Last week I finally figured out why I don't like faith based entertainment. Please keep in mind I'm talking about low quality church films, not every single film that just happened to be made by Christians. In fact, there are some wonderful Christian films out there, like Amazing Grace and The Ultimate Gift (same producer). Seventeen Miracles was pretty good and I've heard amazing things about The Saratov Approach. But last week my mom was watching these low budget Christian horse movies we found at Walmart and I finally figured out why some Christian films really bug me. It's because the point of the film is to push a certain agenda, rather than tell a good story. For example, I watched a film on Netflix that basically told me, "home school kids are better than public school kids." That was the point of the whole film! I took offense at that because I was an honest, religious kid who happened to go to public school. In addition, you've got the bad acting and lousy cinematography. Stories should always have a good theme, but not at the cost of the story's quality. Orson Scott Card says that theme is one of the last things he thinks about. He writes the story first and allows the theme to grow naturally out of the events and the characters. That's the way I want to write all of my scripts and novels.
How about the rest of you? What are some religious films you've loved or hated? What are the awesome religious films that I've missed?
