Movie Reviews

Get Ready for the Biblical Comeback in ‘Honk For Jesus. Save Your Soul’!- Movie Review –

Published

2 years ago

September 6, 2022

Press Room

Get Ready for the Biblical Comeback in ‘Honk For Jesus. Save Your Soul’!- Movie Review –

Rick Rice September fifth, 2022 – 11:22 AM

What does it imply to be a Christian? Does it contain following the teachings of the great guide? Preaching the title of God and accepting Jesus as your one true savior? Or is it that all of us collect in a particular room as soon as per week to check clothes? Okay, that final half was stated by the long-lasting comic George Carlin, however I digress. Pulling off a great satire is difficult, but it surely all depends upon the angle the filmmakers goal for when making their film. Honk For Jesus. Save Your Soul is a film analyzing the lives of two pastors attempting to select up the items after a scandal has rocked their world. It completely encompasses the concept of megachurch pastors and lets us view them for who they’re. Whereas the film is probably not essentially the most impressionable movie relating to conventional satire, it’s fairly a personality research.

The film takes place in Atlanta, Georgia, the place a once-popular Southern Baptist Megachurch has collapsed for the reason that scandal’s fallout that pressured many of the congregation to search out one other place of worship. The megachurch hasn’t actually collapsed, however the twenty-five thousand congregants have now been lowered to solely 5 individuals! That’s dangerous for enterprise and never a great look when attempting to rebuild yourselves.

The film is informed from a documentary perspective the place the 2 pastors have employed a notable filmmaker named Anita to movie them. This documentary is meant to indicate who these pastors actually are; by the point the cameras are completed rolling, they are going to be seen in a brand new mild. The pastors are a husband-and-wife duo named Lee-Curtis Childs (Sterling Ok. Brown) and Trinitie Childs (Regina Corridor). They each have religion that sooner or later the whole lot will likely be again to the best way it was. The glory, the celebrity, and the eye they search from their religious followers.

Whereas the documentary crew isn’t there to interview them, nor do they converse, they’re there to doc the pastors’ actions and permit the viewers into their private lives. The film swaps framerate often to tell us when the documentary crew isn’t there. If you already know something in regards to the historical past of scandals which have plagued organized faith, then you definitely’ll most likely have guessed what the pastors are accused of. We don’t see any courtroom appearances, legislation enforcement, or something associated to their authorized troubles. As an alternative, it’s principally alluded to. The film takes its time to slowly peel again the layers of those pastors.

What’s evident is the mindset of those pastors. They spend their days proudly displaying off their huge mansion, Prada fits that price greater than I make in a month, luxurious automobiles that almost all of us want we might personal, and permitting their religion to guide them astray. They’re beneath the impression that the documentary crew is on their facet, not realizing that the crew is nicely conscious of the allegations they’re dealing with! As we comply with this couple, we start to see how not solely their church works but in addition their marriage.

Pastor Lee-Curtis is infatuated with himself, his physique, and the prosperity of regaining his standing in the area people. Trinitie, however, is at her husband’s facet and passively accepts his bidding to make them well-liked once more. She spends her days shopping for unbelievably costly hats, listening to her husband boast about his prospects, and reveling within the concept of one other church that has absorbed their beloved followers who’re planning to open their church on Easter Sunday, the identical day that these pastors plan to! How dare they infringe on our plans? There’s even a second when Trinitie spots a former congregant on the mall, and whereas they have interaction in idle chit-chat, we are able to sense that the girl isn’t so pleased to see her former pastor.

Pastor Lee-Curtis and Trinitie completely exemplify this nation’s megachurch pastors. They flaunt their wealth, have absolved themselves of wrongdoing, and are blinded by their very own greed. What impressed me most with this movie is the way it slowly opens the door to understanding these individuals and permits us to check them proper from the beginning. The movie additionally doesn’t take low-cost photographs on the church, even when the plot components are acquainted, particularly for those who recall the infinite tales of church-related scandals. I appreciated the course and script by Adamma Ebo in her debut. That is her first function movie, and he or she’s created these characters who really feel so genuine that typically we simply need to strangle them.

Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul.' review: Wearing a smile while falling from grace | The Seattle Times

When it comes to satire, the film isn’t fairly as gut-busting humorous as one might suspect, despite the fact that I used to be laughing fairly a bit. That is extra mockumentary as we primarily comply with these two pastors’ lives. So far as we all know, these pastors haven’t any buddies, are remoted from their group, and don’t seem eager on social media. When issues get determined, Trinitie makes indicators that say “Honk For Jesus” in an try and get passersby to hitch their church. Whereas a number of automobiles honk their horns, Trinitie is unaware that these automobiles are honking for fully totally different causes.

Except for following these spiritual figures, each Lee-Curtis and Trinitie aren’t in a cheerful marriage as outsiders would see it. They’re dedicated to their church however held collectively by their religion. They aren’t even intimate with one another throughout a scene the place Lee-Curtis can’t carry out sexually, irrespective of how laborious he tries. Outdoors of that, they haven’t any particular person id. Lee-Curtis is self-absorbed with himself, whereas Trinitie is caught in a standard marriage. Nevertheless, we get glimpses that she is aware of the reality however is bodily unable to permit that reality to develop into a actuality.

Will they obtain success? Will these former congregants return with open arms? The clock is ticking, and regardless of all of the dangerous press and having their reputations tarnished, these pastors need to make a comeback of biblical proportions! Solely time will inform to see if their religion will lead them down this path.

Honk For Jesus. Save Your Soul.' Shouts Amen Hallelujah to Moral Hypocrisy – Rolling Stone

Rating 4.5 out of 5

With a memorable and ironic title, Honk For Jesus. Save Your Soul is a unbelievable character research of a film that blends satire, even when it isn’t as humorous as you may count on. Each Brown and Corridor are glorious of their performances, and neither tops one another. I can positively say that I used to be impressed with this movie and the way author/director Adamma Ebo tries to be totally different right here. We sit again and watch the unraveling and witness these characters show their flaws even when they aren’t conscious of the response from the skin.

The script is superb, and the film permits the actors to totally sink into their characters. It’s a handsome movie and is flashy at simply the suitable moments. Whereas it mocks organized faith, it does so in essentially the most genuine method attainable by having us watch what’s in entrance of us. Amen!

Movie Reviews

LOVE LIES BLEEDING Review

Published

6 hours ago

January 6, 2025

Press Room

LOVE LIES BLEEDING is a modern, vicious film noir. A lesbian woman named Lou is estranged from her vicious father Lou Sr. yet manages a decrepit gym he owns in their desert town. Jackie, a female drifter, arrives in town and engages in back-seat, adulterous sex with JJ, who’s married to Lou’s sister, Beth. Lou is instantly attracted to her when she flexes her muscles. The two women soon begin a tawdry sexual relationship.Beth winds up in a hospital when JJ viciously beats her offscreen. Jackie has been abusing steroids to build muscle. She flies into a murderous rage and brutally kills JJ. A string of double-crosses explodes. Can Lou bring down her father and his illicit crime machine? Is Jackie a serious love interest or a con artist?

LOVE LIES BLEEDING is a modern-day, highly immoral, sleazy take on the film noir genre. It features a graphic lesbian relationship, numerous scenes of graphic violence, substance abuse, and abundant foul language. The movie has a twist-filled script, fast pacing and gritty performances, but it repulsed the vast majority of moviegoers at the box office.

(PaPaPa, HoHoHo, LLL, VVV, SSS, NN, AA, DD, MMM):

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:

Vicious, promiscuous, totally immoral movie filled with violence and sex, especially lesbian sex;

Foul Language:

At least 78 obscenities (including 65 “f” words), three strong profanities using Jesus Christ and a gross scene where a woman has to unclog a clogged toilet;

Violence:

Numerous people are shot in graphically bloody fashion with sickening wounds and shocking sound effects, woman shoots another woman in the head and causes blood to splatter all over the camera, woman beats a man to death, woman breaks that man’s jawbone wide open as she slams his head repeatedly into a table, abused wife is hospitalized by a particularly brutal yet offscreen beating that leaves her face severely bruised and swollen, another character tortures this woman by pressing hard against her facial injuries, woman shoots another man in a shootout then shoves the barrel of her gun into his mouth, takes the gun back out but smashes the gun into his face to kill him, and a woman is shown waking up from a seemingly fatal gunshot wound, but another woman chokes her to death and dumps her body in the desert;

Sex:

Graphic lesbian sex scenes, particularly showing oral sex, the sex is shown promiscuously on a one-night stand, and later another lesbian blackmails one of the lead lesbians into having relations with her (though this is only implied and discussed, not shown), movie opens with a man having forceful, adulterous sex with a woman from behind in the back of a car, and a lesbian sucks on her girlfriend’s toe;

Nudity:

Several lesbian sex scenes feature female breasts and buttocks but no genitals, another lesbian woman is shown standing with full rear nudity after an implied sex scene, and shirtless men are seen working out in several scenes;

Alcohol Use:

Adults frequently drink alcohol, with one scene showing a woman drunk;

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:

A woman smokes cigarettes frequently, a female bodybuilder severely abuses steroids throughout, leading to violent outbursts and her vomiting onstage in front of a crowd, and the steroid injections are shown in a sensuous fashion;

Miscellaneous Immorality:

Lying, double-crosses, deception rampant throughout, with a dehumanizing use of violence.

LOVE LIES BLEEDING is a modern-day, highly immoral, sleazy take on the film noir genre that centers on a graphic lesbian relationship, numerous scenes of graphic violence and an abundance of foul language. LOVE LIES BLEEDING has a twist-filled script, fast pacing and gritty performances, but should not be viewed by anyone.

The story centers upon a lesbian woman named Lou (Kristen Stewart), who is estranged from her vicious father Lou Sr. (Ed Harris) yet works managing a decrepit gym he owns in their desert town. Meanwhile, a female drifter named Jackie (Katy O’Brien) arrives in town and immediately engages in back-seat, adulterous sex with JJ (Dave Franco), who’s married to Lou’s sister Beth (Jena Malone).

The backseat liaison results in a job for Jackie at a gun range on the edge of town owned by Lou Jr. She’s just saving up money to finish a trip to Las Vegas for a women’s bodybuilding championship, and when she flexes her massive muscles, Lou is instantly attracted to her.

The two soon engage in a tawdry sexual relationship, but Lou’s happiness is abruptly halted when Beth winds up in a hospital after a vicious (offscreen) beating at the hands of JJ. Lou Sr. wants to keep it all in the family rather than report JJ to the police, which angers Lou greatly.

Jackie has been abusing steroids in order to build muscle for her upcoming competition, and flies into a murderous rage that results in her brutally killing JJ. When Lou and Jackie dump his body in an enormous pit in the desert outside of town, a string of double-crosses explodes as Lou Sr. is determined to find out who killed JJ and federal agents start asking Lou lots of questions about his potentially criminal enterprises.

Can Lou manage to bring her father and his illicit crime machine down? Is Jackie a serious love interest or a con artist using her for her own ends?

LOVE LIES BLEEDING has excellent performances from all of its cast, who bring a wide array of seedy characters to vivid life. Also, Director/Co-writer Rose Glass keeps the twists coming fast and furious throughout the movie’s bonkers second half.

Despite the technical skill with which it’s made, LOVE LIES BLEEDING is a movie that has literally no characters to support and no sense of legal justice – just brutal vigilante revenge meted out several times over. Even Lou becomes utterly reprehensible and heartless by the end, and the movie’s entire mood is demoralizing and dehumanizing.

Packed with graphic violence, sex and nudity and an abundance of foul language, LOVE LIES BLEEDING is utterly distasteful and a must to avoid for viewers of all ages.

Movie Reviews

Love Child (2024) Movie Review & Ending Explained: Can Love and Sacrifice Keep Ayla and Paolo’s Family Together?

Published

13 hours ago

January 6, 2025

Press Room

Love Child (2024) Movie Review & Ending Explained: Can Love and Sacrifice Keep Ayla and Paolo’s Family Together?

Rom Coms, the ones that match the endearing and intelligent with equal fluency, have a scintillating flavor. The book of tricks to make a romcom sing and soar may have admittedly gone jaded and dog-eared. The crises of couples, dilemmas, and anxieties they have to battle have undergone dramatic changes in a fast-evolving world. Expectations vary with the decades, even as gendered rules haven’t dented much.

The urge to steal a leaf or two from every standard template Hollywood romcom is immanent in any new derivation. It becomes a constant tussle, hence, for a new film in similar spaces to eke out freshness and smarts. Jonathan Jurilla’s directorial “Love Child” (2024) has little to add or say anything genuinely sparkling. It’s a weary distillation of parental exhaustion and re-alignment, too silly to pass off what it views as clever self-reflexive remarks.

There are basic cardinal rules a romcom must ensure is upheld. Conflicts should ideally resonate across a demographic; humor needs to exist in spades. A helping of self-awareness goes a long way in establishing a winking playfulness. The best rom-coms sail through these assumptions with lightness and spryness.

Love Child (2024) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:

Ayla and Paolo’s Journey of Love, Sacrifice, and Resilience

Ayla (Jane Oineza) and Paolo (RK Bagatsing) are young parents. Incidentally, the actors themselves are a couple in real life, who call the film a “free trial” to parenthood. Ayla and Paolo have been exultant about becoming parents but what awaits them is a whole lot of instability, fraught periods of testing faith in each other to weather the hardships of raising their child, Kali (John Tyrron Ramos) who is diagnosed with autism. It’s this diagnosis that opens the film and sends their lives into a tailspin. The two have fought with their families on several counts to realize their togetherness. Dreams have also been put on hold. Paolo is a filmmaker who desires to make it big but naturally meets resistance from his father, from whom he has cut loose.

They arrive in the Philippines to put up at the house that Ayla’s aunt has offered. They don’t have to worry about rent, an exponential anxiety hence taken care of. The first thing they get done is to enroll Kali at a school for children with support needs. They hope he can be addressed with due attention and be given proper time, nourished in a safe, loving, and understanding community.

How Far Will Ayla and Paolo Go to Secure a Future for Their Son?

Of course, things don’t go as smoothly. The money to raise the child is immense, formidable, and persistent. It’s no small task. To exacerbate matters, the couple has no savings to lean on. Ayla has just a small income from a virtual assistant job and Paolo has barely any gigs to draw a livelihood from in the Philippines.

At home back in Australia, opportunities were, at least, higher. Sources of supporting themselves stand a chance. The couple start a coffee cart as an added source of income. Even that isn’t enough. Customers are few. To run the cart is its own demanding affair that strains their purses more than they expected it to.

One night, Kali falls terribly sick. His parents rush him to the hospital, where medical expenses surge. Where will the couple find the money to foot the bill? They are at wit’s end. Pao assures Ayla not to worry. He’ll dredge out a way. However, when he is away scavenging for a source, Ayla already turns to her mother who lends her the needed money. He is angry with her because Ayla’s mother has been refusing to recognize Kali as her grandson. She tells him, if they waited longer, they’d be staring at an added day of hospital expenses.

Love Child (2024) Movie Ending Explained:

Do Ayla and Paolo find a way of raising their child?

Ayla and Paolo are compelled to employ specialized teachers and attendants for Kali. The cost of living becomes exceedingly high. How can they afford it? Ultimately, they edge toward the pained but necessary realization that they have to live apart at least for a while. If that’s the only way they can build a decent future for Kali, they can’t ignore it. What’s significant and decisive is both Ayla and Paolo are wholly committed to being there for Kali, no matter what it takes, as well as underscoring the need to go out and chase their individual aspirations.

Yes, she must pursue her dream of being a lawyer. The climax is a wistful one, with Paolo leaving for Australia where he would brush aside his bruised ego and accept his father’s job offer. He takes the marks of his wife and child, remnants of them he’d carry with him as he moves into an uncertain, yet hope-tinged future in Australia. They part ways with a promise of return. They know he’ll be back when the time is right and resources have accrued enough to carve for them a comfortable life together.

Love Child (2024) Movie Review:

“Love Child” lacks a fundamental, driving vitality and energy. It is only inconsistently curious and sporadic in its plunges into human indecision and the fear of failure. What is that projection we induce when we feel we are turning into reflections of our parents, a reality most horrific and to skirt clear? To encounter such a realization is depressing and upsetting.

The central pair of the film have to negotiate and move past reservations and a bundle of fears popping up. They are opposed to seeking the help of their parents, who have never sided with them in big decisions, but they also understand the need for a bigger family their child ought to have. Having just his parents wouldn’t suffice for Kali to rely on. For his sake, the parents have to look past their grudges and learn to forgive and let go of ill will.