't make for automatic, "character actor" charisma. the dude from almost famous is a little too post-pubescent at this point to re-iterate that (far greater) movie's doe-eyed sincerity. mandy moore is much better as the teen queen leading the fundamentalist witch trial, but that doesn't protect us for having to endure her rendition of the beach boys' "god only knows" in the opening credits. all in all, it's moderately well-intended, but certainly not a hell of a lot of fun.
ideologically, saved! is a complete mess-- it makes a thick soup of the contradictory desires currently brewing to a boil in spiritual america. for example, note its usage of martin donovan as a kool kat school principal, making constant embarrassing attempts to sell christianity as a bastion of hipness. donovan effectively reduces his character to a misguided simpleton, spewing forth infinite hip-hop slang gags to the delight of a savvy audience. which is fair enough until you consider that the film is sneakily re-iterating his character. ultimately, it struggles to maintain smug superiority over its own agenda. it smears its admirable pluralism all over the beast of fundamentalist christianity, but the beast shines through in the end.
this may sound somewhat rude and reactionary (but keep in mind i have a decade's worth of wretched catholic education to back this up *see note*), but perhaps the shoe of tolerance simply doesn't fit. the fairy-tale assumption of a film like this, where everyone gets the love of the lord in the end (whether gay or prep or punk or preggers), is precisely what's not happening in our culture right now. we have a president who hates condoms almost as much as he hates gays, we have a supreme court on the threshold of bringing back the days of the coat hanger, and we have mel-gibson-de-sade ready to burn us at the stake in our theatres. to say "enough christianity!" commits the sin of being obvious, and perhaps shatters a precious need to rebel against our liberal parents, but, boringly enough, it needs to be said. watching saved! scramble to give dubya's "values" voters a botox injection of secular good vibes amounts to either a seditive (at best), or a red herring (at worst). someone ought to make a teen movie that urges people to wake the fuck up instead.
(* footnote: the grumpiness of this post, to lay my cards on the table, has undoubtedly been triggered by this "sore spot" in my personal history)
ideologically, saved! is a complete mess-- it makes a thick soup of the contradictory desires currently brewing to a boil in spiritual america. for example, note its usage of martin donovan as a kool kat school principal, making constant embarrassing attempts to sell christianity as a bastion of hipness. donovan effectively reduces his character to a misguided simpleton, spewing forth infinite hip-hop slang gags to the delight of a savvy audience. which is fair enough until you consider that the film is sneakily re-iterating his character. ultimately, it struggles to maintain smug superiority over its own agenda. it smears its admirable pluralism all over the beast of fundamentalist christianity, but the beast shines through in the end.
this may sound somewhat rude and reactionary (but keep in mind i have a decade's worth of wretched catholic education to back this up *see note*), but perhaps the shoe of tolerance simply doesn't fit. the fairy-tale assumption of a film like this, where everyone gets the love of the lord in the end (whether gay or prep or punk or preggers), is precisely what's not happening in our culture right now. we have a president who hates condoms almost as much as he hates gays, we have a supreme court on the threshold of bringing back the days of the coat hanger, and we have mel-gibson-de-sade ready to burn us at the stake in our theatres. to say "enough christianity!" commits the sin of being obvious, and perhaps shatters a precious need to rebel against our liberal parents, but, boringly enough, it needs to be said. watching saved! scramble to give dubya's "values" voters a botox injection of secular good vibes amounts to either a seditive (at best), or a red herring (at worst). someone ought to make a teen movie that urges people to wake the fuck up instead.
(* footnote: the grumpiness of this post, to lay my cards on the table, has undoubtedly been triggered by this "sore spot" in my personal history)
